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What Makes Vietnamese So Chinese?
An Introduction to Sinitic-Vietnamese Studies

DRAFT
Table of Contents

dchph

(Continued)

VII) A SYPNOPSIS OF PHONOLOGICAL SOUND CHANGES FROM CHINESE TO VIETNAMESE:

Based on the new methods of exploring plausible cognates as presented in the foregoing sections, here we will attempt to recap some common sound change patterns as have been discussed throughout.

In short, phonological sound changes from C to V have frequently occurred to any sounds, or a combination of them, among the initial, medial, final, and ending of a word. The process could have happened over time one at a time and eventually led to a phonetic shift for a whole phonological system. In polysyllabic words, sound changes of a syllabic ending would have occurred without phonetic-lexical restraint of the original syllabic-word. Also, as the same patterns of sound changes could happen internally inside a language, which likely occurs due to the local speech habit, for instance, l- ~ r-, n- ~ l-, tr- ~ ch-, -n ~ -ng, -t ~ -k, etc., we can certainly base on those similar internal correspondences in pattern to apply to both C and V inclusively to explore further what could have taken place reciprocally when they were in contact with each other, for example, /*krong/ (Proto-VM) 'sông' ~ jiāng 江 (river) ~ MC /kong/ ~ SV giang [ ¶ kr- ~ s-, kr- ~ gi-, gi- ~ j-, j- ~ gi-, gi- ~ s-, j- ~ s-] ; /*kro/ (Proto-VM) 'chó' ~ gǒu 狗 (dog) ~ MC /kjəw/ ~ SV 'cẩu' ~ VS 'cầy' [ ¶ kr- ~ - ch-, kr- ~ k-, k- ~ ch-]. Please note that the patterns of sound changes listed below are just some illustrated samples and they are, as we could tell, inexhaustive, literally, once you name it, we have it, for example, these patters are not included in the following list, since they are relatively obvious, e.g. x- ~ h-, zh- ~ gi, j- ~ k-, g-, q- ~ nh-, sh- ~ nh-, etc. As always, I'll try ti include an English meaning for each illustrated lexicon to help those who are not familiar with V and, concurrently, show how intimately close are between the V and C (for their etymology, refer to previous sections for those glosses that are already cited or try http://vnyk.com/hannom/.)

A) Sound changes in the neighboring pronouncing positions:

B) Pattern { ¶ l- & S-} (same class as s, c, x, ch, sh, j, z, zh, q)

C) Pattern S (same class as c, x, q, ch, sh, j, z, zh..) { ¶ S-~ r- }

D) Pattern S (same class as c, x, q, ch, sh, j, z, zh..) { ¶ S- ~ T- } (same as d, th, tr, )

E) Pattern { ¶ l- ~ r-}

F) Pattern { ¶ p- (b-) ~ t- (d-) }

G) Pattern { ¶ y- ~ b- }

In reality, besides those common sound changes, we can say that any sound can change to any sound, a product of multiple sound changes coloquially over time, that is, one leading to another like slow chained reactions, partly triggered by phonetic shifts. However, in many cases, we can still recognize the originally underlined form:

H) There are also cases that sound changes might have occurred beyond recognition. However, their etymology is still traceable based on the pronunciation rules, which is known as fănqiè 反切, in MC to spell out for SV words:

Yet for a great number of SV words that might have changed this way, we are left with virtually no means but analogy to attest their original authentic forms:

I) Sino-Vietnamese sound loans -- sandhi process of association:

In V, there are a lot of SV words that sound like SV, but actually they could be doublets or come from different sources:

J) Homonymns and synonymns:

Many words can be read the same in C but with different meanings. Similarly, there were also dialectal pronunciations for the same characters variations which had given rise to different usages, especially after they entered the Vietnamese vocabulary. Therefore, it is not surprising to see that with the same word, the V language may also have differentiated that very character with different sounds either by means of association with other words or internal localization :

K) Similarities with modern Mandarin:

The case of "mai" (~ 'mainày' 明兒 mínr) has roots in modern Mandarin, departure from the common ideas that we could only search for V words of C origin from only PC, OC, AC and MC, and, for that matter, the SV. The influence of Mandarin as both court language and langa franca also has influenced the V language deeply in both official and learned cirles until the present time with the V Northern dialect leading the way in new usage of C elements, for instance:

in addition to what has already been integral parts of the modern V language:

L) Localization and innovation or "Vietnamized" ('Nômhoá' or 'Việthoá'):

(1) Reverse of word order (#, "iro", "metathesis"): We can often find correspondences in both C and SV words, but they are in reverse order of each other: bảođảm = 擔保 dànbăo (đảmbảo), ânái = 愛恩 àiēn (áiân), đơngiản = 簡單 jiăndàn (giảnđơn), sảnxuất = 出產 chùchăn (xuấtsản)...

Similarly, for those VS words the order seems to be always in reverse in comparison with those of modern Mandarin equivalents:

As we all may know, this is a result of re-arrangement of syntactical order in the V language where a modifier mostly is put after the modified. This phenomenon demonstrates clearly in synonymous dissyllabic words in which two syllables were originated from either two different C characters or just one which may still convey the same original meaning if it still retains an older form and its sound has not been altered by mean of reduplicative process, for example:

(2) Local innovations: Other common linguistic phenomena such as combining ancient roots with modern words, applying concepts of certain words to other words, or adding new elements and local innovations, etc. as have happened in other languages and taken place in V as well:

(3) Integration and combination -- Combinations of ancient words with modern words or with both VS and SV words:

(4) Permanent word formation made up with associated classifiers:

(5) Assimilation -- Word formation evolved from the sandhi process of association:

(6) Analogical word formation -- If a V word is derived from a word of C origin, chances are that an antonymn of that is also from the same source, of which both word-syllables make up a dissyllabic word:

(7) Sound omission or contraction -- It is not unusual to see that many monosyllabic words in V correspond to only those polysyllabic equivalents in C. That is the result of sound ommission, contraction, or drop. This sound change phenomenon can be the product of localization, simplification, contamination, or retention of old pronunciation or meanings. However, that is not always the case. Again, as in many examples (marked with *) below, many of the loanwords were originally monosyllabic, then later they evolved into dissyllabics to avoid being homonymous as monosyllabic morpherme-character-word is basic stem as compound word builder. It characterizes itself as an independent entity by either retaining the original form or adjusting the polysyllabic development to the minimum and not distorting the signified connotation in spite of changes in the original borrowing language. Here are some examples:

In many cases, when sound omission occurred to the same dissyllabic word in both languages, the C language took on the original monosyllabic one, i.e., the one that had existed prior to the development of an equivalent dissyllabic word, while Vietnamese might take on a later developed sound and adopted it as the main word and, in some other cases, it was assimilated with another word either one was retained, for instance,

(8) Influence from other Chinese dialects -- C characters are pronounced differently in different dialects and oftentimes they even have different pronunciations in just one dialect ('sub-dialect') just as it does in V. Moreover, a C character many a time appears to have several differentiated sounds in V just because they had been pronounced according to different C dialects which were synchronously brought into the V language in different periods of time in the past.

In fact, we can find all characteristics of each C dialect, including Mandarin, in V beside the overall features such as morphology, phonology or idiomatic expressions, which they all have in common. For example, the V second tone at the lower register “õ” is somewhat similar to nasalized final vowels in Fukienese or Chaozhou, i.e., ẽ, ã... and those of Beijing dialect suffix -er 兒, e.g.

or tonal system in the Hunan dialect, as accented in Mao Zhedong's Mandarin, remind us that of Huế dialect of V, etc.

In any cases the fact that Mandarin sound is selected to represent modern C is only a matter of convenience and oftentimes it is useful to make comparative analysis to see how sound changes from the same source turn out to be in two different languages, i.e., M and V. That does not always mean that V words directly originated only from those of M because they might have originated also from other C dialects. However, there is strong evidence that modern V appears to have some similarities with M, at least some vernacular version of it (cf. M as being spoken in the Southwest regions of China as in Yunnan, Sichuan, Guangxi, etc.). For instance,

all appears as they have been just "twisted sound" of the original M pronunciations.

Also, it is interesting to see that some other sounds of other C dialects resemble much more pronunciations of certain V words of C origin or of the same roots with those of C. For example, in M ‘mango’ is called

These examples manifest the lowest linguistic stratum of V in which words of the same root shared by the Yue tribes, aka the so-called 'Austroasiatic' in moder terminology, are still in use by their descendants at present day while other words might have been variants of either direct influence from one isogloss to the other or they are merely a uniform result of sound changes.

Other cognates can also be found in daily common words such as

Some linguists will argue that words like those have cultural influence from China and cannot be used to establish a genetic kinship with C, that is, only common basic words count. Many linguists, after eliminating obvious C loanwords and other areas like grammar and phonology, work only with the residue of what is left over, called ‘fundamental or basic words’. Many of these leftover words are thought as non-Han (non-Chinese) origin, but they never know that most of them really are.

Examples like these are numerous. They are worth discussing much more than just listing simple corresponding phonetic patterns, especially the sound change rules from OC to modern C and V.

Nevertheless, the point to be made here is that sound changes are multifaceted in both time and space and one C word could evolve synchronously into different V words at different periods as already noticed and noted Haudricourt (1961) that C words of Classical Chinese are pronounced differently from words of the vernacular language which were from an older form of C. We have already showed and proved that point from what we have observed from the sound change patterns as selectively illustrated above. It is no doubt that, from a relatively complete reliably verifiable list with solid gramatically phonological rules we can eventually finalize a Han-Viet etymology dictionary.

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VIII) CONCLUSION:

So far as it is concerned, in the field of VS studies V words of C origin have not been fully explored as they deserve. Though some VS aspects have been addressed under different subject matters, most specialists of V have examined the V etymology of C origin to date by comparing only monosyllabic words with individual equivalents of C characters. Their common approach is to treat VS words only within the framework of the phonological systems of SV as compared to MC while AC, OC, and modern C dialects have been neglected for the most parts even though they have given rise to numerous modern V words.

Additionally if there is any meaningful work having been done in the VS fields, it has been plagued with a misconception about the true nature of both C and V as those of monosyllabics where the monosyllabic V words of C origin have been investigated only on one-to-one basis monosyllabically. To make the matter worse the misconception of V and C monosyllabics is still widely accepted. V or C is often cited as examples of monosyllabic languages. Unfortunately, such short-sightedness is par for the course these days. This defficient approach has certainly hindered further development of break-through nature in the V etymological study, that is, no new discovery of V words of C origin has been made. Therefore, the subject of dissyllabics has been discussed in length with different perspectives and how to derive etymologically a great number of V words from dissyllabic variations of C origin as a result.

The new dissyllabic and analogical approaches discussed in this research would certainly help linguists of V discover more V words of C origin, which, in turn, will clarify some other etymological issues revolving around basic word stratum since that can be also examined with the same methodologies. With this new way of exploring the field of VS studies, once we have come up solid cases as proofs of C origin of a majority of V words and, for those glosses that are not, of any other origin, for the same matter, lexicologists of V will be able to compile a modern V dictionary completed with lexical etymology for the first time in history. Finally, we may be able to contemplate the ideas of reclassifying V as a member of the Sino-Tibetan linguistic family once again.

[To be continued -- this research is still in the process of extensive editing.]

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