44 replies to this topic

[qrasy]

Note, though, that in some languages nasalization can distinguish meaning.

French and regular Minnan are examples.

What do you mean by this? I think d and gi has to be distinct at the moment instead of being artificial. There are some other Chinese sounds that are merged in (most if not all) Vietnamese but they were not assigned a separate letter from each other.
Pulleyblank proposed that the d was /dʲ/.

Ok, so I found Alexander de Rhodes' old dictionary of Annamese. It shows gi and d distinction, among with a few others that has been lost (e.g. the bl-tl-tr distinction, now all of them spelt as "tr").
It's called "Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum"

The singer also doesn't make ông ong ung sound like ôngm ongm ungm (as in some accent the "m" is very obvious to non-native speakers).

In that video the "ông" really have a strong impression of "m" especially to untrained ears.
So "chông" sound somewhere inbetween "cham" "chôm" "chaum".

In 1:10 I heard something like "măt đôu tăt" (with the "ôu" rhyme that sounds like Southern), though I can hardly tell without any lyrics.
In 0:43 I hear "w" so it's Southern influenced? And then, in 1:06 again the kh doesn't sound really like [x].

From what I know Central Vietnamese is more influenced by Cham

Not sure how Central has Cham words, but to what I know it has some more Mon-Khmer words, just like Muong.

Southern Vietnamese had its fair share of influence from Khmer Krom, Guangzhou Cantonese and Teochew.

Do you know which sounds are influenced by Khmer, Cantonese and Teochew?

But what are the influences on Northern Vietnamese that would make it different to Central or Southern speakers?

I guess the internal influences within themselves is one factor. The r-gi-d are not easily pronounceable sounds.

Edited by qrasy, 17 November 2009 - 10:21 PM.

[soniez]

Trust me, it's just how we speak to the camera and people from other regions but when we speak to each other, it'd be different. I wouldn't say we are ashamed of speaking those local words. It's just that we feel like you guys probably won't understand us, so we just speak the standard viet words.

You meant you spoke Danang dialect, not Danang accent.
Is Danang dialect much different from Hue dialect in term of vocabularies?

Well, but at least it has to be distinct from both gi and d when it was made. Indeed English [ɹ] is one alternative, but then the "strong g" will be strange.
"r to g" can be explained if the "r" is at the Latin standard.
For example, (like English) will have difficulty going backward.
The change r -> ʀ -> ʁ change is actually found in French. One more small change of ʁ->ɣ then it will be complete.
Pulleyblank mentioned that some Northern Malay have changed r ([r] in traditional reading) to [ɣ].

Yes R is distinguishable from D/Gi. Only some groups of Northern Vietnamese merge R to D/Gi
When you say Latin standard do you mean something similar to the Spanish RR?

Though actually [r] is not pronounced with a backward roll like tr or s.

"backward roll"? I'm not savvy in analysis of tongue movement so I don't get what you're saying here.
But S and Tr are indeed easier to pronounce than R

What do you mean by this? I think d and gi has to be distinct at the moment instead of being artificial. There are some other Chinese sounds that are merged in (most if not all) Vietnamese but they were not assigned a separate letter from each other.

I meant by the time official Quoc Ngu spelling system was made universial, the difference between Sino-Vietnamese D (duyên, dinh, diệu...) and native Vietnamese d (dao, dâu, dành) was phased out.
D in Sino-Viet words and D in native Viet words could have different origins but there was a convergent evolution between the two.
A similar case would be Tr in Sino-Viet trang, trinh, trân and native Viet trống, tre, trên.

Pulleyblank proposed that the d was /dʲ/.

could be

Well, I think native English speakers can distinguish them.
Actually some places in North-Central Vietnamese also have the gi-d distinction. Though maybe it's not a well-known accent.
If I recall correctly it's "Thanh Chuong".

Thanh Chuong?

Indeed irregular changes often cause problems in identifying which one should be etymological. If there's no relative with that word, then maybe it's impossible to judge.
One thing is, gi was closely related to "ch". The words "paper" and Sino-Viet 者 (originally with a consonant of 章) shows it.
And those that are not closely related to ch will surface as d (instead of gi), as in 民彌 (even though originally it was from m-).

There's tree used to make paper that is called "dó" in Vietnamese. Chinese has 楮 "paper tree". Sino Viet: chữ and đổ. Old Chinese reconstruction is thraʔ and *tāʔ.

I only knew that it happened in Hanoi, not sure about others. I can even find a video where kh is not pronounced as [x]. There are only very few instances of kh, though: 1:37, 2:36, 2:51, 3:15
Not sure if native Vietnamese can tell, but I can tell that in the last 3 it's more like [kxʰ] than [x]; the 2 are distinguished in some Mandarin. (first kh in that video doesn't sound clear enough, /ʰx/ to me).
The 2:51, the [x] is a bit weak it sound like /kʰ/ (though careful listening will still find some x in it).
The singer also doesn't make ông ong ung sound like ôngm ongm ungm (as in some accent the "m" is very obvious to non-native speakers).

There's only one kind of kh in Vietnamese. Though it's much more aspirated than English k.

I guess to other Asians, the biggest differences among the Viet (apart from the initial consonants) is the tone, so they may not tell much when the accents are sang.

I guess vowels and endings are less noticeable

Edited by soniez, 17 November 2009 - 10:51 PM.

[soniez]

Ok, so I found Alexander de Rhodes' old dictionary of Annamese. It shows gi and d distinction, among with a few others that has been lost (e.g. the bl-tl-tr distinction, now all of them spelt as "tr").
It's called "Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum"

Was d used in any Sino-Viet words?

In that video the "ông" really have a strong impression of "m" especially to untrained ears.
So "chông" sound somewhere inbetween "cham" "chôm" "chaum".

ông/ung is indeed pronounced like ongm/ungm in some parts of Vietnam. I actually do this sometimes too and non-Viet people think I say um and om.

In 1:10 I heard something like "măt đôu tăt" (with the "ôu" rhyme that sounds like Southern), though I can hardly tell without any lyrics.

It's "nhắm mắt đôi ta cùng ước" (closing the eyes, two of us wish together)

In 0:43 I hear "w" so it's Southern influenced? And then, in 1:06 again the kh doesn't sound really like [x].

I re-listened several times, there's no sound similar to w at that part. She's singing "ta nắm tay nhau nguyện cầu cùng chong chóng"


The singers are Southern Vietnamese but they sing the song in Northern Vietnamese. There's no r, w, y sound but vowels can be pronounced like Southern Vietnamese sometimes.

[qrasy]

It's called "Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum"

Wikipedia has a link to it.

When you say Latin standard do you mean something similar to the Spanish RR?

Yes.

"backward roll"? I'm not savvy in analysis of tongue movement so I don't get what you're saying here.

Not sure if you notice that there's some effect that sounds like "dark impression" when the tongue like in s and tr are rolled.
The tongue doesn't touch the teeth when pronouncing "s" and "tr", actually considerably backward.
But for "r" it's close to the front even though it doesn't touch the teeth either (I guess less than 1/2 cm from the teeth).

But S and Tr are indeed easier to pronounce than R

For new learners indeed they are.

I meant by the time official Quoc Ngu spelling system was made universial, the difference between Sino-Vietnamese D (duyên, dinh, diệu...) and native Vietnamese d (dao, dâu, dành) was phased out.
D in Sino-Viet words and D in native Viet words could have different origins but there was a convergent evolution between the two.
A similar case would be Tr in Sino-Viet trang, trinh, trân and native Viet trống, tre, trên.

Not sure about the old spellings for Sino-Viet, but the dictionary doesn't list separate consonants for those.
I don't think, though, that d and gi were artificially separated for Chinese loans. If they were never distinct at in older times, they should acknowledge it just like in the case of "t".

Thanh Chuong?

"Thanh Chuong, Viet Nam" in google maps indeed goes to a North-Central place.

There's tree used to make paper that is called "dó" in Vietnamese. Chinese has 楮 "paper tree". Sino Viet: chữ and đổ. Old Chinese reconstruction is thraʔ and *tāʔ.

What I meant was giấy. I don't think chữ is related to dó, though.

There's only one kind of kh in Vietnamese. Though it's much more aspirated than English k.

The aspiration is not much stronger, but there's a significant degree of "fricativization".

I guess vowels and endings are less noticeable

Well, afterall the messing-up of the vowels and endings mostly only cause some kind of "rotation" instead of "entirely new sound". But the tones would be very obvious.

Was d used in any Sino-Viet words?

It's not in English and the spelling of some vowel combinations are different so it's difficult for me to search in it. And then, it's also a bit difficult to navigate as the resolution is quite low.

I can find "danh" (名 name), listed as a synonym of "ten" (modern tên).

And then, I found that there's a lot of words starting with "dĕ" (ĕ is not part of modern Vietnamese letters), for example "dĕao" means "knife".
But "dâu" (mulberry) is still "dâu".

It's "nhắm mắt đôi ta cùng ước" (closing the eyes, two of us wish together)

Then it's illusion from "-ôi" in which the "i" is somewhat loosely pronounced.

I re-listened several times, there's no sound similar to w at that part. She's singing "ta nắm tay nhau nguyện cầu cùng chong chóng"

I think it's the "nguyện", which sounds like "wiệng" or "wịng" there (the initial ng- is too soft, if any).

If I'm not wrong, Southern Vietnamese changes the "qu" and "hu" as in "quyên" and "huyên" to "w" making them sound like "wiên" (the -n might be pronounced as -ng as well).
Is there something similar happening to ng- (which is similar position with q and h)?

Edited by qrasy, 17 November 2009 - 11:52 PM.

[qrasy]

Now talk about the side of China.

I have listened to quite a few Southern languages in China.
I found that Limgao (臨高話) and (Lingyun?) Zhuang (凌雲壯語) sound to be some type of SEA language, even though they are under the influence of "new Chinese" for a long time and lost many features.

Somehow I find that Limgao is "more Tay and less Viet" while that (LY?) Zhuang is "more Viet less Tay".
Maybe because Limgao have more "darker-impression" syllables while that (LY?) Zhuang is "lighter-impression".

Both of those are Tai-Kadai, not Sinitic.
Among Sinitic language, one person said that Danzhounese (儋州話) is a bit like Southeast Asian language?
Though I'm not sure about what others think.

While I don't think any of those are influential in the divergence between the Vietnamese dialects, some changes (like t->đ) are similar with Viet. Maybe influenced by similar source?

---

Limgao samples:
(press the 下载 button)
http://love.hinews.c...e.php?xuh=29443 (the song "starts" from 01:55, there are some non-sang sentences before it)
http://love.hinews.c...e.php?xuh=21173 [*]

Lingyun(?) Zhuang samples:
http://www.532300.cn.../music.php?id=1 [#]
http://www.532300.cn...music.php?id=11 [#]
http://qun.51.com/zg...ic.php?pid=5245 [*]

Du-An Zhuang [都安壯話] sample:
http://v.ku6.com/sho...QmWr8btyuP.html [sang as a joke/ridicule]

Danzhou sample:
[#]
[in this one, some "distinctive" sounds are not used at all! Though I can't find another song in Danzhouhua online.

"footnote"
[*] - a lot of Chinese loans
[#] - dubbed with the language, but based on Mandarin song so some background sounds are in Mandarin.

Edited by qrasy, 20 November 2009 - 11:20 AM.

[soniez]

Do you know which sounds are influenced by Khmer, Cantonese and Teochew?

I think the W and V ~ Y is an influence from Cantonese as we know Northern Viet has no W. Cantonese as W but no V.

I don't know about Khmer influence but I'm sure it's there. Perhaps in term of vocabulary. There are Southern dialects of unknown origin such as đã (pleasant, happy, equivalent to sướng), sến (can't translate it's like a lame display of romance), chảnh (cocky), mập (fat)...
Many of these words have found their ways to mainstream Vietnamese of course.

What I meant was giấy. I don't think chữ is related to dó, though.

I meant 楮 has a t- initial in the reconstruction which could be correlated with Viet d.

Like 肚 "belly" (đỗ in Sino-Viet) could be reconstructed as *tāʔ ~ corresponding to Vietnamese dạ "stomach"
刀 "knife" (đao in Sino-Viet) is reconstructed as tāw ~ corresponding to Vietnamese dao "knife"
楮 "paper tree" has a Sino-Viet reading of "đỗ" too, being reconstructed as *tāʔ ~ corresponding to Vietnamese dó

I can't think of any other example in my head right now but there seems to be a pattern between /t/ (which evolved into modern Viet đ) and d.


Oh the legendary Vietnamese hero who fought the Ân invaders was honored as 扶董天王 Phù Đổng Thiên Vương. In this Sino-Vietnamese phrase 扶董 could be his name. Common Vietnamese simply call him Thánh Gióng/Dóng in which Gióng/Dóng is his name [some books spell his name as Gióng, some spell as Dóng]. 董 could be the Sino-Viet translation of his name Gióng/Dóng. Reconstruction of 董 is tōŋʔ. If the correct spelling is Dóng, we have another correlation between /t/ and Vietnamese d.

I think the word 紙 'paper' in Chinese was also reconstructed with a /t/ initial right?

I can find "danh" (名 name), listed as a synonym of "ten" (modern tên).

danh has an m- initial in Chinese. How did it become d in Viet?

But "dâu" (mulberry) is still "dâu".

But we're not certain whether it sounded like yâu. Berry in Mường is "to" so I think there's a connection between t and d here.

I think it's the "nguyện", which sounds like "wiệng" or "wịng" there (the initial ng- is too soft, if any).
If I'm not wrong, Southern Vietnamese changes the "qu" and "hu" as in "quyên" and "huyên" to "w" making them sound like "wiên" (the -n might be pronounced as -ng as well).
Is there something similar happening to ng- (which is similar position with q and h)?

I heard ng- there. Maybe the pronunciation was too slight that non-Viet couldn't hear
It reminds me though that many Vietnamese American youth pronounce Nguyễn (the surname) like "Ween" and bà ngoại (grandmother) like "bà wại"

Now talk about the side of China.

I have listened to quite a few Southern languages in China.
I found that Limgao (臨高話) and (Lingyun?) Zhuang (凌雲壯語) sound to be some type of SEA language, even though they are under the influence of "new Chinese" for a long time and lost many features.

Where do Limgao people live?

Somehow I find that Limgao is "more Tay and less Viet" while that (LY?) Zhuang is "more Viet less Tay".
Maybe because Limgao have more "darker-impression" syllables while that (LY?) Zhuang is "lighter-impression".

Have you listened to Tày language? I don't know how it sounds myself.
What do you mean by darker/lighter impression syllables?

Limgao samples:
(press the 下载 button)
http://love.hinews.c...e.php?xuh=29443 (the song "starts" from 01:55, there are some non-sang sentences before it)
http://love.hinews.c...e.php?xuh=21173 [*]

In the first video many vowels give me a Cantonese impression rather than Viet (especially the part "ni sit ngo ngo" at the end). The tones however are more like Vietnamese than Cantonese (not Northern Viet though, Northern Viet tones have more rising/falling). Some parts of singing sound a bit like Vietnamese but other parts sound more like Cantonese. The parts with ơ vowels sound Viet and the parts with ou vowels sound Cantonese. There are two many L initials though and this makes it sound unlike Vietnamese.
The second video doesn't sound like Vietnamese at all.

Lingyun(?) Zhuang samples:
http://www.532300.cn.../music.php?id=1 [#]
http://www.532300.cn...music.php?id=11 [#]
http://qun.51.com/zg...ic.php?pid=5245 [*]

The first video sounds Viet except for some vowels that sound like iew (between eo and iêu of Vietnamese), biew at 0:18 and liew biew at 0:24, shieng at 0:51 (not like siêng of Vietnamese). Eliminating all the -ie- vowels [note it's difference from Vietnamese -iê-] and the excessive use of "ay" [note ay here is different from Viet ay; Viet ay is lighter, this ay is heavier and gives an un-Vietnamese impression] then it really sounds like Viet. (Some ou vowels in the song give an un-Vietnamese impression too but it's minor.)
The second video sounds like Viet (with some mixing with Chinese) at the beginning but as the song goes on, it sounds more and more like Chinese, especially the Sh part that makes me think of Mandarin. Vietnamese has Sh but we just don't sing it.
The 3rd one doesn't sound Viet.

Oh also the L initial occurs much more frequently than in Vietnamese. I'm not used to hearing letter L that often so it does create some strangeness to me.

Du-An Zhuang [都安壯話] sample:
http://v.ku6.com/sho...QmWr8btyuP.html [sang as a joke/ridicule]

Two many ou vowels that give an un-Vietnamese impression. We have o/ô/ao/au/âu in Vietnamese but it just doesn't sound like this ou.

Danzhou sample:
[#]
[in this one, some "distinctive" sounds are not used at all! Though I can't find another song in Danzhouhua online.

Vowel-wise it's more like Vietnamese that the above Zhuang because most of its vowels are like standard Vietnamese vowels.

Consonant-wise not so much because many ch/zh there don't sound likeViet ch/tr

Edited by soniez, 21 November 2009 - 07:38 PM.

[soniez]

BTW when you listen to Vietnamese, which vowels and consonants do you hear most often?

Another question, do native Mandarin speakers regconize that their language has an excessively high level of sh/s? I mean when you listen to a foreign language, you can tell which sound(s) occur most frequently but when you listen to your own language you just can't tell.

[soniez]

Some Southern Vietnamese dialects with Cantonese/Teochew origin

Tàu hủ "tofu". Tàu is from Cantonese pronunciation of 豆 (Written as tàu but it's actually pronounced more like tào. Southern Viets don't distinguish au and ao)
Northern/Standard Vietnamese: đậu hủ or đậu phụ

Xí quách "pig bone" ~ from the Cantonese 豬骨 Sino-Viet: trư cốt
Standard Vietnamese: xương heo

Xí muội ~ from Cantonese 酸梅 Sino-Viet: toan mai
Northern Vietnamese: ô mai (乌梅)


Hủ tiếu or hủ tíu "rice noodles (with pork-based soup)" ~ from Chaozhou 粿條 Sino-Viet: quả điều
Northern Vietnamese call it "phở lợn" or "phở heo" (distinguished from phở bò 'beef phở', phở gà 'chicken pho', phở ngan, phở chả...). The noodle used to make phở is called "bánh phở" in Northern Vietnamese.

Xá xíu ~ from Cantonese 叉燒 Sino-Viet: xoa thiêu
Northern Vietnamese: I don't know


Xíu mại ~ from Cantonese 燒賣 Sino-Viet: thiêu mại
Northern Vietnamese: I don't know. They have words for food that are ball-like meat but those are different from xíu mại (in the making process).

Sườn xám "qipao" ~ from Cantonese 長衫 Sino-Viet: trường sam (Note: it's written as Sườn xám but pronounced as Sường xám. Southern Viets don't distinguish -n and -ng)
Northern Vietnamese: same as Southern Vietnamese. (Note: they do not call it áo dài, Southern Viets don't either).

Lạp xưởng "Chinese sausage" ~ from 臘腸 Sino-Viet: lạp trường
Northern Vietnamese: they probably call it lạp xưởng too. The Vietnamese sausage "chả" is different from Chinese sausage.
Lạp xưởng "chinese sausage"

Chả "Vietnamese sausage" (it's actually any kind of fried chopped minced meat)



Bò bía ~ from Teochew 薄餅 Sino-Viet: bạc bính
Northern Vietnamese: none, they don't have this food.

Note: the above food ^^^ is not to be confused with the Vietnamese summer roll which is called "gỏi cuốn" in Southern Vietnam and "nem cuốn" in Northern Vietnam.

gỏi cuốn/nem cuốn have been existing in Vietnam for a very long time. The Teochew immigrants brought their own roll into Vietnam and this new kind of roll is called "bò bía" which only exists in Southern Vietnam while gỏi cuốn/nem cuốn exists in all three regions.


Hoành thánh or Vằn thắn "wonton" ~ from 餛飩 (Sino-Viet: hồn đồn) and 雲吞 (Sino-Viet: vân thôn)
Northern Vietnamese: none, probably the same as Southern Vietnamese since this dish has Chinese origin.


Ngầu pín ~ from Cantonese 牛鞭 Sino-Viet: ngưu tiên (ox penis)
Northern Vietnamese: none


Sâm bổ lượng ~ from Cantonese 清補涼 Sino-Viet: Thanh bổ lượng



Indeed Southern Vietnamese food is quite influenced by Chinese, but most of the time we can tell which food has Chinese origin and which food doesn't by looking at their names.

[soniez]

more Southern dialects of Cantonese/Teochew origin
[note: I'll have problems translating some of them because they're southern dialects that don't exist in Vietnamese dictionary]

bảo kê (meaning like to pail out, protect, insuring from something) ~ from Teochew 保家 Sino-Viet: bảo gia
Standard Vietnamese: bảo hiểm

phổ tai (some kind of algae) ~ from 海帶 Sino-Viet: hải đới
Standard Vietnamese: rong biển

táo sọn (some kind of bean) ~ from 豆饌 (?) Sino-Viet: đậu soạn
Standard Vietnamese: đậu xanh

húng lìu (spices) ~ from 香料 Sino-Viet: hương liệu
Standard Vietnamese: hương liệu

nhị tì (graveyard) ~ from Cantonese 義地 Sino-Viet: nghĩa địa
Standard Vietnamese: nghĩa địa

mã tấu (some kind of weapon similar to a sword) ~ from Cantonese 馬刀 Sino-Viet: mã đao
Standard Vietnamese: ???

lì xì (the lucky money people get in New Year) ~ from Cantonese 利市 Sino-Viet: lợi thị
Northern Vietnamese call this "tiền mừng tuổi"

phay ([torn into] pieces) ~ from 塊 Sino-Viet: khối

mạt chược (majong) ~ from Cantonese 麻將 Sino-Viet: ma tước
Standard Vietnamese: I don't know. This game is only played in South VN.

phá lấu ~ from 打鹵 Sino-Viet: đả lỗ
Standard Vietnamese: I don't know


phổ ky (waiter in a restaurant or helper in a shop) ~ from Cantonese 伙記 Sino-Viet: hỏa ký

xá lị (pear) ~ from 雪梨 Sino-Viet: tuyết lê
Standard Vietnamese: lê

chạp phô (grocery) ~ from 雜貨 Sino-Viet: tạp hóa
Standard Vietnamese: tạp hóa or bách hóa

đầu nậu (the head of a gang) ~ from 頭腦 Sino-Viet: đầu não

tăng xại (some kind of cabbage) ~ from 冬菜 Sino-Viet: đông thái

nhẩm xà (drink tea) ~ from 飲茶 Sino-Viet: ẩm trà

phì lú (fat) ~ from 肥佬 Sino-Viet: phì lão

hẩu xực (delicious) ~ from 好食 Sino-Viet: hảo thực

[qrasy]

I think the W and V ~ Y is an influence from Cantonese as we know Northern Viet has no W. Cantonese as W but no V.

But Cantonese will in no way approximate V with Y.
Usually they do it with F or W.
Also KW and KhW are separate sounds from W in Cantonese, they won't do it.

After I mentioned that iê and ia are the same in Modern Vietnamese, one Vietnamese member proposed that V somehow became WY, as seen from the change of về into sth like yìa instead of yề.

t- initial in the reconstruction which could be correlated with Viet d.

I think the word 紙 'paper' in Chinese was also reconstructed with a /t/ initial right?

Somehow Starostin constructed late Han and early Han differently, though.

danh has an m- initial in Chinese. How did it become d in Viet?

This is the Chongniu problem, where Vietnamese seem to change *m to d, *p and *b to t and *ph to th.
名鼻必屁 are examples.
It's said that a "strong y" after the initials cause a change in the previous consonant.
(some says that it might be something that sound like French j though)

I heard ng- there. Maybe the pronunciation was too slight that non-Viet couldn't hear

There seems to be a slight nasalization between "au" and "w". I don't think it's true ng, though.

Where do Limgao people live?

Hainan island.

Have you listened to Tày language? I don't know how it sounds myself.

Neither do I.

What do you mean by darker/lighter impression syllables?

Well, after comparing Limgao and Zhuang a lot of times then there's such kind of impressions. There's seems to be much less "o" (like in "oi","on") in Zhuang as compared to Limgao, but there's a lot more u and ư.
"long a" (as in "ai") also seems to be less in Zhuang.

In the first video many vowels give me a Cantonese impression rather than Viet (especially the part "ni sit ngo ngo" at the end).

Though for me it doesn't sound like Cantonese at all.
Last part sounds like "nghi sit ngô ngô" to me.

Some parts of singing sound a bit like Vietnamese but other parts sound more like Cantonese. The parts with ơ vowels sound Viet and the parts with ou vowels sound Cantonese.

Strange. I found no ou in the song. But I do find quite a number of "iang" and "iau".

There are two many L initials though and this makes it sound unlike Vietnamese.

Could be because of the lyrics.
I think "lai mân lai" is part of the title. The phrase "lai mân lai lê ngun toi hao bông" seem to be keep repeated.
Btw, actually there's a Vietnamese poem with all R- initials. Not sure if you will find it un-Viet as well. (as I know that R- is not often used in Vietnamese).

The second video doesn't sound like Vietnamese at all.

Looking at the lyrics and comparing with spoken form, I found that there's a lot of Chinese loans.
To me, it still sounds fairly like Viet as there's a lot of ơ/â-like sound and đ.
(Chinese in red): kho kho lien đơn mơ
đak lak oi đơn mơ
mơn hu lo(u) vân mơ hao na hu con.
phong phong tiang hơc mơ
lai lai nien hơc mơ
mân hu en tĕay mơn mai mơ
en lai yit mo von
mơ hao hep con qua
yoan hao lo nha toi pha loi mat pho
[omit]
Somehow "hep con qua" creates an impression of Vietnamese. (at first I heard "het con qua")

The first video sounds Viet except for some vowels that sound like iew (between eo and iêu of Vietnamese), biew at 0:18 and liew biew at 0:24, shieng at 0:51 (not like siêng of Vietnamese). Eliminating all the -ie- vowels [note it's difference from Vietnamese -iê-] and the excessive use of "ay" [note ay here is different from Viet ay; Viet ay is lighter, this ay is heavier and gives an un-Vietnamese impression] then it really sounds like Viet. (Some ou vowels in the song give an un-Vietnamese impression too but it's minor.)

0:18 sounds "piau" to me. 0:51 sounds like "sxiang" to me. I also find "piay". But again, I do not find "ou".
Not sure what you mean by "heaviness" of "ay". To me there are just ây and ay.

The second video sounds like Viet (with some mixing with Chinese) at the beginning but as the song goes on, it sounds more and more like Chinese, especially the Sh part that makes me think of Mandarin.

Btw, this and a few before are not videos, just sounds.
Indeed there's a borrowing of "wei liau" and "yuen yi" from Mandarin that are repeated many times. After "wei liau" (01:06) then it sounds to have less "Taic" impression.

Vietnamese has Sh but we just don't sing it.

Well, I guess there's no rule to "omit sh sounds in song" except in Vietnam.

Oh also the L initial occurs much more frequently than in Vietnamese. I'm not used to hearing letter L that often so it does create some strangeness to me.

Indeed somehow there's a lot of L in the Limgao sound samples. A bit less in Zhuang.
But again, there's a Vietnamese poem with a lot of R-, which normally occur quite rarely.

Two many ou vowels that give an un-Vietnamese impression. We have o/ô/ao/au/âu in Vietnamese but it just doesn't sound like this ou.

Note that the real Zhuang only starts after 00:56, before it, I guess it's English and I do find a lot of ou.
Again I don't find any "ou" in the "Real Zhuang".

Vowel-wise it's more like Vietnamese that the above Zhuang because most of its vowels are like standard Vietnamese vowels.

Consonant-wise not so much because many ch/zh there don't sound likeViet ch/tr

To me it doesn't sound Vietnamese as there are no vowel ơ, though there are ai, oi. Though the frequency of "o" in Danzhou is higher than most Chinese.
Vowel variation here also sounds smaller than Zhuang.

In contrary to the Zhuang samples, in here I find quite a number of "ou", as in 00:50 phuy đou đung, phuy dou tai.
The first "đou" even sounds đo-u to fit the tones. Though maybe this "u" is not as rounded as "normal u".
Not only that, there is also "uo" in 01:10 "chuo ot ton ha ngai oi". But again, it doesn't sound as "round".
I also find "iaa" (different from Viet "ia" but similar to Zhuang, Limgao and Mandarin, though it's not that frequent).

Edited by qrasy, 22 November 2009 - 10:17 PM.

[mrclub]

Tôi yêu bạn

how to pronounce it ?

[qrasy]

BTW when you listen to Vietnamese, which vowels and consonants do you hear most often?

It's not necessarily something "most often" is important. But for something more distinctive. It's â/ơ and similar sounds (including ưa, ua, uô, ia, iê as the a/ô/ê there are more similar to â/ơ than monophthongs of a and ô. In terms of IPA, they are [ɜ] and [ǝ] (mid vowels), rather than [o] or [a]), then after there are also ô/o that are followed by vowel or consonant. Also ư.
They especially stand out when followed by consonant or vowel.

"Closed e" sometimes also somehow "stands out".
And then somehow "a" seem to be usually followed by something else. (i.e. ai at ap ac an am ang together are more common than a)

And then I guess that Westerners will think that Thai, Viet, Chinese and Korean has a lot of -ng ending (from how they ridicule Chinese sounds).

Consonant-wise, I usually find "f/v" and "z" (Northern) most protruding. Then đ/b.
There's also a lot of diphthongs (compared to Mandarin).


Even in the first sentence I hear "cô nhân côn đơng chay vê nhin mua uông", which is a lot of "mid vowels", more than 40% of the syllable has it.
So there are a lot of sounds like ư ơ oi.
When there's a sentence with a lot of "open sounds" and "i" somehow it sounds like Thai than usual.
1:26 wing xa mân mai đi cung đoi ta.

Another question, do native Mandarin speakers regconize that their language has an excessively high level of sh/s? I mean when you listen to a foreign language, you can tell which sound(s) occur most frequently but when you listen to your own language you just can't tell.

Not sure if they recognize it without learning the linguistics. But I know that Northern Mandarin have more ch sh zh r than any Southerner.

Tàu hủ "tofu". Tàu is from Cantonese pronunciation of 豆 (Written as tàu but it's actually pronounced more like tào. Southern Viets don't distinguish au and ao)

Nope. This is Fujianese/Teochew as the "F" is changed to "Hu"

Xí quách "pig bone" ~ from the Cantonese 豬骨 Sino-Viet: trư cốt
Standard Vietnamese: xương heo

It's more like /tsy/ kwăt. Maybe because the "ch" in the South has less air so the Cantonese 'ts' (which has more airflow) is recognized as "x" instead of "ch".

Xí muội ~ from Cantonese 酸梅 Sino-Viet: toan mai

It should be /syn/ mui. Strange that the "n" doesn't appear.
Is it true that some Southerner confuse uôi with ui?

Hủ tiếu or hủ tíu "rice noodles (with pork-based soup)" ~ from Chaozhou 粿條 Sino-Viet: quả điều

Strange as the First syllable sound sound more like coe/que or quê.

Xá xíu ~ from Cantonese 叉燒 Sino-Viet: xoa thiêu
Xíu mại ~ from Cantonese 燒賣 Sino-Viet: thiêu mại

Its Cha Siu, Siu Mai (normal S, not QuocNgu S). Maybe this time the "Cantonese ch" is too much air for Southern Viet to approximate?

Sườn xám "qipao" ~ from Cantonese 長衫 Sino-Viet: trường sam (Note: it's written as Sườn xám but pronounced as Sường xám. Southern Viets don't distinguish -n and -ng)
Lạp xưởng "Chinese sausage" ~ from 臘腸 Sino-Viet: lạp trường

Cheung Saam, Laap Cheung. It's the "Cantonese Ch" sound again. Seems that Vietnamese replace it with "eu" with ươ? Using tone hỏi indeed sounds Southern as it's low in North.
I know "ơng" (without -ư-) does not exist in Standard Vietnamese but does the "n" in "ơn" change in South Viet as well?

Northern Vietnamese: same as Southern Vietnamese. (Note: they do not call it áo dài, Southern Viets don't either).

Well, as above "Pig bone" somehow they choose to use phonetic instead.

Bò bía ~ from Teochew 薄餅 Sino-Viet: bạc bính

Poh Piah.
Not sure how the tone nặng is pronounced in South. I was guessing the first should sound like Bọ instead. But maybe the "stop" in "poh piah" is too weak for South Viet.

Hoành thánh or Vằn thắn "wonton" ~ from 餛飩 (Sino-Viet: hồn đồn) and 雲吞 (Sino-Viet: vân thôn)
Northern Vietnamese: none, probably the same as Southern Vietnamese since this dish has Chinese origin.

The Cantonese should sound like "Wằn thăn/thắn". Using "Ho" for "W" is Southern only.

Ngầu pín ~ from Cantonese 牛鞭 Sino-Viet: ngưu tiên (ox penis)

I thought it sounded more like au than âu.

Again 鞭 shows a consequence of the Chongniu distinction.

Edited by qrasy, 22 November 2009 - 08:39 AM.

[qrasy]

Sâm bổ lượng ~ from Cantonese 清補涼 Sino-Viet: Thanh bổ lượng

Strange again for the 清. Doesn't sound like Cantonese. "Sâm" sounds more like 心.
According to what I saw in the previous parts, "xênh" or "xing" would be used instead.

bảo kê (meaning like to pail out, protect, insuring from something) ~ from Teochew 保家 Sino-Viet: bảo gia
táo sọn (some kind of bean) ~ from 豆饌 (?) Sino-Viet: đậu soạn
mã tấu (some kind of weapon similar to a sword) ~ from Cantonese 馬刀 Sino-Viet: mã đao

(no comments)

phổ tai (some kind of algae) ~ from 海帶 Sino-Viet: hải đới
Standard Vietnamese: rong biển

There's no f in Chaozhou, only p' like in English.

húng lìu (spices) ~ from 香料 Sino-Viet: hương liệu
Standard Vietnamese: hương liệu

ung is strange. I expect iang or iong from a Southern Min.
Following the previous ones, if it's from Cantonese it should appear like hướng lỉu in Southern Viet.

nhị tì (graveyard) ~ from Cantonese 義地 Sino-Viet: nghĩa địa
lì xì (the lucky money people get in New Year) ~ from Cantonese 利市 Sino-Viet: lợi thị
phổ ky (waiter in a restaurant or helper in a shop) ~ from Cantonese 伙記 Sino-Viet: hỏa ký
nhẩm xà (drink tea) ~ from 飲茶 Sino-Viet: ẩm trà

Strange again for 義 and 飲 as they don't have the nh, but "y"[j]. Somehow "ei" becomes "i" in these.

phay ([torn into] pieces) ~ from 塊 Sino-Viet: khối

Strange. It's long a in Cantonese, should be more like phai. And I know of no meaning like ["torn into"] in Cantonese.

mạt chược (majong) ~ from Cantonese 麻將 Sino-Viet: ma tước
chạp phô (grocery) ~ from 雜貨 Sino-Viet: tạp hóa

Indeed sound Cantonese.
Note that it's 麻雀 in Cantonese, not 麻將 as in Shanghainese.
This time they stress the "t" in "ts" too much as seen from the "mat".

phá lấu ~ from 打鹵 Sino-Viet: đả lỗ

phá (with p' not f) should be Chaozhou.

tăng xại (some kind of cabbage) ~ from 冬菜 Sino-Viet: đông thái

Sounds more like Chaozhou.

xá lị (pear) ~ from 雪梨 Sino-Viet: tuyết lê

Not Cantonese as it should sound like /syt/. Though Chaozhou might be correct as there's the "sah" for 雪.

đầu nậu (the head of a gang) ~ from 頭腦 Sino-Viet: đầu não

There's no "đ" in Cantonese and Chaozhou.

phì lú (fat) ~ from 肥佬 Sino-Viet: phì lão

It's a nounphrase meaning "fat guy" in Cantonese.

hẩu xực (delicious) ~ from 好食 Sino-Viet: hảo thực

Strange for "xực".
It should sound more like ệch or ich.

Edited by qrasy, 22 November 2009 - 10:00 PM.

[qrasy]

Tôi yêu bạn

how to pronounce it ?

(off topic)
From http://vi.wiktionary.org
/toj33 iɜw33 ɓɐ̰ːn31/
t like Mandarin d, ɓ is somewhat more "pressed" than Minnan "bh" /b/.
ɐ is only slightly smaller than a.

[soniez]

Though for me it doesn't sound like Cantonese at all.
Last part sounds like "nghi sit ngô ngô" to me.

I guess I heard too many o and o-related vowels in Cantonese so I associated them with Cantonese. Some parts of the song does sound like Viet, especially the "la het coi bơ" part but when the o-series comes in I just thought of Cantonese.
For the last part, yes I heard "ngô ngô" but I didn't hear ng- in nghi

Strange. I found no ou in the song. But I do find quite a number of "iang" and "iau".

Not necessary ou. They're o-related (o, ô, u, ou, oi or ôi, on, un, ong or ông, ung...) I just didn't know how to describe those vowels.

Btw, actually there's a Vietnamese poem with all R- initials. Not sure if you will find it un-Viet as well. (as I know that R- is not often used in Vietnamese).

Vietnamese folks often play with initials by making poems or songs consisting entirely of just one initial
There's one children song consisting entirely of b initial http://mp3.xalo.vn/p...84833.247552079
It does sound different from normal speaking but it doesn't sound foreign to us because we can understand the lyrics.

I'm not sure about a poem consisting entirely of R's though because it's hard to pronounce R continuously.

Looking at the lyrics and comparing with spoken form, I found that there's a lot of Chinese loans.
To me, it still sounds fairly like Viet as there's a lot of ơ/â-like sound and đ.
(Chinese in red): kho kho lien đơn mơ
đak lak oi đơn mơ
mơn hu lo(u) vân mơ hao na hu con.
phong phong tiang hơc mơ
lai lai nien hơc mơ
mân hu en tĕay mơn mai mơ
en lai yit mo von
mơ hao hep con qua
yoan hao lo nha toi pha loi mat pho
[omit]
Somehow "hep con qua" creates an impression of Vietnamese. (at first I heard "het con qua")

When you type them out some parts do sound Viet, but when I just listen to it the overall impression I got was not similar to Vietnamese.
Oh it could be the y series (most obvious in the chorus). I'm not used to hearing many y in Viet songs.

*listen to it again*
It still doesn't sound much like Vietnamese. Maybe because he opens his mouth too much. Actually that makes it sound more like Southern Vietnamese. But there's still something Chinese about it especially the yi- and chi-(?) part.

0:18 sounds "piau" to me. 0:51 sounds like "sxiang" to me. I also find "piay". But again, I do not find "ou".

Something like that. I don't know how to write down non-Viet sounds that I hear. My knowledge on IPA is pretty limited.

Not sure what you mean by "heaviness" of "ay". To me there are just ây and ay.

I meant Vietnamese don't put as much emphasis on the pronunciation of ay like in the song.

Pay attention to ay and ây rhymes in the songs

[note: at 0:34 the lyrics is written wrong, it should be 'xô nghiêng dòng đời']
plus ay or ây is not excessively used in Vietnamese


BTW it seems to me that Chinese people don't keep tones of words when they sing (at least in Mandarin). Is it true? If it is, how can they understand the lyrics? In Vietnamese we can't understand song lyrics if tones are altered.

Well, I guess there's no rule to "omit sh sounds in song" except in Vietnam.

In modern Viet songs, the singers change sh to s(x) because that's what Northern Vietnamese do.

Note that the real Zhuang only starts after 00:56, before it, I guess it's English and I do find a lot of ou.
Again I don't find any "ou" in the "Real Zhuang".

LOL I didn't notice that the beginning was English
Still the singing has lots of o-related vowels to me, most obvious is câu (actually it does not sound like câu but it's the closest Vietnamese sound I can match). As a native Vietnamese speaker I think it sounds closer to Cantonese.

To me it doesn't sound Vietnamese as there are no vowel ơ, though there are ai, oi. Though the frequency of "o" in Danzhou is higher than most Chinese.
Vowel variation here also sounds smaller than Zhuang.

I didn't notice about the non-existence of certain vowels. I only pay attention to what's there. The way most vowels in that song are pronounced is similar to how they'd be pronounced in Vietnamese.

When I re-listened to the song, I do notice that there are a number of ô and u there, but these ô and u didn't stand out to me. Probably because the way they're pronounced is similar to ô and u of Vietnamese (like in phùy đồ đung, phuy đố tài, nơi đối cả da xài nà nòi...). There's no um...exaggeration.. in their pronunciation.

In contrary to the Zhuang samples, in here I find quite a number of "ou", as in 00:50 phuy đou đung, phuy dou tai.
The first "đou" even sounds đo-u to fit the tones. Though maybe this "u" is not as rounded as "normal u".
Not only that, there is also "uo" in 01:10 "chuo ot ton ha ngai oi". But again, it doesn't sound as "round".
I also find "iaa" (different from Viet "ia" but similar to Zhuang, Limgao and Mandarin, though it's not that frequent).

For some reason, I don't find his "ou" to be foreign.
For phuy do dung phuy dou tai, I only hear "phùy đồ đung, phuy đố tài"

Edited by soniez, 25 November 2009 - 09:05 PM.