I just read one of your posts and you said Vietnamese language has 6 tones and there are:
yin ping = bang
yang ping = huyen
yin shang = hoi
yang shang = nga
yin qu = sac
yang qu = nang
....i think there should be only 5 tones because tones yin shang and yang shang sound the same for me. PLease correct me if i'm wrong!
This is for James Campbell
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James Campbell
Re: This is for James Campbell
Dear Yue,
(Please set your browser to view in UTF-8 or Unicode to view the Vietnamese correctly)
The more or less standard Vietnamese that I was referring to was that spoken in Hà Nội (Hanoi) in northern Vietnam which makes a distinction of 6 tones, as is also reflected in Vietnamese script with the ~ and ? tone markings.
The Vietnamese you're talking about is a southern a dialect where dấu hỏi and dấu ngã have merged and now both sound like the northern dấu ngã tone. This is typical of Vietnamese as spoken in Sài Gòn (Saigon).
For example, in your Vietnamese, you probably don't make any difference in pronunciation between these two words:
sửa : to fix or repair
sữa : milk
But notice they are written with two different tones, and these are distinguishable in northern Vietnam.
There are also other differences in pronunciation. Northern Vietnamese follows the written word very closely, while southern Vietnamese much less. A few examples are in the endings of the following words:
-uan in Saigon is pronounced like -uang
-uanh is -uan
-uach is -uat
-uat is -uak
-uân is -ưng
-ươi is -ư i
yêu (love) is pronounced like yiu
It is not uncommon in China for neighboring cities who speak the same language to have completely different tonal patterns. The mainly two widespread dialects in Vietnam with mostly similar tones is quite amazing when considering the distance and when compared with dialects in China. This might also have something to do with the writing system: despite low literacy, accurate tone markings have been used in Vietnamese quốc ngữ (國語) writing for ~300 years now, contributing to uniform pronunciations nation-wide.
I hope this helps clear it up.
James Campbell
(Please set your browser to view in UTF-8 or Unicode to view the Vietnamese correctly)
The more or less standard Vietnamese that I was referring to was that spoken in Hà Nội (Hanoi) in northern Vietnam which makes a distinction of 6 tones, as is also reflected in Vietnamese script with the ~ and ? tone markings.
The Vietnamese you're talking about is a southern a dialect where dấu hỏi and dấu ngã have merged and now both sound like the northern dấu ngã tone. This is typical of Vietnamese as spoken in Sài Gòn (Saigon).
For example, in your Vietnamese, you probably don't make any difference in pronunciation between these two words:
sửa : to fix or repair
sữa : milk
But notice they are written with two different tones, and these are distinguishable in northern Vietnam.
There are also other differences in pronunciation. Northern Vietnamese follows the written word very closely, while southern Vietnamese much less. A few examples are in the endings of the following words:
-uan in Saigon is pronounced like -uang
-uanh is -uan
-uach is -uat
-uat is -uak
-uân is -ưng
-ươi is -ư i
yêu (love) is pronounced like yiu
It is not uncommon in China for neighboring cities who speak the same language to have completely different tonal patterns. The mainly two widespread dialects in Vietnam with mostly similar tones is quite amazing when considering the distance and when compared with dialects in China. This might also have something to do with the writing system: despite low literacy, accurate tone markings have been used in Vietnamese quốc ngữ (國語) writing for ~300 years now, contributing to uniform pronunciations nation-wide.
I hope this helps clear it up.
James Campbell
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yue
Re: This is for James Campbell
Dear James,
thanks for replying to me. Yes, you're correct. I just asked my parent and they told me that only the northern vietnamese speak with 6 tones. I grew up in the south so i only speak with 5 tones. If my memory serves me right, when i was a kid, i was able to distinguise the 6 tones really easy but somehow when i grow up, i only be able to hear 5 tones. Maybe because i haven't been around with northerners for quite a while; i don't know! hehe!
have a good day James!
thanks for replying to me. Yes, you're correct. I just asked my parent and they told me that only the northern vietnamese speak with 6 tones. I grew up in the south so i only speak with 5 tones. If my memory serves me right, when i was a kid, i was able to distinguise the 6 tones really easy but somehow when i grow up, i only be able to hear 5 tones. Maybe because i haven't been around with northerners for quite a while; i don't know! hehe!
have a good day James!