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Vietnamese phonology
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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 which exist only in the Northern dialect are in red, while those that exist only in the Southern dialect are in blue.
As mentioned above, the only cluster in Vietnamese is /Cw/ in which /C/ 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 /Cw/, there are two patterns in this simplification process. In one pattern the consonant is deleted and /w/ remains. In the other, /w/ is deleted while the consonant remains:
The table below summarizes these sound correspondences:
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 /i e ɛ a ɤ ɯ u o ɔ/ and three falling diphthongs /iə ɯə uə/, although other acoustic analysis suggests eleven monophthongs /i e ɛ a ɐ ʌ ɤ ɯ u o ɔ/ and three diphthongs /ie/, /ɯɤ/ and /uo/.
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 /ɯw/ and /ɯəw/. This observation is also made by Kirby (2011).
When stops /p, t, k/ occur at the end of words, they have no audible release ([p̚, t̚, k̚]):
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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 which exist only in the Northern dialect are in red, while those that exist only in the Southern dialect are in blue.
As mentioned above, the only cluster in Vietnamese is /Cw/ in which /C/ 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 /Cw/, there are two patterns in this simplification process. In one pattern the consonant is deleted and /w/ remains. In the other, /w/ is deleted while the consonant remains:
The table below summarizes these sound correspondences:
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 /i e ɛ a ɤ ɯ u o ɔ/ and three falling diphthongs /iə ɯə uə/, although other acoustic analysis suggests eleven monophthongs /i e ɛ a ɐ ʌ ɤ ɯ u o ɔ/ and three diphthongs /ie/, /ɯɤ/ and /uo/.
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 /ɯw/ and /ɯəw/. This observation is also made by Kirby (2011).
When stops /p, t, k/ occur at the end of words, they have no audible release ([p̚, t̚, k̚]):