DOCUMENT RESUME ED 125 305 PI 007 896 TITLE A Brief Look at the Vietnamese Language: Sounds and Spellings. General Information Series, No. 6. Indochinese Refugee Education Guides.. INSTITUTION Center for Applied Linguistics, Arlington, Va. PUB DATE [76] NOTE 16p.; For related documents, see FL 007 890-891 and 007 895-899 EDRS PRICE MF-$0.83 HC-$1.67 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Alphabets; Consonants; Indochinese; Language Patterns; Native Speakers; Oral Communication; Orthographic Symbols; *Phonetics; *Phonology; *Pronunciation; Punctuation; Refugees; Second language Learning; *Spelling; Syllables; *Vietnamese; Vowels; Written Language ABSTRACT This short description of the sound and spelling systems of the Vietnamese language is intended for the sponsor, teacher or friend (of Vietnamese refugees) who may have difficulty in . pronouncing Vietnamese names, reading handwriting, or using a Vietnamese-English dictionary or phrasebook. Focusing primarily on the Southern dialect of Vietnamese, the guide discusses such areas as syllable structure, consonants, vowels, tones,punctuation, handwriting, and the Vietnamese alphabet. (Authbr/DE) ******************4*************************************************** Documents acquired by ERIC include many informal unpublished * materials not available from other sources. ERIC makes everyeffort * * to obtain the best copy available. Nevertheless, items ofmarginal * * reproducibility are often encountered and this affects thequality * * of the microfiche and hardcopy reproductions EPIC makesavailable * * via the ERIC Document Reproduction Service (EDRS). EDRSis not * responsible for the quality of the original document.Reproductions * * supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from theoriginal. *********************************************************************** U.S.DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION &WELFARE "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS COPY- NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF RIGHTED MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HASBEEN REPRO. ()LICE() EXACTLY ASRECEIVED FROM J. ORGANIZATION ORIGIN- T'E,C AND ORGANIZAT THE PERSON OR VIEW OR OPINIONS S, ERATING ATING IT POINTS OF UNDER AGREEMENTS WITH THE NATIONAL IN- STATED DO NOTNEcEssmatLy REPRE- STITUTE OF EDUCATION. FURTHER REPRO- NATIONAL INSTITUTEOF SENT OFFICIAL POLICY DUCTION OUTSIDE THE ERIC SYSTEM RE- EDUCATION POSITION OR QUIRES PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT OWNER." GENERAL INFORMATION SERIES:A Brief Look at the Vietnamese Language: Sounds and Spellings The purpose of this bulletin is to give a shortdescriklon of the sound and spelling systems of the Vietnamese language. The information pre- sented here will be useful to the sponsor, teacher or friend inpractical matters such as pronouncing Vietnamese names, readinghandwriting and using a Vietnamese-English dictionary or phrasebook. We hope, however, that the information in this bulletin will have the furthereffect of stimulating the American to learn more about the Vietnamese languageand culture, both for his own enjoyment, and for the benefit of the Viet- namese with' whom he comes into contact. We will, throughout the bulletin, be talking about the sounds and tones of Vietnamese, and how -they differ from those of English. But written descriptions of sounds, no matter,how detailed, are a poor substitute for hearing the sounds and noting the differences first-hand. We en- courage the reader, therefore, to ask a nativespeaker of Vietnamese to demonstrate the sounds whenever possible, and have included numerous LL examples of Vietnamese words for this purpose. The teacher is also en- couraged to try imitating the native speaker's pronunciation, notonly for an understanding of Vietnamese phonology, but also for anincreased appreciation of his student's difficulties in learning English. Pronunciation of the Vietnamese words will vary slightly from speaker to speaker, depending on where in Vietnam the speaker comes from: there are three major dialects, Northern, Central and Southern.While these dia- lects differ, sometimes very markedly, a speaker of one of themhas no great difficulty understanding or communicating with aspeaker of another. In general, we are describing the Southerndialect, which is spoken in Saigon. fSyllablestructure) Vietnamese is a monosyllabic language!:all words consist of only one syllable. Moreover, the syllables themselves alwaysconsist of one or the other of the combinations of consonants andvowels listed below: 'slow' A. One, two or three vowels; e.g.,o 'checkerboard square',61 (as in business), ao 'pond', ai 'who?', oai'impressive-looking'. 'three', ca 'Miss', B. Consonant + one, two, or three vowels; e.g., ba tai 'I', bao 'bag', tiAl 'black pepper', xoay 'pirouette'. C. One, or two vowels + consonant; e.g., em'younger sibling', an 'favor', Ilan 'rotten', oan 'unjust'. cam D. Consonant + one, two, or three vowels + consonant; e.g., 'orange', cifc 'chrysanthemum',tan 'week', man 'borrow', tuye't 'snow'. Note that while vowels can occur togetherin Vietnamese syllables, conso- nants cannot: there are no consonant clusters in Vietnamese. (Consonants I Vietnamese consonants are for the most partroughly similar to parallel consonants in English. But their distribution -- their occurrence,either initial (at the beginningor final (at theend) in syllables -- often differs from "their distribution in English,and their exact pronunciation differs in subtle but noticeable ways fromthe pronunciation of their English counterparts. The Vietnamese consonants are listed on thefollowing pages. The letter of the alphabet is given first, then itsdistribution, then the sound it represents, and then an example. CONSONANTS POSITION SOUND EXAMPLE LETTER initial bk as in loxskill baca 'three''sing' -cc- e,finalinitial e, i,following excepty beforeddd k as in take nhacsacp'strength' 'music' 5 5 e .......,u6V 9...m, -c ao,final2 ^o,1 ufollowingf ...,II 2k as in stop,take, andsimul- du&khOccdc 'torch''chrysanthemum''weep' ch- initial willchsoundtaneously as sometimeslikein chop (ita 2) will (itsound ITIKchacho 'give''father''mildew' -ch final moret as inlike lit y-) archda 'skin' itarge d- initial yd as in youngdone 21.di 'go''chicken' e,initial e, i except before English.doesn'tish g as exist inLike lags in Span- goylli 'wood' 'record' Ell:EA: e,initial e, i before ysame as insound yard as g gi5 'old''hour' I,- initial h as in hat hai 'two' . CONSONANTS LETTERk- initialPOSITION before e, g, k as SOUNDin skill (same ka 'narrate'EXAMPLE kh- i,initial x English.doesn'tchsound as asin existc)ach)(German in c.hLAini 'no' m-,1- -m initial,initial final m1 as in laneman, dim manamlgn 'ghost' 'go'south' up' -nn- finalinitial following i, e n asas inin noten Wg.xinno 'full''beg''arrive' -n a,5,final o,following 8, d,u a, i,^ Liz as in_Eau hOnhimcfan 'kiss''knit' 1.0 final following o, o, u ciationalternativejustsamelisted belowas justfromfor above: pronun--RAng aslisted Ianson 'short''lipstick' -.la ufinal following o, o,A ngeouslyaslike asin m)in sum(it long, simultan-will and sound m lIngRhammong 'hair''hope''velvet' -ngnh- tnitialg,final e, 11following a, g, nyng as in canyonsnag hangnhax'a-bents 'house''cave' 'crowbar' -p-nh final following a, e, i 2n as in toten -,--bepxinhxanhle"nh 'kitchen' 'cute''blue''order' CONSONANTS LETTER I initialPOSITION f as inSOUND Philip phepEXAMPLE 'permit' 1:11.-911- initial wkw as as in in wet suire, or quara 'go'cross out' over' s-r- initial . rsh as as in in raw show so 'number' -tt- initi-1final following ;, i t as in litstop toiit 'little''I' -t 5,final e, o,following u, 6, d, a, dg, k as in take motbotvg'tphut 'foam''one' 'trace''minute' -t final following o, 8, u ciationalternativetakejust andabove: from 2 as pronun-k-t inas listed 122in 'hitmotbot 'one''foam''minute' th- initial willsimultaneously.t as soundin time. like Ita It 2.will thd 'letter' tr- initial asoundtr long as asinh afterward.thoghstrong there is tre 'bamboo' v-x- initial 2....Tyvs as inas invan,sing revue or xinvdOn 'beg' 'garden' - [Vowels 1 The vowels of Vietnamese, like the consonants, areby and large similar to parallel vowels in English.Again, though, they differ from their counterparts in subtle but noticeable ways. They are listed below: the letter of the alphabet is given first,then the sound it represents, then a Vietnamese example. VOWELS LETTER SOUND EXAMPLE 'go' i ee as in beet e ay as in play dg 'dike' xe 'vehicle' e e as in bet, or a as inbat. It will sound like both or either d more or less like uh asin love td 'silk' 6 o as in Lo t8 'bowl' xu 'cent' u oo as in too, boot like oo as in book, but with td 'fourth' the lips spread ca 'sing' a like a as in father g like a, only shorter in length an 'eat' can 'weigh' g like o, only shorter in length to 'big' o like a, but with lips rounded y same sound as i ly 'glass' [Tones The most interesting -- and difficult tolearn -- aspect of Vietnamese every word is its tones. Vietnamese, like Chinese, is a tonelanguage: has a particular tone always associatedwith it, and if a speaker does not pronounce the correct tonefor a word, he either mispronounces the word, or pronounces another word entirely. 7 (English has 'tones' too, but they areassociated with sentences rather the difference in meaning than words, and called'intonation patterns': between "Now?" and "Now.", orbetween "He's a doctor?" and"He's a doctor.", is expressed by differentintonation patterns.) each rep- There are five tones in theSouthern dialect of Vietnamese, resented in the spelling system by amark (called a diacritic) over or under one of the vowels in thesyllable. In the chart below, the tones the tone is given, then its are listed. First, the Vietnamese name of diacritic, then a rough Englishdescription, then examples. Examples Vietnamese Diacritic English Name Description co 'flex', ban'committee' EMU a mid-level (no marking) . co 'have', Ian 'sell' Sgc a high-rising ca 'stork', ban 'table' Huygn a low-falling 9 c; 'grass', ba/ n 'copy' HOi or lizi a or g mid-rising ban a low-rising co 'scrub-brush', 41-g -r friend' dialect There is another tone, theLigg tone (i), which in the Southern sounds the same as theHOi tone (i).