Vietnamese is sino-tibetan Part 2

[Taishan Ren]

Actually, there are some Tibeto-Burman languages that call '5' 'Nga', 'Hnga' or even 'Ha' itself. In the Kam-Sui branch of Tai-Kadai, it is around 'Ngo'.

"Ngo" (#5) sounds similar to those who speak Chaozhou-hua, Minnan-hua, & Taiwan-hua.

Taishan Ren

[ongtk]

Your guys mentioned burma,mon and khmer are languages with tones.I have books about learning these three languages but there are no mentioned of tones like thai and laos language.Have you ever opened a basic book to learn them?
There are no special tone mark there.If accent in these languages can be called tone ,then english can be called a language with tones as well.

[ongtk]

Lanna Thai spoken in chiengmai is also a language with tones like central thai.

[qrasy]

Your guys mentioned burma,mon and khmer are languages with tones.I have books about learning these three languages but there are no mentioned of tones like thai and laos language.Have you ever opened a basic book to learn them?
There are no special tone mark there.If accent in these languages can be called tone ,then english can be called a language with tones as well.

Well, it's been repeated several times that Mon and Khmer don't have tones.
The 'tones' mentioned here are not pitch differences between syllables, but the pitch difference relative to the syllable itself.

For example, if we have a sequence of 'a's, the difference can be seen.
a(high-rise)-a(high-fall)-a(low-fall)-a(low-rise)
Japanese have only high-low difference, so Japanese users percieve: a(high)-a(high)-a(low)-a(low)
Mandarin is quite consistent in tone, there are no similar tones, so Mandarin users percieve: a(rise)-a(fall)-a(fall)-a(rise)
(this can be seen when trying to learn Viet tones, Mandarin users will likely confuse ~ and ´ tones)
While Indonesian users percieve nothing special but a-a-a-a

Actually in Thai and Lao there are tonal marks. And I know that in Khmer script there are registral marks.

[qrasy]

There are 3 tones in Burmese.
It is strange that there are only 1 tone mark(?), aukmyit, written as a dot below.
There are no marks for 2 other tones.
May be the tones are distinguished by Voiced-Voiceless initials.
It is valid to assume the Yin-Yang different so the Middle Chinese is said to have 8-tones rather than 4-tones.

[ongtk]

qrasy,
yes,my myanmar's dict from their goverment says there are 4 tones in their language.But in their dict or other myanmar dict from the west,there are no words like chinese and thai,laos with one word exactly same vowel and consonant but with different tones.
So I cannot consider myanmar is a tonal language.By the way,myanmar script is from Mon which isn't burmese own invention.

[AlexNg]

qrasy,
yes,my myanmar's dict from their goverment says there are 4 tones in their language.But in their dict or other myanmar dict from the west,there are no words like chinese and thai,laos with one word exactly same vowel and consonant but with different tones.
So I cannot consider myanmar is a tonal language.By the way,myanmar script is from Mon which isn't burmese own invention.

Myanmar/tibetan are both tonal languages. In fact both these groups are genetically related to the chinese which was separated from each other many thousand years ago.

The sino-tibetan (which are all tonal and monosyllabic) consists of 3 branches:

1. sino branch - min, wu, mandarin, cantonese, hakka etc

2. tibetan/burmese

3. tai, laos


We are debating whether vietnamese belongs to the tai branch which has the characteristics of adjective after noun eg. chicken male instead of male chicken.

The writing system doesn't dictate the language family (tai obviously borrowed from sanskrit, an indian language). I suspect the same goes for burmese and mon languages (though not certain about this) due to the indian influence in the past (buddhism).

[ongtk]

who said that burmese,mon,tibet are monosyllabic languages like chinese.
burmese,mon,tibet have to use a few vowel and consonant to form a word but not chinese.Chinese languages cannot form a sanskrit word easily but thai ,burmese ,english can easily to do.
Burmese and tibet are more about vowel length for different tones but unlike chinese and thai whereby we have to learn a same word formation in different tones to get different meaning for it.

[ongtk]

see here saying few of the tibetan-burma are monosyllabic at the same sense.
many tiibetan -burmese are tone languages but seems to be a secondary feature.
most of them unanalyzable polysyllables.
http://thor.prohosting.com/~linguist/burmese.htm

[ongtk]

there are web pages saying that thai language are monosyllabic like chinese but I cannot see it is mono like chinese in a true sense