This article is a technical description of the sound system of the Vietnamese language, including phonetics and phonology. Two main varieties of Vietnamese, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, are described below.
Contents
- Initial consonants
- Hanoi
- Ho Chi Minh City Saigon
- Reduction of consonant clusters
- Comparison of initials
- Closing sequences
- Final stops
- Hanoi finals
- Analysis of final ch nh
- Saigon finals
- Comparison of finals
- Tone
- Six tone analysis
- Northern varieties
- Southern varieties
- North central and Central varieties
- Eight tone analysis
- Syllables and phonotactics
- References
Initial consonants
Initial consonants which exist only in the Hanoi dialect are in red, while those that exist only in the Saigon dialect are in blue.
Hanoi
Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)
Reduction of consonant clusters
In the Saigonese dialect, all initial consonant + /w/ clusters have been reduced:
Comparison of initials
In Hanoian Vietnamese, d, gi and r are all pronounced /z/, while x and s are both pronounced /s/. The table below summarizes these sound correspondences:
The IPA chart of vowel nuclei to the right is based on the sounds in Hanoi Vietnamese, (i.e., other regions of Vietnam may have different inventories). Vowel nuclei consist of monophthongs (i.e., simple vowels) and three centering diphthongs.
Closing sequences
In Vietnamese, vowel nuclei are able to combine with offglides /j/ or /w/ to form closing diphthongs and triphthongs. Below is a chart listing the closing sequences of general northern speech.
Thompson (1965) says that in Hanoi, words spelled with ưu and ươu are pronounced /iw, iəw/, respectively, whereas other dialects in the Tonkin delta pronounce them as /ɨw/ and /ɨəw/. Hanoi speakers that do pronounce these words with /ɨw/ and /ɨəw/ are using only a spelling pronunciation.
Final stops
When stops /p, t, k/ occur at the end of words, they have no audible release ([p̚, t̚, k̚]):
When the velar consonants /k, ŋ/ are after /u/, /ɔ/ and /o/, they are articulated with a simultaneous bilabial closure [k͡p̚, ŋ͡m] (i.e. doubly articulated) or are strongly labialized [kʷ̚, ŋʷ].
Hanoi finals
Vietnamese rimes ending with velar consonants have been diphthongized in the Hanoian dialect:
The monophthongal variants are now mainly heard in the Nghệ An, Hà Tĩnh ([ɔːŋ], [ɔːk], [oːŋ], [oːk]) and a few South Central Coast dialects ([eːŋ], [eːk]), and have been diphthongized in most Northern and Southern varieties (not to be confused with the palatalized recognitions of on [ɔːŋ], ot [ɔːk], ôn [oːŋ], ôt [oːk] in Southern varieties).
Analysis of final ch, nh
The pronunciation of syllable-final ch and nh in Hanoi Vietnamese has had different analyses. One analysis, that of Thompson (1965) has them as being phonemes /c, ɲ/, where /c/ contrasts with both syllable-final t /t/ and c /k/ and /ɲ/ contrasts with syllable-final n /n/ and ng /ŋ/. Final /c, ɲ/ is, then, identified with syllable-initial /c, ɲ/.
Another analysis has final ⟨ch⟩ and ⟨nh⟩ as representing predictable allophonic variants of the velar phonemes /k/ and /ŋ/ that occur after upper front vowels /i/ (orthographic ⟨i⟩) and /e/ (orthographic ⟨ê⟩). This analysis interprets orthographic ⟨ach⟩ and ⟨anh⟩ as an underlying /ɛ/, which becomes phonetically open and diphthongized: /ɛk/ → [ăi̯k̟], /ɛŋ/ → [ăi̯ŋ̟].
Arguments for the second analysis include the limited distribution of final [c] and [ɲ], the gap in the distribution of [k] and [ŋ] which do not occur after [i] and [e], the pronunciation of ⟨ach⟩ and ⟨anh⟩ as [ɛc] and [ɛɲ] in certain conservative central dialects, and the patterning of [k]~[c] and [ŋ]~[ɲ] in certain reduplicated words. Additionally, final [c] is not usually articulated as far forward as the initial [c]: [c] and [ɲ] are pre-velar [k̟, ŋ̟].
The first analysis closely follows the surface pronunciation of a slightly different Hanoi dialect than the second. In this dialect, the /a/ in /ac/ and /aɲ/ is not diphthongized but is actually articulated more forward, approaching a front vowel [æ]. This results in a three-way contrast between the rimes ăn [æ̈n] vs. anh [æ̈ɲ] vs. ăng [æ̈ŋ]. For this reason, a separate phonemic /ɲ/ is posited.
Saigon finals
While the variety of Vietnamese spoken in Hanoi has preserved finals faithfully from old Vietnamese, the variety spoken in Saigon has drastically changed its finals. There were two steps in the development of rimes in the Saigonese dialect from old Vietnamese. In the first step, -ch and -nh merged with -t and -n, while rimes ending in /t, n/ (except after /i, e/) merged with /k, ŋ/. In the second step, vowels in alveolar rimes became centralized, analogous to the diphthongization in the Hanoian dialect.
Comparison of finals
Below is a table of rimes ending in /n, t, ŋ, k/ for the Hanoian dialect:
In the Saigonese dialect, /k, ŋ/ merged with /t, n/ after /a, i, ɛ/, and vice versa in the rest of the cases:
Note:
1. Combinations that changed their pronunciation due to merger are bolded.
2. The Northern (Hanoian) anh, ênh and inh have a /j/ glide after the vowel.
3. The Southern (Saigonese) ot retains a regular (elongated) o vowel with a /k/ ending as opposed to the orthographic oc. Similarly, the Southern ôt retains its regular (elongated) ô vowel but bilabial closure occurs as with the orthographic ôc.
Tone
Vietnamese vowels are all pronounced with an inherent tone. Tones differ in
Unlike many Native American, African, and Chinese languages, Vietnamese tones do not rely solely on pitch contour. Vietnamese often uses instead a register complex (which is a combination of phonation type, pitch, length, vowel quality, etc.). So perhaps a better description would be that Vietnamese is a register language and not a "pure" tonal language.
In Vietnamese orthography, tone is indicated by diacritics written above or below the vowel.
Six-tone analysis
There is much variation among speakers concerning how tone is realized phonetically. There are differences between varieties of Vietnamese spoken in the major geographic areas (i.e. northern, central, southern) and smaller differences within the major areas (e.g. Hanoi vs. other northern varieties). In addition, there seems to be variation among individuals. More research is needed to determine the remaining details of tone realization and the variation among speakers.
Northern varieties
The six tones in the Hanoi and other northern varieties are:
Ngang tone:
Huyền tone:
Hỏi tone:
Ngã tone:
Sắc tone:
Nặng tone:
Southern varieties
The Southern variety is similar through all tones except for the nặng tone, which is pronounced [˨˧]. Many of those speaking Southern dialects will omit using the ngã tone and replace it with the hỏi tone.
North-central and Central varieties
North-central and Central Vietnamese varieties are fairly similar with respect to tone although within the North-central dialect region there is considerable internal variation.
It is sometimes said (by people from other provinces) that people from Nghệ An pronounce every tone as a nặng tone.
Eight-tone analysis
An older analysis assumes eight tones rather than six. This follows the lead of traditional Chinese phonology. In Middle Chinese, normal syllables allowed for three tonal distinctions, but syllables ending with /p/, /t/ or /k/ had no tonal distinctions. Rather, they were consistently pronounced with in a short high tone, which was called the entering tone and considered a fourth tone. Similar considerations lead to the identification of two additional tones in Vietnamese for syllables ending in /p/, /t/ and /k/. These are not phonemically distinct, however, and hence not considered as separate tones by modern linguists.
Syllables and phonotactics
According to Hannas (1997), there are 4,500 to 4,800 possible spoken syllables (depending on dialect), and the standard national orthography (Quốc Ngữ) can represent 6,200 syllables (Quốc Ngữ orthography represents more phonemic distinctions than are made by any one dialect). A description of syllable structure and exploration of its patterning according to the Prosodic Analysis approach of J.R. Firth is given in Henderson (1966).
The Vietnamese syllable structure follows the scheme:
Hanoi: (C1)(w)V(G|C2)+TSaigon: (C1)V(G|C2)+Twhere
In other words, a syllable has an obligatory nucleus and tone, and can have an optional consonant onset, an optional on-glide /w/ (Hanoi only), and an optional coda or off-glide.
More explicitly, the syllable types are as follows:
C1: Any consonant may occur in as an onset with the following exceptions:
w: the onglide /w/ (sometimes transcribed instead as labialization [ʷ] on a preceding consonant):
V: The vowel nucleus V may be any of the following 14 monophthongs or diphthongs: /i, ɨ, u, e, ə, o, ɛ, ə̆, ɔ, ă, a, iə̯, ɨə̯, uə̯/.
G: The offglide may be /j/ or /w/. Together, V and G must form one of the diphthongs or triphthongs listed in the section on Vowels.
C2: The optional coda C2 is restricted to labial, coronal, and velar stops and nasals /p, t, k, m, n, ŋ/, which cannot cooccur with the offglides /j, w/.
T: Syllables are spoken with an inherent tone contour: