Vietnamese Dialects

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Vietnamese Dialects
By James Campbell
Updated October 21, 2004

I originally included Vietnamese in this study/website because of the fact its phonological makeup is very similar to Chinese and, indeed, its tonal system matches the Chinese one. Originally I wrote at this site: "Vietnamese is neither a Chinese language nor related to Chinese (It is an Austroasiatic > Mon-Khmer language more closely related to Khmer/Cambodian). Besides having a very similar phonological system, and due to the heavy Chinese influence on the language, it also has a tone system that matches the Chinese one." However, after reading and conducting a bit more research, it appears that Vietnamese' affiliation with Việt-Mương, Mon-Khmer, and Austroasiatic, may in fact be a faulty case.

The inclusion of Vietnamese in this study is quite appropriate for a number of reasons. It may not be considered a Sinitic language or one of the Chinese dialects, but the Kinh have a lot in common with the Chinese culture, and the language leaves little to doubt. I will not go into great detail about how this is claimed, as a great deal has been posted at some other websites (see below) and that is not the purpose of this site. However, one can see that Vietnamese shares many traits in common with Chinese: 60-70% Sinitic vocabulary, another 20% of vocabulary is substrata of proto-Sinitic vocabulary, much of the grammar and grammatical markers share similarities with Chinese, along with classifiers. One would find it very difficult to draw similar parallels between Chinese and other Mon-Khmer languages. It seems that after considering all of this, what is left that is Mon-Khmer is actually very little, and probably acquired over time through contact with bordering nations. For example, the numbers are of distinct Mon-Khmer origin, however, used in many compound words, Vietnamese uses instead Chinese roots (as is common in the other Sino-Xenic languages, Japanese and Korean).

Other websites detailing Vietnamese etymologies and the close relation between Vietnamese and Chinese. It is recommended you are familiar with Vietnamese vocabulary, phonology, Chinese characters, Chinese phonology, in order to fully appreciate the value of these articles. I can only assume refusal to recognize the truth in these articles is simply ignorance towards the fields of comparative linguistics/phonology/lexicology/etc:
Introduction to Sinitic-Vietnamese Studies
Vietnamese2020 Writing Reform Proposal (I support this proposal for disyllabic writing)
Vietnamese2020 Writing Reform Proposal Appendix (for lists of words)

Below is an index to the information on Vietnamese dialects found at this site. Names are listed first in Traditional, then Simplified characters with Vietnamese standard Quốc Ngữ (國語) spelling. You will notice sometimes the Vietnamese doesn't correspond exactly with the Chinese, as Vietnamese word order (Noun+Adj) is different from Chinese, for example: here I use the Chinese 傣苗自治區 which is Khu tự trị Thái Mèo, but transliterating the Vietnamese verbatim back into Chinese, this would be 區自治傣苗. Most people can readily recognize that the Chinese and Vietnamese word order varies slightly, and hopefully this is not a hindrance for you. Links to information on this site available on a dialect are provided next to each entry. More data is being added on a weekly basis.

Việtnamese