| Wiktionary:Babel | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||||
| Search user languages or scripts | |||||||||
Subpages:
The modern Vietnamese written standard is a mixed bag of dialects, influenced by the dictionary published by Taberd (1838), probably based chiefly on the dialects of South Central-Southern Vietnam, with subsequent contributions of all kinds of dialects. Meanwhile, the dialects used in de Rhodes (1651) are evidently chiefly of Northern origin, although it is not rare for occasional Central and Southern forms to appear. Therefore, although a written Vietnamese word might be listed as derived from Middle Vietnamese, with the form as recorded by de Rhodes listed, there might not be any continuation between the two, as it might very well be a word of Central or Southern origin. For a case in point, modern written trống (“male”) is likely of North Central origin, while sống (‹ſóu᷄› in de Rhodes (1651)) is the Northern form.
Modern written usage of items such as trời, trăng, etc., might be contributed the influence of Taberd (1838) and the subsequent dictionaries influenced by it, with the Northern forms with ⟨gi-⟩ being wiped out to a large extent. There are a few cases of multiple forms coexist in the written standard, with differences in meaning: Northern giở and Central-Southern trở. On the other hand, as seen below, Sino-Vietnamese morphemes are absolutely dominated by the Northern forms.
Some forms, such as tháng (“month”) and khoai (“yam”), might also originate from a particular region (Northeast for tháng, North Central for khoai), but have become so widely adopted by the more mainstream dialects, that the original form in the mainstream dialects are now untraceable. See the case of Southern da (“banyan”): it was widely used 100 years ago, but now pretty much eradicated by đa; da vanished in the Northern dialects even earlier, before the bulk of literature written in the Latin script started to build up.
More superficial items like bánh bông lan and lí do lí trấu, both are now widespread, also show features that can be contributed a certain dialect zone(s) instead of general, common Vietnamese.
Still, while a "written standard" might exist in one form or another, Northern and Southern Vietnamese are relatively free to intentionally display dialectal features in writting, at least on the Internet, with speakers of Central dialects drawing the short end of the stick.
| Modern standard written Vietnamese | Region of origin | Other forms | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | giun (“worm”) | Northern Vietnam | Central-Southern trùn |
| 2. | rết (“centipede”) | Northern Vietnam | North Central tít, Southern rít |
| 3. | trống (“male of birds”) | North Central Vietnam | Northern sống |
| 4. | đa (“banyan”) | North Central Vietnam | Northern-Southern da |
| 5. | phết (“to coat, to spread”) | North Central Vietnam | Northern-Southern bết |
| 6. | Nôm (“South, vernacular”) | South Central Vietnam | Northern-North Central-Southern nam |
| 7. | trồng (“to plant”) | Southern Vietnam | Northern giồng, North Central lôông |
| 8. | trầu (“betel”) | Southern Vietnam | Northern giầu, North Central trù |
While the dialectal Sino-Vietnamese forms exclusive to Central dialects definitely exist (or sadly, existed), as the Central dialects were rarely written down in the Latin script during the colonial period, it's hard to extract the actual Central forms with absolute certainty unlike the Northern and Southern dialects that were both extensively down in their dialectal glory. Obviously, the Nôm and Chinese texts without contemporary annotations in Latin script are not very useful to determine the readings, since things are spelled with Sinitic characters, although needless to say, 生 would be read as sinh by a Northern writer and as sanh by a Southern writer.
By the way, the claims about variants due to "taboo avoidance" should be taken with a grain of salt: before the colonial period, the vast majority of Vietnamese literature by Vietnamese native speakers was written in Sinitic and Sinitic-derived characters, with a few exceptions. This means that to spin one of the two forms as being due to "taboo avoidance", one form must be taken as the base, and there is little to no basis to that aside from whatever form is more common after the colonial period, in nowadays Vietnamese. By the time works written in the Latin script started to build up, most of the variants are already quite established in both dialect zones. All of the forms below should be seen as equal, with neither derived from the other, unless there are very obvious reasons to think otherwise (e.g. yên and đơn are obviously more innovative than an and đan, since the later two are likely phonetically more similar to the likely donative Sinitic forms).
Keep in mind that even back then, when there was less dialect-leveling, distribution was not even and it is common for a text filled with Northern features to have some Southern forms popping up (and vice versa). I am not sure how aware writers were during the early days of the colonial period about the regional Sino-Vietnamese readings, although I think they would know at least that Sino-Vietnamese was not monolithic, which is how it's often treated these days although it was absolutely not.
Incomplete list:
| Grapheme | Northern SV reading | Southern SV reading | Note in regards to modern usage |
|---|---|---|---|
| 一 (MC 'jit) | nhất | nhứt | The Southern form is considered dated. |
| 人 (MC nyin) | nhân | nhơn | The Southern form is considered dated. |
| 生 (MC sraeng) | sinh | sanh | The Southern form is considered dated. |
| 性 (MC sjengH) | tính | tánh | The Southern form is used as a free morpheme. The Northern form is the main form in compounds. |
| 正 (MC tsyengH) | chính | chánh | Both the Northern and Southern forms are used in compounds. |
| 領 (MC ljengX) | lĩnh | lãnh | Both the Northern and Southern forms are used in compounds. |
| 好 (MC xawH) | háo | hiếu | Surprisingly, hiếu became the main reading of this graph in modern standard written Vietnamese. |
| 貴 (MC kjw+jH) | quý | quới | The Southern form is obsolete. |
| 進 (MC tsinH) | tiến | tấn | tấn is the expected reading of the MC form, cf. dân < 民 (MC mjin), tâm < 心 (MC sim). Compounds with tấn are now few in number, but some, most notably tấn công, became the dominant form. |
| 任 (MC nyimH) | nhiệm | nhậm | The Southern form is obsolete aside from nhậm chức. |
| 義 (MC ngjeH) | nghĩa | ngãi | The Southern form is obsolete. Also there's ngỡi (cf. Nguyễn Hữu Ngỡi). |
| 原 (MC ngjwon) 元 (MC ngjwon) |
nguyên | nguơn | The Southern form is obsolete. Cf. Vĩnh Nguơn |
| 本 (MC pwonX) | bản | bổn | Both the Northern and Southern forms are used in compounds. |
| 福 (MC pjuwk) | phúc | phước | The Southern form is used as a free morpheme. The Northern form is the main form in compounds. |
| 竹 (MC trjuwk) | trúc | trước | The Southern form is obsolete. |
| 鳳 (MC bjuwngH) | phụng | phượng | Both are still in common use. |
| 易 (MC yek) | dịch | diệc | The Southern form is obsolete. |
| 綱 (MC kang) | cương | cang | The Southern form is obsolete. |
| 迎 (MC ngjaeng) | nghênh | nghinh | Both are still in common use. |
| 病 (MC bjaengH) | bệnh | bịnh | The Southern form is considered dated. |
| 令 (MC ljengH) | lệnh | lịnh | The Southern form is considered dated. |
| 閱 (MC ywet) | duyệt | dượt | The Southern form is used as a free morpheme. The Northern form is the main form in compounds. |
| 命 (MC mjaengH) | mệnh | mạng | Both the Northern and Southern forms are used in compounds. Was the name of emperor 明命 Minh Mệnh or Minh Mạng? Answer: it's both, it is the former if you lived in Northern Vietnam and Thanh-Nghệ-Tĩnh during the 19th century, and the latter if you lived in Huế and southwards during the same period. |
| 時 (MC dzyi) | thời | thì | Both the Northern and Southern forms are used in compounds. |
| 和 (MC hwa) | hoà | huề | The Southern form is used as a free morpheme. The Northern form is the main form in compounds. |
| 百 (MC paek) | bách | bá | bá is from a codaless Sinitic form and likely coexisted with bách within the Southern dialects. |
| 安 (MC 'an) | yên | an | yên is probably a regional Northern innovation and likely coexisted with an within the Northern dialects. |
| 濁 (MC draewk) | trọc | trược | The Southern form is obsolete. |
| 黃 (MC hwang) | hoàng | huỳnh | The Southern form is obsolete aside from surname and lưu huỳnh. |
| 盛 (MC dzyengH) | thịnh | thạnh | The Southern form is obsolete aside from place names, Bình Thạnh, Tân Thạnh, Thạnh Phước, etc. |
| 漢 (MC xanH) | hán | hớn | The Southern form is obsolete. |
| 單 (MC tan) | đan | đơn | The Northern form is obsolete. |
| 吉 (MC kjit) | cát | kiết | The Southern form is obsolete. |
| 平 (MC bjaeng) | bằng | bình | Both forms are in common use. The expected Northern reflex would be *bềnh. |
| 月 (MC ngjwot) | nguyệt | ngoạt | The Southern form is obsolete. |
| 船 (MC zywen) | thuyền | thoàn | The Southern form is obsolete. |
| 全 (MC dzjwen) | toàn | tuyền | The Southern form is obsolete. Also some weird flip-flopping here. |
Although Vietnamese Wikipedia articles often list "synonyms", care ought be taken when create entries for those "synoyms" here on Wiktionary, because as weird as it is, many people apparently can't tell Chinese and Vietnamese apart. These "non-words" (they're not Vietnamese words with actual usage, but terms consisting of Sinitic morphemes read using Sino-Vietnamese) that have no business to even be listed on Vietnamese Wikipedia, are unfornunately quite common.