Vietnamese Relationship with Chinese Languages

[nnt]

This url will give you a different perspective on the vietnamese-sino relationship.

Nothing new.

The fact that Vietnamese vocabulary owes much to Han influence does not obliterate the fact Vietnamese grammar is different... Vietnamese is not similar of Cantonese, although some words have been borrowed directly from Cantonese to Vietnamese, much less than indirectly through Han/Viet.

The topic has been discussed here :

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/1872-%e7%82%ba%e7%94%9a%e9%ba%bc%e5%90%b3%e8%aa%9e%e5%92%8c%e7%b2%b5%e8%aa%9e%e6%98%af%e4%b8%ad%e5%9c%8b%e8%a9%b1-%e8%80%8c%e8%b6%8a%e5%8d%97%e8%aa%9e%e4%b8%8d%e6%98%af%e5%91%a2

[rmontelatici]

Guys, have you noticed that people who know BOTH good chinese (be it mandarin, cantonese of whatever) AND vietnamese consider them as separate languages ?

[please don't mention counterexamples, there always are]

If you are genuinely interested in this topic, please learn first !

It would save a lot of Hashirikata, nnt (and others)'s time...

Please don't feel offensed, I'm just sad their explanations often get ununderstood or ignored.

[atitarev]

I think nobody insists they are the same languages or Vietnamese is a dialect of Chinese. It's just fun to see the relationship because there are a lot of things in common - grammar and vocabulary, you can't deny that.

As a side note: quite similar mutually intelligible languages could be called separate languages - Serb - Croatian - they used to say they speak one language - Serbo-Croatian. Politics has divided them and now they have different languages, all differences are highlighted, older words are used, what used to be variants of the same language are now either Serb or Croatian (there's also Bosnian, a new-born language).

Mutually unintelligible languages are called dialects, e.g. Mandarin - Cantonese thanks to common history, national identity - speakers of both dialects call themselves Chinese.

Germans and Austrians speak the same language - German; Austrians cannot be called Germans. Chinese people speak different dialects, which could be under different circumstances (if they were independent from each other) called languages are all calling themselves Chinese.

Were Chinese provinces not united in the past then what we know as dialects would develop separately and very likely would be called as separate nations with their own languages as each Chinese dialect has their own features of grammar, vocab and pronunciation but there are also a lot of common things thanks to common literal language. That literal language was also used in Korea, Japan, Vietnam and elsewhere before native literatures were developed. Areas that were part of China never changed their writing and literal language was part of the education and was affecting spoken language too. Common politics brings dissimilar dialects together in China.

P.S. It's not a political discussion, I hope you understand my meaning - people can call what they want to call.

[nnt]

That literal language was also used in Korea, Japan, Vietnam and elsewhere before native literatures were developed

Not before : in parallel with.

Vietnamese , Japanese and Korean national litteratures in their own national languages have developped in parallel with their own national litteratures written in Han characters and in Wenyan, not Baihua (different grammars !)

[bathrobe]

The problem is fairly simple:

xng has some kind of grand theory about the Chinese dialects and he wants to fit Vietnamese into his scheme.

So he reads that a lot of vocabulary between Cantonese and Vietnamese are similar, he hears something about a Chinese general in Vietnam way back (true -- there has been a lot of movement of Chinese people into Vietnam from ancient times) and he reads that the Mon-Khmer is located in India (false -- the Mon and the Khmer both live in South East Asia, although one branch of the Mon-Khmer is in India), and presto, he has the basis for his grand new theory!

The fact that 1) people keep telling him that Vietnamese and Chinese are different and 2) scholars who have gone into this thing a bit more deeply than xng do not regard Vietnamese as a Chinese dialect, but rather a language that has borrowed heavily from Chinese, makes no difference to xng because he is determined to go ahead with his pet theory. So he tells people that it's 'debatable' whether the vocabulary was borrowed or was there from the start, without any basis other than his own wishful ideas.

In fact, it may be interesting to speculate on the origins of the South Chinese dialects and Vietnamese, but not in the way that xng is doing it. Two things come to mind:

1. The Vietnamese claim that they are the last remainders of the old Yue kingdoms which were conquered by Qin Shi Huang. This particular view claims that the South Chinese were actually Vietnamese.

2. I have heard it claimed that the South Chinese dialects may have had other languages as a substrate (i.e., the inhabitants originally spoke other languages and then switched over to Chinese, but in the process a lot of the habits, pronunciations, etc. of their original languages got transferred to their new language).

On the other hand, I have also read that all the Chinese dialects were a single language during the Tang and started diverging after that.

I have never done any research on it and don't know which is correct. There is an awful lot of vocabulary that is different between the dialects and Mandarin, including some basic vocabulary. It would be interesting to know if this vocabulary traces its roots back to ancient Chinese or whether it was always different -- which would suggest that these dialects were, like Vietnamese, originally different languages, not dialects of a single language.

This seems more interesting than trying to prove that Vietnamese is just another Chinese dialect. But you need more than a couple of old Chinese generals to come to any conclusions. Language is not that simple.

[bathrobe]

What atitarev says is true: Language is political. Serbian and Croation are the same language, but one is written in Roman letters and is associated with the Roman Catholic church; one is written in Cyrillic and is associated with the Orthodox Church. The two places have been kept apart by history (one belonged to Austria, one to Turkey). So they are now called separate languages.

Norwegian is a very interesting case. Originally Norway belonged to Denmark and Norwegian was regarded as a dialect of Danish. Then the Norwegians got independence but they still continued to use a Danish-style way of writing. Finally someone got the idea that Norwegian should be a truly separate language, not an offshoot of Danish, and should be based on the true language of the pure unadulterated country people of Norway. He made up a new standard written language based on the dialects of Western Norway. So now Norwegian has two standard languages! Bokmal (the original version closer to Danish) and Nynorsk (the purified version based on the rural dialects).

China is the opposite. Despite the existence of mutually unintelligible dialects, the Chinese have always been loath to admit that these dialects are separate languages. The reason is political. Separate languages means separate 'countries', and China is very sensitive about things like national unity. There is no leeway for considering dialects to be separate languages. It would be politically unacceptable.

It's often said that the difference among Chinese dialects is the same as the difference between, say, Italian and Spanish. Well, that may be the case, but it's not quite right to say that because Italian and Spanish are separate languages then Mandarin and Cantonese should be too. Put it the other way round: if Spain and Italy were simply provinces of a larger nation (say Espanitaly), then it is quite possible that Spanish and Italian would be considered dialects of a single language!.

Eventually it is the political reality that determines whether a variety is a language or a dialect. Or in the words of the philosopher: A language is a dialect with an army and a navy. (Can't remember who said this).

[atitarev]

...

It's often said that the difference among Chinese dialects is the same as the difference between' date=' say, Italian and Spanish. Well, that may be the case, but it's not quite right to say that because Italian and Spanish are separate languages then Mandarin and Cantonese should be too. Put it the other way round: if Spain and Italy were simply provinces of a larger nation (say Espanitaly), then it is quite possible that Spanish and Italian would be considered dialects of a single language!.

...

[/quote']

Thanks Bathrobe.

Imagine for a second (by no means, I want this to happen) Vietnam and China are one country. Vietnamese people still use Chinese characters. I wonder if linguists and politicians would consider Vietnamese a Chinese dialect or a separate language of an ethnic minority then?... I will not be 100% sure to say - "definitely a separate language" based on what we know about Vietnamese.

[gato]

What about the Korean minority in northeast China? Do they use Chinese character to write Korean like the old days or do they use hangul? They are definitely considered a non-Han minority.

[HashiriKata]

Just to add to what gato's said:

I was at the Central University of Nationalities (中央民族大学) a few months ago and many languages of the ethnic minorities (in China) are taught there. These languages, although spoken in China, are NOT considered dialects of Chinese, either officially/ unofficially or scientifically.

[nnt]

What about the Korean minority in northeast China? Do they use Chinese character to write Korean like the old days or do they use hangul?

This is the same confusion as for Vietnamese.

Korean has never been written in CHinese characters since the invention of Hangul alphabet.

Hanja is Korean's equivalent of Han/viet, it's Chinese pronounced Korean's way. The question should have been : do they use mandarin or do they speak Hanja with their own pronunciation?

[bathrobe]

Actually the Koreans did keep using Chinese characters after inventing Hangul, and they still do (although the north has virtually abolished them).

It's quite possible that Vietnamese would be considered a Chinese dialect if Vietnam belonged to China. And if all Vietnamese agreed that their language was a dialect of Chinese, then that is how it would be perceived. The peculiarities of Vietnamese (in grammar and vocab) could be explained away by the xng's of this world, who would be only too willing to produce scholarly proof that Vietnamese in fact is nothing more than a dialect.

In fact, languages that are quite different can be assimilated so that they lose many of their original characteristics. Try this link about Tsat: http://www.csuchico.edu/%7Eelzbieta/Graham.html

As for the problem of Chinese and Vietnamese, you might like to look at this web site:

http://vny2k.net/vny2k/SiniticVietnamese.htm

At the introduction the author says:

In this paper I will introduce some new findings in the study field of the Chinese © origin of a vast little-known stock of the Vietnamese (V) vocabulary, which is to be called the HánNôm, or Sinitic-Vietnamese (VS). These newly discovered words of Chinese origin are direct results of applying the two new etymological methods called dissyllabic and analogical approaches. The first one is to treat sound changes of two-syllable Chinese words to Vietnamese as being unrestricted to and independent of individual one-syllable words to identify multiple patterns of sound changes that have occurred to the same syllable in polysyllabic Chinese lexicons in the process of their natural adaption in Vietnamese. This method, in turn, will help analogize sibling glosses within a categorical group and in a cultural context, i.e., if a word has a Chinese origin, chances are that its related words could be the same, too, which would go unnoticed otherwise. This subsequent methodology is called the analogical approach.

By applying these two new etymological approaches, more Vietnamese words of Chinese origin, including those of basic vacabulary stratrum, can be unveiled. Implications of any new development in this study can be used to rebut the arguments that the origin of Vietnamese is of the Mon-Khmer branch of the Austroasiatic linguistic family. In addition, evidences on Chinese linguistic traits found in this study, therefore, may eventually help strengthen the foundation for re-classifying Vietnamese into the Sino-Tibetan (ST) linguistic family.

However, this person's theory does not appear to have been adopted into the mainstream yet. Nevertheless, he appears to have done a bit more actual work on the issue than xng...

[nnt]

Actually the Koreans did keep using Chinese characters after inventing Hangul, and they still do

You're almost right concerning Korean. Extracted from this link :

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/korean.htm

Before inventing Hangul, Koreans had several writing systems based on Chinese characters :

The Idu system used a combination of Chinese characters together with special symbols to indicate Korean verb endings and other grammatical markers, and was used to in official and private documents for many centuries. The Hyangchal system used Chinese characters to represent all the sounds of Korean and was used mainly to write poetry.

The Koreans borrowed a huge number of Chinese words, gave Korean readings and/or meanings to some of the Chinese characters and also invented about 150 new characters, most of which are rare or used mainly for personal or place names.

Korean , Japanese and Vietnamese all include words directly taken from Chinese and many words can be written in Chinese characters (ingredients). But the rest (the sauce: particles, endings, word order , word meanings , grammar in a word ) makes the difference. That's JKV cuisine!

AN interesting link for subtleties in Korean written using Chinese characters :

http://www.soninjae.co.kr/main/data/data_Frame_sub2/data_Frame2_sub1_2.htm

The content of the first part of the text is written in Chinese characters in appearance, but what it contains is completely a Korean sentence. The character is sometimes simply read as 'pronunciation(音)' or at times must be read with its meaning (called '訓' or '釋'), and the people of those days called such borrowed word marking(借字表記) style 'Hyangchal(鄕札)'. The 'Hyang(鄕)' of 'Hyangchal' may have been the same as that of 'Hyangga(鄕歌)', 'Hyangoh(鄕語)', 'Hyangak(鄕樂)', and 'Hyangyak(鄕藥)' meaning something Korean as opposed to what was Chinese, but the usage of 'chal(札)' in 'Hyangchal(鄕札)' is quite unusual.

And it is the same principle that Korean translation of Chinese characters is used for the main body of substantives and for the stems of words with conjugated endings, and that particles and suffixes become words read aloud. Therefore, I call this the principle of 'translated main body & sounded suffix (訓主音從)'.

...

Sometimes, Chinese translated into Korean, such as '如(da)', comes in the place of a 'sounded suffix(音從)'. This is a type of provisional borrowing(假借), borrowing only the sound but not using the meaning. There are a few examples of Hyangchal words read aloud for which a conclusion has not been drawn as to why they were read with such phonetic values. Speaking only of contents of Jemang Maega, which we have examined, '叱' and '尸' are two such examples. It is mostly agreed that they should be written as 'ㅅ' and 'ㄹ', but no certain conclusion can be made concerning their origin.

http://vny2k.net/vny2k/SiniticVietnamese.htm

is an interesting link I've once given to Pazu, but as all the likes, it insists on the vocabulary (the borrowings from Chinese since the Han to present days are numerous and profound) but completely overlooks the differences in grammar.

[Ian_Lee]

I have a topic on Ho Chi Minh in this forum if any fellow posters are interested in his life:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/780-ho-chi-minh-in-chinahk

What language did Ho speak when he stayed in Guangzhou in the 1920s?

My guess is Ho spoke Cantonese with Sun Yat Sen but Mandarin with Mao, Chiang and Zhou.

But most likely Ho could not understand what Mao said

[bathrobe]

http://vny2k.net/vny2k/SiniticVietnamese.htm

is an interesting link I've once given to Pazu, but as all the likes, it insists on the vocabulary (the borrowings from Chinese since the Han to present days are numerous and profound) but completely overlooks the differences in grammar.

When I mentioned the Tsat example ('languages that are quite different can be assimilated so that they lose many of their original characteristics') I was referring to the fact that a language can possibly 'cross over' from one language family to another. In the Tsat example, the vocabulary has been retained but the grammar has become heavily Sinified.

Vietnamese goes the other way: heavily Sinified vocabulary but grammatically different. In fact, Vietnamese also has plenty of Sinified grammar, as can be seen from Chinese particles like 了 and 就 which have exact counterparts in Vietnamese, in a way that unrelated languages do not.

The Korean example you give is interesting. It is basically the same as the Japanese system found in Man'yōgana, etc. I was under the impression that the Koreans used only the 音 readings, but it appears that both 音 and 训 readings were used. If that is the case, then is it possible that the Japanese borrowed this from the Koreans (like so many other things)?

[nnt]

When I mentioned the Tsat example ('languages that are quite different can be assimilated so that they lose many of their original characteristics') I was referring to the fact that a language can possibly 'cross over' from one language family to another

Perhaps the Tsat's fleet and army were not strong enough ...

Vietnamese also has plenty of Sinified grammar, as can be seen from Chinese particles like 了 and 就 which have exact counterparts in Vietnamese, in a way that unrelated languages do not.

Not so obvious.

Usage of Chinese "了" or " 就" has no exact counterparts in Vietnamese:

他來了。= Anh ta đã đến rồi.

他來了嗎？ = Anh ta đã đến chưa ?

他喝了那杯茶 = Anh ta đã uống xong ly trà .

昨天晚上他看了電視 = Tối qua anh ta (đã) xem Ti Vi.

誰 是 高 先 生 ？ = Cao tiên sinh là ai ?

我就是 = Là tôi. (no translation)

我昨天晚上九點就睡覺了 = Tôi tối qua 9 giờ đã đi ngủ.

要是你不去 ，我就不去 = Nếu anh không đi, tôi cũng không đi .

[HashiriKata]

I was under the impression that the Koreans used only the 音 readings, but it appears that both 音 and 训 readings were used. If that is the case, then is it possible that the Japanese borrowed this from the Koreans[/b'] (like so many other things)?

Not necessarily. The case in question seems to lends equally well to a natural development.

In another thread, I hypothesized that English speakers could borrow hanzi and write "三 学生s" for "three students". In this situation, they could choose to read 学生 as "student" (训 reading); and when fashions & trends dictate, they could also choose to read 学生 with an approximation of the original Chinese pronunciation (xuesheng, 音 reading). You'll see that in reality, the English don't need to wait for Korean teachers to tell them to pronounce many borrowed French words in an English or a French fashion, do they?

Cheers,

[bathrobe]

The case in question seems to lends equally well to a natural development.

Perhaps, but even the names are shared in common, which leads me to suspect a historical connection between the Japanese and Korean practices.

Not so obvious.

Usage of Chinese "了" or " 就" has no exact counterparts in Vietnamese

Thank you for the counterexamples. At a detailed usage level you are right, there are definite differences in usage. Still, the particle rồi, for instance, is much more similar in meaning and function to Chinese 了 than anything found in English (or even in Japanese, for that matter). I am just wondering if there might not be some influence from Chinese. This would not be strange at all as similar phenomena are found in European languages (e.g., the use of present perfect to indicate simple past time found in continental languages like French and German, a result of mutual influence. This is sometimes called a Sprachbund).

As for my earlier comment on linguistic substrates, this is from the Wikipedia page on Cantonese (http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/粵語):

古代南迁到岭南地区的汉人与“南越族”土著长期杂居，彼此间语言、文化、习俗等各方面不自觉地相互渗透。粤语既有古汉语成分又有古代南越语成分，正是两个民族相互融合的结果。现代粤语中也仍然含有许多古代“南越语”的成分，主要表现在词汇方面。如在粤语中“呢”表示“这”，“唔”表示“不”，“虾”表示“欺负”，“边”表示“哪”等等。这都是“古越语”底层词的遗留。古越语底层在粤语中非常重要，若抽去则粤语会严重“残废”，无法正常实现表达和沟通的语言功能。

[Quest]

现代粤语中也仍然含有许多古代“南越语”的成分，主要表现在词汇方面。如在粤语中“呢”表示“这”，“唔”表示“不”，“虾”表示“欺负”，“边”表示“哪”等等。这都是“古越语”底层词的遗留。

Not very convincing, where can one find examples of 古越语? It seems to me the wiki editor could just be picking out Cantonese words that don't exist in Mandarin, but that does not mean they are of 古越语 origin.

[nnt]

which leads me to suspect a historical connection between the Japanese and Korean practices.

... you can add Vietnamese practices too! That is what I qualify as JKV cuisine with Chinese ingredients (split, chopped, reassembled ). "On" and "Kun" readings also exist in Nôm .

This is no coincidence that the "On" readings of JKV have similarities.

I am just wondering if there might not be some influence from Chinese. This would not be strange at all as similar phenomena are found in European languages (e.g., the use of present perfect to indicate simple past time found in continental languages like French and German, a result of mutual influence

As for my earlier comment on linguistic substrates, this is from the Wikipedia page on Cantonese

The difference between French and German is that the German has retained most of its non-Latin features, whereas the Gauls (Celts ) and the Franks (and most of the German tribes who have crossed the Rhine) have been totally assimilated into the Latin mould.

Concerning the relations between Cantonese and Vietnamese, what would be interesting is to discern what could be the pre-Qin common root to some Vietnamese and Cantonese words or grammar (the non-Chinese part and past !) . In that sense, I have been told that the Minnan grammar in some of its non-Chinese peculiarities shares a few aspects with Vietnamese grammar.

A remark : although Middle Chinese (Tang period) is the common root to the CJKV region, the evolution in different regions may have lead to different results.

For example in Vietnamese, there are 2 words for 10000 : a Nôm word : muôn, and a Han/Viet word : vạn (wan4 萬) .

muôn is in fact an old pronunciation of 萬 which has been assimilated into Vietnamese, while the Han/Viet pronunciation has evolved into vạn which is more similar to wan4 .

The m-> v shift has occured in Han/Viet while in Cantonese "maan6" , Korean "MAN" and Japanese "MAN" , the m pronunciation derived from the Tang "*miæ̀n " has remained :

http://www.unicode.org/cgi-bin/GetUnihanData.pl?codepoint=842c&useutf8=true

[bathrobe]

The difference between French and German is that the German has retained most of its non-Latin features, whereas the Gauls (Celts ) and the Franks (and most of the German tribes who have crossed the Rhine) have been totally assimilated into the Latin mould.

Actually, the point was that even though French is a Romance language and German is Germanic, the use of the perfect tense for simple past spread from one language to the other, across linguistic boundaries. (I think it was from French to German).

Thus:

(Pardon any mistakes)

Je l'ai mangé

Ich habe es gegessen

English says 'I ate it' for the simple past. German should say 'Ich ass es" but has been influenced by French to use the perfect. (I think this is the situation. If there is any misapprehension here, please let me know!)

Similarly, the use of uvular 'r' spread from Paris across the linguistic boundaries into Germany, where it displaced the old trilled 'r' in standard pronunciation.

So the point is, languages do not need to belong to the same family to develop similar features across a broad area. Changes can diffuse across linguistic boundaries.