Vietnamese phonology

The phonology of Vietnamese features 19 consonant phonemes, with 5 additional consonant phonemes used in Vietnamese's Southern dialect, and 4 exclusive to the Northern dialect. Vietnamese also has 14 vowel nuclei, and 6 tones that are integral to the interpretation of the language. Older interpretations of Vietnamese tones differentiated between "sharp" and "heavy" entering and departing tones. 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 Saigon, which are slightly different from each other, are described below.

Initial consonants Initial consonants which exist only in the Northern dialect are in red, while those that exist only in the Southern dialect are in blue. Labial Dental/Alveolar Retroflex(Alveolo-)palatal Velar Glottal Nasal Plosive/Affricate unaspirated () () aspirated implosive affricate () Fricativevoiceless voiced Approximant Rhotic /w/ is the only consonant sound permitted to form consonant clusters with other consonants. In many regions of Northern Vietnam, the pair and have merged into one, they are no longer two opposing phonemes. Some native Vietnamese speakers who lack linguistic knowledge stigmatize pronouncing the initial consonant of a word whose orthographic form begins with the letter l as or n as , calling it nói ngọng ().Hoàng Thị Châu. Phương ngữ học tiếng Việt. Nhà xuất bản Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội, 2004, page 137. The phenomenon of no longer distinguishing from in words whose orthographic form begins with the letter n or l has three manifestations:Tạ Thành Tấn, Nguyễn Văn Lợi. “Ngữ âm thổ ngữ Phục Lễ và hệ thống chữ Quốc ngữ hiện nay”, Ngôn ngữ và đời sống, volume 7 (249), July 2016, page 66. The initial consonant of all words whose orthographic form begins with n or l is . The initial consonant of all words is . In some words, the initial consonant corresponding to the letter n at the beginning of the spelling form of the word is , with l being , in some other words the sound corresponding to n is , with l being . In Northern dialects, some words have the initial consonant as the voiced palatal nasal , such as nhuộm, nhức, nhỏ (nhỏ in nhỏ giọt, not nhỏ in nhỏ bé), nhổ, nhốt, have phonetic variants with the initial consonant . This sound is written with the letter d or gi or r depending on the word (at least one of those three letters, sometimes two, or even all three).Nguyễn Tài Cẩn. Giáo trình lịch sử ngữ âm tiếng Việt (sơ thảo). Nhà xuất bản Giáo dục, 1995, pages 27–29. Some words with the initial consonant being the voiced velar nasal also have phonetic variants with the initial consonant being the voiced velar fricative , which are used in some places in the North. For example, the words ngáy (ngáy in ngáy ngủ), ngẫm (ngẫm in suy ngẫm) also have phonetic variants gáy, gẫm.Nguyễn Tài Cẩn. Giáo trình lịch sử ngữ âm tiếng Việt (sơ thảo). Nhà xuất bản Giáo dục, 1995, pages 31–32. In Northern dialects, the voiceless bilabial plosive is only the initial consonant in a few loanwords from other languages, mainly from French. In writing, the sound is written with the letter p, as in sâm panh, derived from French champagne.Nguyễn Văn Phúc. Ngữ âm tiếng Việt thực hành. Nhà xuất bản Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội, 2006, page 147. Not every word in another language that has the initial consonant have the corresponding Vietnamese loanword with the initial consonant . In some words, the sound is replaced by the sound . For example, both syllables of the word búp bê (derived from the French word poupée /pu.pe/) have the initial consonant , not .Milton E. Barker. The Phonological Adaptation of French Loanwords in Vietnamese, Mon-Khmer Studies, Volume 3, 1969, page 140. In Southern dialects, the initial consonant of words whose spelling form begins with the letter p is in many speakers.Ben Phạm, Sharynne McLeod. “Consonants, vowels and tones across Vietnamese dialects”, International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, Volume 18, Issue 2 2016, pages 124–126. The glottalized stops are preglottalized and voiced: (the glottis is always closed before the oral closure). This glottal closure is often not released before the release of the oral closure, resulting in the characteristic implosive pronunciation. However, sometimes the glottal closure is released prior to the oral release in which case the stops are pronounced . Therefore, the primary characteristic is preglottalization with implosion being secondary. are bilabial, while are labiodental. are denti-alveolar (), while are apico-alveolar. are phonetically lamino-alveolar. are often slightly affricated , but they are unaspirated. A glottal stop is inserted before words that begin with a vowel or in Northern dialects:

{| cellpadding="5" style="line-height: 1.0em;" | ăn | 'to eat' | | →

| uỷ | 'to delegate' | | →

Hanoi initials are denti-lamino-alveolar: . is apico-alveolar: . d, gi and r are all pronounced . ch and tr are both pronounced , while x and s are both pronounced . The highly salient (and socially stigmatized) merger of and as mentioned above, characteristic of the speech of many lower- and working-class Vietnamese in the Red River Delta, is sometimes consciously manipulated to humorous and/or pejorative effect in colloquial Hanoi speech. occur in a small number of foreign (mainly French) loans, e.g. < panne 'breakdown', < garage, < billiard. For many speakers, however, is realized as and as . There are no retroflex consonants , , ; instead there are palato-alveolar consonants: , , in spelling pronunciations taught in schools.

Saigon initials is apico-alveolar . is palatalized lamino-alveolar: . Some people pronounce d as , and gi as in situations where the distinction is necessary. Most people pronounce both as . Historically, is pronounced in common speech, merging with d and gi. However, it is becoming distinct and pronounced as , especially in careful speech or when reading a text. In traditional performance including Cải lương, Đờn ca tài tử, Hát bội (Tuồng) and some old speakers of Overseas Vietnamese, it is pronounced as consonant cluster or . In loanwords, it is pronounced , or , for example, va li is pronounced , or . Historically, a distinction is made between ch and tr , as well as between x and s . However, in many speakers, these two pairs are becoming merged as and respectively. In southern speech, the phoneme , generally represented in Vietnamese linguistics by the letter , has a number of variant pronunciations depending on the speaker. A person can also have many pronunciations. It may occur as a retroflex fricative , an alveolar approximant , an alveolar flap , a trill , or a tapped fricative/fricative trill . In the border area between Ho Chi Minh City and Long An province (Bình Chánh, Cần Giuộc, Cần Đước), the letter is pronounced as a palatal approximant . In many areas in the Mekong Delta, the letter is pronounced as a velar fricative .

Simplification of consonant clusters in southern dialects As mentioned above, the only cluster in Vietnamese is in which is a consonant. Although this cluster tends to be retained by many young urban people in southern Vietnam, especially in Ho Chi Minh City and surrounding areas, it is generally reduced to one element in southern dialects. Depending on which consonant forms the cluster , there are two patterns in this simplification process. In one pattern the consonant is deleted and remains. In the other, is deleted while the consonant remains: In southern speech, , , and are usually pronounced , including among educated urban speakers. The cluster go is very rare, seen only in goá ‘widowed’. The cluster ngw shows greater loss in rural varieties than in urban ones.

{| cellpadding="5" style="line-height: 1.0em;" |u-/o- |/ʔw/ |→ |u/o

| hu-/ho- | | → | u/o

| qu- | | → | u/o

|go- | |→ |o |/w/ |- |ngu-/ngo- | | → |u/o

However, they are becoming distinct and pronounced as or , , , , and respectively, especially in formal speech or when reading a text. In informal speech, the voiceless velar fricative (represented by the letter kh) is often transformed into the corresponding voiceless bilabial and labiodental consonants , and the prevocalic is deleted, for example: cá khoai is pronounced as cá phai, khóa máy is pronounced as phá máy, khỏe không? is pronounced as phẻ không?. This pronunciation is observed only in rural southern dialects, and it does not occur in the speech of educated speakers. There are only a few words where the bilabial and labiodental consonants are followed by the prevocalic . Most of them are French loanwords, for example: tiền boa (), đậu pơ-ti-poa (), xe buýt (), vải voan (). The initial consonant is kept and the prevocalic is lost and pronounced as: tiền bo, đậu bo, xe bít, vải von. After the consonant clusters of the remaining articulators (alveolar, postalveolar, palatal consonants) followed by the prevocalic , the initial consonant is kept and the prevocalic is lost as above, for example: vô duyên is pronounced as vô diên, cái loa (hát) is pronounced as cái la.

Comparison of initials The table below summarizes these sound correspondences:

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;" ! rowspan="2" | Diaphoneme ! rowspan="2" | Hanoi ! rowspan="2" | Saigon ! colspan="3" | Example |- ! word ! Hanoi ! Saigon |- ! | | or | style="text-align: left;" | vợ 'wife' | | or |- ! rowspan="2" | | rowspan="3" | | rowspan="2" | | style="text-align: left;" | da 'skin' | rowspan="3" | | rowspan="2" | |- | style="text-align: left;" | gia 'to add' |- ! | | style="text-align: left;" | ra 'to go out'

! | or | style="text-align: left;" | sinh 'born' | or

Vowels Vowel nuclei

+ Vietnamese vowelsFrontCentralBackCenteringiə ɯə uə Close Close-mid/Mid () Open-mid/Open ()

The IPA chart of vowel nuclei above is based on the sounds in Hanoi Vietnamese; other regions may have slightly different inventories. Vowel nuclei consist of monophthongs (simple vowels) and three centering diphthongs. The Standard Vietnamese vowel inventory comprises 9 monophthong qualities and three falling diphthongs /iə ɯə uə/, although other acoustic analysis suggests eleven monophthongs and three diphthongs , and .

All vowels are unrounded except for the four back rounded vowels: . In the South, the high vowels are all diphthongized in open syllables: , Ba Vì (). and are pronounced shorter than the other vowels. These short vowels only occur in closed syllables. The vowels and are marginal. As with the other short/long vowel pairs, short and long and are only distinguished in closed syllables. For some speakers the distinction may be one of vowel quality or of the articulation of the syllable coda in addition to or instead of vowel quantity. : Many descriptions, such as Thompson, , , consider this vowel to be close back unrounded: . However, Han's instrumental analysis indicates that it is more central than back. , and also transcribe this vowel as central. But according to Kirby (2011), is frequently realized as mid centralized , leading some authors to transcribe it as (; ).

Closing sequences In Vietnamese, vowel nuclei are able to combine with offglides or to form closing diphthongs and triphthongs. Below is a chartFrom listing the closing sequences of general northern speech.

{| class="wikitable nowrap" style="text-align: center;" ! rowspan="2" | ! colspan="2" | offglide ! colspan="2" | offglide |- ! Front ! colspan="2" | Central ! Back |- ! Centering

! Close

! Close-mid/Mid

| –

! Open-mid/Open

Vietnamese phonology

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