Vietnamese Relationship with Chinese Languages

[HashiriKata]

Has anybody (including the person who so blithely posted the link) read it through carefully enough to see whether this particular thesis holds water?

I looked briefly into what the author was saying and I must say I'm not convinced of what he was saying. This is only an impression and I do not wish to go further than stating my impression. To the author credit, he must have spent an inordinate amount of time for the work; so in order to disprove what he said in a reasonable manner, one has to be prepared to spend more time than I did to look into it.

Anyway, I admire the author's dogged determination (If I had a similar degree of determination, I would no doubt try to prove the theory that Japanese and Vietnamese are of a common linguistic ancestry ).

[Zhao Hanqing]

If Korean and Japanese are languages different from Chinese, the same is true of Vietnamese. If Vietnam were still part of China, Vietnamese would have been regarded as a dialect of Chinese most probably.

[HashiriKata]

If Vietnam were still part of China, Vietnamese would have been regarded as a dialect of Chinese most probably.

Interesting logic, Zhao Hanqing! In the same way, if India, Hong Kong, etc. were still parts of the UK, the languages spoken in India and Hong Kong should be considered dialects of English, right?

[nnt]

if India, Hong Kong, etc. were still parts of the UK, the languages spoken in India and Hong Kong should be considered dialects of English

To HashiriKata :

What about Taiwan and Manchuria between 1930 and 1945?

(sh)

[HashiriKata]

My question is rhetorical, so you should know my answer to your question.

BTW, when you quote a question without including the question mark, the question turns into a statement: a dangerous omission!

Incidentally, I'll be visiting Vietnam next week. I suppose you're from the South?

[nnt]

My question is rhetorical, so you should know my answer to your question

I know the answer, that's the reason why I put the smiley

Presently, I'm not in Vietnam , and I was born in the North (North of Vietnam, not in the historical sense of 北國 , as someone would wishfully think )

[HashiriKata]

Ok, in that case I'll say "Hello" to North Vietnam on your behalf. I'll be travelling in the North and North of the Central areas.

Just to get back to the topic and for the benefit of those who think all spoken in China is Chinese: There are many languages in China which are still officially regarded as languages and not dialects of Chinese: Mongolian, Tibetan, languages in Xinjiang regions, to give just a few.

[shanli]

I found this site pretty interested.

http://www.sungwh.freeserve.co.uk/chinese/guangyun-sino-viet-rhymes.htm

[pazu]

I think it always lead to some debate as to whether a language is a dialect of another language, every language resembles other languages in some way. I guess not even one less-informed Chinese would think Thai is a Chinese dialect, yet the numbers are quite similar neung (伶?), song (雙), sam si ha hok jet pet gao sip, etc.

I always found it interesting that although Vietnamese borrowed so much Chinese words, they developed a very different number system, which seems to be more similar to Khmer (?).

I think one fellow here had already made a very valid point, the Vietnamese minority in China is called Kinh and they are speaking Kinh language, officially a different language from Chinese. On every RMB note you can find 6 languages (or 5 if you don't consider "yuan" an English word) on the back, one of them is Cunghgoz Yinzmminz Yinzhangz it bakmaenz, the Zhuang equivalent of Zhongguo Renmin Yinhang Yibai Yuan. Obviously the Zhuang language has a lot similarity with Chinese, but I haven't heard any Chinese claiming Zhuang as a Chinese dialect. Why?

But those Han Viet terms are still very common in daily conversion, I don't mean Vietnamese speaking Mandarin or Cantonese, but in many cases I could just guess the meaning of some new words when I was in Vietnam.

Here are some examples:

業務,

產婦科,

超音.

And to Ferno, I do understand your concern because the same Chinese pronunciation can results in many meanings, I'm not quite sure how to clearly answer your question, I guess I'd better give you some examples.

Check these 7 characters again,

業務,

產婦科,

超音.

The above words, without changing the root meanings, can be used to form some other Han Viet terms. You can use the Vietnamese equvilants almost the same as Chinese words.

E.g.

dich (sorry I can't think of others, NNT, can you give us some suggestions?)

vu = 務, thus 服務 phuc vu ("vu" being the same root as the "vu" in "dich vu".)

san = 產, thus 產出 san xuat (or simply ngay SX as you see on food products).

phu = 婦, thus 婦女 phu nu

khoa = 科, thus 科學 khoa hoc

sieu = 超, thus 超市 sieu thi ("s" is usually changed to "t", as in sam -> tam = heart)

or 超人 sieu nhan

am = 音, thus 音量 am luong

If you know Chinese and Vietnamese well, you can always try to guess some similarity between the two, sometimes the phonetic pattern in Chinese can be applied to Vietnamese too.

Citing the above examples again,

e.g. am = 音 = /yin/, same as 陰 in Chinese, and thus 陰曆 am lich, 陰陽 am duong (Yin and Yang, or Minus and Positive).

[pazu]

And to Ferno again, this is another picture for you to guess:

Trung Ngyuen, Huong Sac Tay Nguyen.

My Vietnamese isn't that good but I can still guess the meaning based on my Cantonese knowledge.

Tip: Remember "T" in Vietnamese can usually be "S" in Cantonese. So Tay is similar to Say.

[HashiriKata]

the numbers are quite similar neung (伶?), song (雙), sam si ha hok jet pet gao sip, etc.

These are borrowed from Chinese, so no wonder they sound like Chinese .

By the way, 業務 are not the right characters for "dich vu". Dich vu = 役务 (service). I can't find 役务 in Chinese but it is still used in Japanese & Vietnamese.

[pazu]

Thanks HashiriKata, for reminding me that "dich" should be 役, I went for a wrong direction. And now with this information, I can think of some other words with a similar pronunciation but written in different Chinese characters.

役 = 疫 = 譯 = /dich/ (Vietnamese) = /yik/ (Cantonese),

e.g. mien dich = 免疫 (immune).

e.g. dich thuat = 譯術 (translation), note: "th" is also changed from "s".

I'm sure most Cantonese speakers can deduce the meaning of "mien dich" upon first hearing, or vice versa.

[Mark Yong]

Just curious: I am aware that Romanisation has effectively replaced the use of Chinese characters in Vietnam. But is there still a sizeable number of Vietnamese who can actually still read Chinese characters, and therefore are able to (consciously or sub-consciously) map their vocabulary to Chinese characters?

[HashiriKata]

But is there still a sizeable number of Vietnamese who can actually still read Chinese characters

No, there isn't. Anyone there who knows Chinese characters would have had to learn it as a foreign or classical language (There are ethnic Chinese communities, but I don't think you mean these because there are special Chinese language schools for them).

[Ian_Lee]

How come in Vietnamese there is the 7th day of the week?

In Chinese, it is the Lord's Day (Sunday), then the 1st day of the week (Mon) till the 6th day of the week (Sat).

But in Vietnamese, it is also the Lord's Day (Sunday), then the 2nd day of the week (Mon) till the 7th day of the week (Sat).

I think the Italian priests (who first introduced Christianity into China) and the French priest (who first introduced Christianity into Vietnam) must differ on how God created the universe:lol:

[Koneko]

Why not? Wouldn't it be really boring if everything's the same?

They truly understand the cosmic concept of diversity, I think.

They even replaced "rabbit" to "cat" in Chinese Zodiac.

Meow meow!

K.

[HashiriKata]

In Chinese, it is the Lord's Day (Sunday), then the 1st day of the week (Mon) till the 6th day of the week (Sat).

But in Vietnamese, it is also the Lord's Day (Sunday), then the 2nd day of the week (Mon) till the 7th day of the week (Sat).

Then, in Chinese, the first day of the week is Monday whereas in Vietnamese, the first day of the week is Sunday, so Monday is logically the 2nd day of the week.

Even among us in the West, some consider the first day of the week is Sunday, other Monday. Try looking at the default Windows calendar on your computer and compare it with the one displayed on this site: http://www.kidsdomain.com/holiday/patrick/

They look very different, don't they?

[Ian_Lee]

Just curious. Can Vietnamese write their own names in Chinese characters like Japanese and Koreans do?

[HashiriKata]

Can Vietnamese write their own names in Chinese characters

Most Vietnamese names are traceable to Chinese characters but very few Vietnamese can write their names in Chinese because, as I said in an earlier post, they don't know how to write Chinese characters.

[Ian_Lee]

If so few Vietnamese can read or write Chinese characters nowadays, then how can they tackle the problems of understanding their classical literature and ancient history?

Since these were all written in Chinese characters and (I guess) Vietnam government and scholars do not have the time and resources to translate all these valuable documents into modern Latinized Vietnamese, two or three generations further down the road, probably hardly anyone in Vietnam can read what their ancestors wrote.

The same problem has already happened in Korea.