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(Continued)
V) HOW SOUND CHANGES HAVE COME ABOUT:
A) In search of sound change patterns:
For better understanding of sound change patterns, you should first distinguish the sound change variations between Sino-Vietnamese and Sinitic-Vietnamese and recognize that their patterns of sound changes are of different models even they were originated from the same Chinese words. The following examples of dissyllabic words, partially structured with either a Sinitic-Vietnamese or Sino-Vietnamese element or both of each type, demonstrate best those phonetic discrepancies. Note that Vietnamese usage of all these words might have changed a little, e.g. in reverse order or slightly having steered away from the original meaning, even though most of the time there are correspondences phonetically and semantically pointing directly to equivalents in Chinese, such as
In fact, sound changes from Chinese to Sinitic-Vietnamese are diachronic and manifold. It could have been some familar word we seem all to know too well, but actually not, such as
來 lái: lai (SV)
打 dă: đả (SV) [ M 打 dă, dá < MC tiɛŋ < OC * te:ŋ | According to Starostin : to hit, strike, beat (L.Han). Also read OC *tre:ŋʔ, MC t.a/.iŋ id. The strange -ŋ-less reading is first attested in Zhengyun (FQ 都瓦 = *ta/). Most Sino-external systems reflect the latter reading; note, however, Viet. đánh 'to beat, hit' which probably directly reflects MC tiɛŋ (although with an aberrant tone).]
Additionally, sound changes have occurred at different periods or evolved from different sources, and sometimes drastically changed beyond recognition due to its colloquial nature to adapt to local speech habit and other factors as in
however, most of the time they follow well-defined patterns and linguistic rules.
In contrast to those of Sinitic-Vietnamese, sound changes from Middle Chinese to Sino-Vietnamese are diachronic and scholarly in nature, evolved from the official language spoken at the old-timed royal court and among literati. These sound change patterns are easy to categorize because they strictly follow a systematic phonological rule known as fănqiè 反切 or phonological spelling. It is from this old phonological spelling system that all the available Chinese characters can be pronounced in Sino-Vietnamese sounds. Of course, there are always exceptions reflecting different historical periods, for example,
and there are some irregularities which have some amusing appearance, such as
I will examine in detail the example of côngcuộc, 'task' [ M 工作 gōngzuò (SV côngtác) | MC /koŋʷtzok/ | M 作 zuō, zuó, zuò < MC tzwʌk | for tz- cf. Cant /tzwʌk/ | Starostin: MC cʌk < OC *ɕa:k | FQ 則落 ] as I will do with other cases throughout this paper, because it involves the process of sound change and one common aspect of word formation in Vietnamese with Chinese material.
Be reminded that the denotation of sandhi process of assimilation used in this paper is to mean a linguistic rule of sound changes by assimilating the involved sound with those that are within the realm of either meanings, sounds, or both of those words that carry some similar contours, phonologically and semantically. As in the case of côngcuộc, the influence of the preceding velar ending [-ŋʷ-] causes the initial of the next syllable [tz-] change to [kw-] in dissyllabic formation. The process is further continued by Vietnamese speakers by associating the morpheme [kwok] with an homonym cuộc (< SV cục) which has a close meaning as that in the compound côngcuộc, hence [koŋʷtzok] > [koŋʷkwok]. It is no doubt that many non-specialists of Sino-Vietnamese will be tempted to assign to cuộc a Chinese cognate jú 局 right away. Also, it’s worthy to note that in Vietnamese, except for the Chinese original meaning of 'cuộc' as in (SV) thếcuộc 世局 shìjú (> cuộcđời) ‘life’, this compound usually is used only in the context côngcuộc xâydựng 建設工作 jiànshè gōngzuò ‘the task of building’ or côngcuộc tranhđấu 鬥爭工作 dòuzhēng gōngzuò ‘the fighting task’ with the same meaning as côngtác (SV) while 工作 gōngzuò in modern Mandarin can also mean ‘job’, for which the Vietnamese việclàm (a localized alternation 幹活 gànhuó: làmviệc 'to work') is the equivalent in bothe etymology and meaning. For that reason, we can assume that the formation of the word côngcuộc is a local development in Vietnamese originated from 工作 gōngzuò. Of course, we can not exclude the possibility that 工作 gōngzuò can be the compound derivation of gōng 公 + jú 局 (a derived doublet of 作) if we apply the sandi rule to the formation of this Chinese compound even though this compound word seems not to exist in the Chinese vocabulary as known to the author. And if that is the case, then the scenario [koŋʷtzok] > côngcuộc is no longer a local development in Vietnamese but a variation of the same Chinese cognate.
In other cases, sometimes there arises confusion in etymological roots due to contamination from similar Sino-Vietnamese sounds or semantical mask with extended usages, such as
The foundation for the revised reconstruction as such is partially based on certain peculiar vocalism and articulation of Vietnamese initials and finals that fit into ancient Chinese phonological and rhyme schemes deduced from Old Chinese linguistic materials as well as recent discoveries and reconstruction of Proto-Chinese and Old Chinese by many renown linguists of our time.
For example, one of the most striking peculiar labiovelar vocalism in modern Vietnamese with those of finals -c, -ng which are preceded by a rounded vowel such as ɔ-, o-, u- or a medial -w-) in Vietnamese orthography, i.e. [-uwk, -uwŋ, -owk, -owŋ] (characterized by the liabialization of the same ending consonants) appears to resemble so closely with those Old Chinese finals ending with labiovelars *-kw[kʷ], *-gw[gʷ], and labiovelar nasal *-ngw[-ŋʷ] (Li, along with some other linguists such as Pulleyblank, independently reached the same conclusion.) For illustration, the examples of 風 fēng and 心 xīn are sufficed:
In Shijing 詩經 (“The Book of Odes”) 風 usually rhymes with 心, 林, etc., all fitting into 侵 MC tshjəm rhyme group and 東 MC djung [ < OC **djəŋʷ] (cf. SV lòng [lɔŋʷ]) (1), division III (having -j- medial). Yu Nai-yong (1985. pp. xiii, 277-79, 286) grouped it with the same classification but in class Chinese (ending with -m). It is interesting to see that words ending with -ŋʷ in this class in Vietnamese happen to be articulated with all initial consonants, so it is not hard to connect that with lòng [lɔŋʷ]. His reconstruction of Proto-Chinese and Old Chinese 風 as **pljom > *pljəm and 嵐 as **plom > *bləm is based on xiéshēng 諧聲 which shows two different initials in Middle Chinese as [piuŋ] and [lam] respectively, all from
Some other linguists have similar reconstructions with only minor differences. For example, Bodman (1980 p. 121) came up with PC **pyəm, OC *pjəm and MC pjuŋ for 風 and commented on the opinion about the inter-rhyming of the *-əm, *əng and *-ung finals in OC as being divided between those favor *-m in the -uŋ endings, that the *-uŋ was perhaps a dialect reflex of -əm. Schuessler (1987. p.385) modified Li’s Old Chinese of 林 as gljəm. Forrest (1958 p.114) observed that in the archaic period Chinese still tolerated consecutive labials, i.e. the initial P- and the ending -M (capital letters signify arbitrary consonants of similar class of articulation), and he concluded that the OC 風 ending must have been the same as that of 心, that obviously appears to us as -m.
From the above view we can safely speculate that during the sound change transition from OC *-jəm to MC -jung, it must have gone the through the process of labialization of the OC final to become -juŋʷ . It is interestingly enough that this phonemic feature still shows in the Vietnamese language. Pulleyblank (1984) shared the same view when representing final -uŋ as -əŋʷ and he hypothesizes that the OC final must have been pronounced as that of Vietnamese ông [oŋʷ] and ong [əŋʷ], of which the final labiovelar is realized with double, labial and velar, articulation.” (p.123?) On the other hand, for the Middle Chinese period, Forrest noted that -ung remained unchanged everywhere unless the preceding consonant is a labial P- in which case it is dissimilated to -ə- as 風 pronounced fēng in Mand. (p. 182.) The implication we can draw from Pulleyblank’s and Forrest’s views is that Vietnamese giông might have occurred during the transitional period of Ancient Chinese (also known as Early Middle Chinese or EMC) where p- was palatalized and dropped from pjuŋʷ to become a glide j-, that eventually gave rise to juŋʷ > joŋʷ > jɔ as it appears in the last two forms in modern Vietnamese. Of course, this process of sound change went differently from the one that gave rise to Sino-Vietnamese phong. It was the same as in the case of 凡 fán to go one step further to become những and it is not hard to see that the initial of /juŋʷ/ was nasalized to …/juŋʷ/ , then the rounded vocalism was unrounded to become …j‚ ng. This hypothesis is very likely because the Vietnamese language has its tendency of resistance for p- and substitute it with b-, ph-, h-, j-, nh- …- or to have this initial palatalized to t-, s- and the like, and, sometimes, even with the rounded labiovelars dropped to become -w or -o. This commonly happened not only with Vietnamese words of Chinese origin but within the Chinese dialects themselves as well. Based on this deduction, we can assume with certainty that Proto-Vietnamese (PV) and Old Vietnamese of giông might possibly have had similar sounds as those of · in Proto-Chinese and Old Chinese. In the meanwhile gió might have been a local innovation or merely an alternation of the former by changing the labiovelar to -ɔ. An interesting thing is that in the form of Sino-Vietnamese phong [pfɔŋʷ], of which the initial is an alternation of b- and both labials remained in the same word. Consecutive labial occurrence is regarded as a distinct feature of Old Chinese while Sinitic-Vietnamese giông reflects an old Chinese linguistic feature of an ancient period that the Chinese language had developed “its distaste for consecutive labials” as Forrest put it and modern Sinitic-Vietnamese also still keeps this linguistic feature.
The undeniable correlation of Vietnamese and Chinese in the case of the ending -juŋʷ, to be expanded to many other cases, demonstrates the kinship of both languages from which we can actually draw a parallel line for the historical development of both Vietnamese and Chinese. From this hypothesis we can actually reconstruct many Old Chinese initials and finals and build an analogy of the Chinese-Vietnamese sound change patterns which can eventually be used to find more Vietnamese etyma of Chinese origin.
B) An analogy of Vietnamese etymology:
As we shall see, beside the similarities of basic words, Chinese throughout its history of development has continuously influenced the formation of the Vietnamese language continuously for over hundreds of years and left its traces clearly in all contemporary Vietnamese linguistic aspects. One way to identify those Chinese traces in Vietnamese etymology is to utilize an analogical method. It is a methodology that analogy can be used as a tool in historical linguistics of which linguistic forms have been standardized, categorized, and tabulated. Among them are development or production of patterns that resemble those already predominating in a language. In this section and the next we will examine some patterns of sound changes that make many of the exemplified words listed throughout this writing candidate cognates with those associated Chinese words.
Corollary approach in this research is an etymological analogical method to establish linguistic attributes for candidate lexicons by making use of properties found to be similar based on their lexical peculiarities and characteristics, that is, the very same nature that has already occurred and existed in those words. Let's use this corollary approach to examine some common words of which the authenticity is somewhat controversal. The important thing is you can see how I have gone about with this approach to rationalize my hypotheses.
Please note that this is only an attempt to find the Vietnamese etymology of Chinese origin by utilizing one among many techniques and methods available to date at our disposal. In any cases for those words that are not likely plausible cognates it does not mean that others are also falling under the same blanket -- each should have each own merit as in the field of Sintic-Vietnamese studies sound changes do not always follow strict rules that those of scholarly Sino-Vietnamese have.
Phonologically, we have
răng 牙 (tooth): nha (SV), yá (Mand.), ngah (Cant.), gheh (Hai.) [ M 牙 yá < MC ŋya <
OC *ŋrya:| MC reading 假開二平麻疑 || ¶ y- ~ r- | According to Tsu-lin Mei :
牙 yá ~ "ngà" and it is of Austroasiatic origin (See The case of "ngà") ]
and the patterns:
1. { y - ~ ng-, r- }:
硬 yìng: dai ~ rắn, 阮 ruăn (nguyễn) ~ 元 yuán; 悒悒 yìyì: rayrứt; 耀 yáo: rọi; 隐 yǐn (riêng) as in 隐私 yǐnsī: riêngtư; 夭夭 yāoyāo: rậmrạp; 蝇 yíng: ruồi (nhặng), 芽 yá: măng, 崖 yá: rặng(núi), 曰 yuè: rằng; 焱 yàn: nóng [ ~ modern Mand. rè 熱 ~> 'rát' ].
Also, note that the Vietnamese southern Rạchgiá dialect always subtitutes r- with g-, e.g. găng for răng.
2. { a (e) ~ -an,-ang } :
打 dă: đánh (=> "quánh" /wajŋ/), 嗎 mà: mắng, 得 dé: đặng (< được, /daek/ Hainanese), 月 yuè: nguyệt, giăng; 曰 yuè: rằng; 俄 é Nga (Russia); 鵝 é: (SV nga) ngan, ngỗng; 蛇 shě: rắn (SV: sà); 炸 zhà: rán; 耀 (曜) yáo: rọi...
From 牙 yá, the Chinese compounds have also given rise to some dissyllabic words:
吃 chì: ăn SV ngật, cf. 乙 "ất", 咽 yàn: nuốt, 粉 fén: bột, 分 fēn: phút, 淡 dàn: nhạt, lạt; yùn 晕: ngất, mài 麦: mạch, mài 脉: mạch, mù 目: mắt, mò 默: mặc, máng 忙: mắc(~bận) (cf. wáng 亡: mất), mì 密: mật; mù 木: mộc, mò 没: một...
and compound dissyllabic words:
From this pattern, we can safely establish a miàn ~ mặt correspondence.
For cá, it corresponds to OC *ŋha. The etymology: 鱼 cá ‘fish’ yú <*nga [ *ng- > VS k-; **ŋ- > MC ŋjw- > SV ngư ]. The pattern ng- ~ k- is very common in linguistic sound changes, which can also occur via intermodals g-, gh-, kh- etc., such as kê > jī 鷄 > gà.
Also, from "cá" we have other dissyllabic equivalents:
The pattern { g- ~ d- } is rare in Chinese ~ Vietnamese correspondences, but for a historical linguist, it is not hard to see why "gạo" could be avariant of 稻 đạo (SV), dào (Mand.), or even "lúa". However, it is likely that this is a loanword in Chinese which had come from the south where rice planting was originated, which is listed by Maspero (1952) as Vietnamese and Thai cognates. The point to make here is that they were all evolved from the same root varying in sounds and conveying slightly the same connotation in different forms.
The sound change can fit into the following patterns:
{ t- ~ đ- }
tù 宊: đột; tú 圖: tù: dú: độc; dù:đốc; hù: hốt; bù: bất; bì 畢: tốt, bì 必: tất; gǔ 骨: cốt ;tủ 櫝 dú; đọc 讀 dú; táng 唐: đường; tán 談: đàm; tán 壇: đàn; tuǐ 腿: đùi; tòng 痛: đau; tóu 頭: đầu; tǎ 踏: đạp; tú 圖: đồ; tiáo 條: điều, diăn 點: điểm; shāo (thiêu): đốt 燒...
Note: in Chinese 地 dì (SV địa) 'earth', a later development, is a doublet of 土 tǔ, which can be used to further strengthen the case tǔ = đất, for example, for the combination of both tǔdì
For shāo 燒 (SV thiêu) ~ đốt (to burn) [ M 燒 shāo, shào < MC ʂew < OC *snɛw | According to Starostin : to burn, incinerate (L.Zhou). Also read *sŋew-s, MC ʂe\w, Mand. shào 'to burn (grass for fertilizing land)'. | ¶ sh- ~ đ- ] it is not hard to see that sh- or th- (or s- for that matter) can give rise to đ- if we take into consideration the case of an alternation of 燒 shāo, that is
In addition to those words that follow the pattern { th- ~ đ- } to connect tǔ with "đất" as given in the examples above, "thiêu" ~ "đốt", where sh- usually gave rise to th-, could be originally evolved from an archaic đ- [ the Nôm word "đốt" must be an older form of "thiêu" since this th- sound did exist in archaic and ancient Chinese while /d-/ still exists in some Chinese dialects such as Hananese or Amoy. "Thiêu", a Sino-Vietnamese or HánViệt word, is a variation of Middle Chinese ], we can also find other examples in the pattern { sh- ~ đ- } in place of { th- ~ đ- } :
{ sh- ~ đ- }
In the dialects of Fuzhou (Fukienese) it is represented with 囝 kiaŋ (M jiăn), in Xiamen (Amoy) [kẽ] and Hananese [ke], a close sound with Vietnamese con, which could have been originated from Ausroasiatic kiã ‘son, child’, which might be a cognate with 子 zǐ | cf. 海子 háizǐ: #concái ].
In fact, with the exception of intimate relationship among many Chinese dialects themselves for historical reasons, remarkable linguistic closeness of Vietnamese with Chinese dialects is worth investigating their possible kinship rather than merely a loan relationship. Their resemblance in basic words such as yú 魚 cá ‘fish’, 葉 lá ‘leaf’ yè , miàn 面 mặt, yǐn 飲uống ‘drink’ is far more closely than even those of Mon-Khmer (MK) or Sino-Tibetan have among themselves.
Unfortunately, we cannot find all the Vietnamese words of Chinese origin by applying all the approaches and principles that we have discussed so far. Many words in Vietnamese, except for those appear clearly loanwords such as "cápduồn" from an identifiable source like the Khmer language, are questionable regarding their roots, which, sometimes look like Chinese, for instance:
In any cases, we can provide a long list of Vietnamese words of questionable or unidentified origin:
3) Questionable words of Chinese origin:
Besides, we also have a long list of words that are suggestive of Chinese origin, but many of them are closely related with those of either the Mon-Khmer languages or unknown sources, which make them dubious as Chinese cognates, for instance:
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(1) a) rừng, rậm 林 lín
‘forest’ (SV lâm) [ M 林 lín < MC lim < OC *rjəm < PC **rjəɱ ~ OC *srjəm
(~ 森 (sâm) rậm) | Tibetan languages: Burmese: rum 'rậm', Kachin: diŋgram2
'rừng', Lushei: ram 'rừng' | Cant. /lʌm/ | ¶ l- ~ r-, ex. 龍 lóng (long) rồng ],
b) lấn 侵 qīn (xâm) [ M 侵 qīn < MCchjim < OC *shim | ¶ q- ~ l- ],
c) 東 dōng 'the east' (SV đông) [ Starostin: 東 dōng < MC tuŋ < OC *toŋ | FQ 德紅 ]
ā ē ě ī ǐ ă ō ǒ ū ǔ ǖ ǘ ǚ ǜ ü