Vietnamese phonology
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.
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.- /w/ is the only initial consonant permitted to form consonant clusters with other consonants.
- occurs syllable-initially only in loan words, but some speakers pronounce as .
- The glottalized stops are preglottalized and voiced: . 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-palatoalveolar .
- are often slightly affricated, but they are unaspirated.
- A glottal stop is inserted before words that begin with a vowel or :
Hanoi initials
- d, gi and r are all pronounced, but r is pronounced in loanwords, for example, cà rốt 'carrot' is pronounced.
- ch and tr are both pronounced, while x and s are both pronounced.
- Some rural speakers merge and into, although this is not considered standard.
Saigon initials
- d and gi are both pronounced, but gi is pronounced in careful speech by some speakers.
- 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 and some old speakers of Overseas Vietnamese, it is pronounced as consonant cluster or. In loanwords, it is always pronounced : va li.
- 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 informal speech,,,, and sometimes are pronounced. However, it is becoming distinct and pronounced as,,, respectively, especially in formal speech or when reading a text.
- Many speakers pronounce as, and it was pronounced like this in Middle Vietnamese.
- In southern speech, the phoneme, generally represented in Vietnamese linguistics by the letter, has a number of variant pronunciations that depend on the speaker. More than one pronunciation may even be found within a single speaker. It may occur as a retroflex fricative, an alveolar approximant , a flap or a trill. Some rural speakers from Mekong Delta pronounced as or, but this is not considered formal.
Comparison of initials
Vowels
Vowel nuclei
Open
The IPA chart of vowel nuclei above is based on the sounds in Hanoi Vietnamese; other regions may have different inventories. Vowel nuclei consist of monophthongs and three centering diphthongs.
- 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 short — shorter than the other vowels.
- While there are small consistent spectral differences between and, it has not been established that they are perceptually significant.
- : 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.
Closing sequences
says that in Hanoi, words spelled with ưu and ươu are pronounced, respectively, whereas other dialects in the Tonkin delta pronounce them as and. This observation is also made by and.
Finals
When stops occur at the end of words, they have no audible release :When the velar consonants are after, they are articulated with a simultaneous bilabial closure or are strongly labialized.
Hanoi finals
Analysis of final ''ch'', ''nh''
The pronunciation of syllable-final ch and nh in Hanoi Vietnamese has had different analyses. One analysis, that of has them as being phonemes, where contrasts with both syllable-final t and c and contrasts with syllable-final n and ng. Final is, then, identified with syllable-initial.Another analysis has final and as representing different spellings of the velar phonemes and that occur after upper front vowels and . This analysis interprets orthographic ⟨ach⟩ and ⟨anh⟩ as an underlying, which becomes phonetically open and diphthongized: →, →. This diphthongization also affects ⟨êch⟩ and ⟨ênh⟩: →, →.
Arguments for the second analysis include the limited distribution of final and, the gap in the distribution of and which do not occur after and, the pronunciation of ⟨ach⟩ and ⟨anh⟩ as and in certain conservative central dialects, and the patterning of ~ and ~ in certain reduplicated words. Additionally, final is not articulated as far forward as the initial : and are pre-velar with no alveolar contact.
The first analysis closely follows the surface pronunciation of a slightly different Hanoi dialect than the second. In this dialect, the in and is not diphthongized but is actually articulated more forward, approaching a front vowel. This results in a three-way contrast between the rimes ăn vs. anh vs. ăng. For this reason, a separate phonemic is posited.
Table of Hanoi finals
The following rimes ending with velar consonants have been diphthongized in the Hanoi dialect, but, and are more open:With the above phonemic analyses, the following is a table of rimes ending in in the Hanoi dialect:
| , | ||||||||||||||
| ăn | an | en | on | ân | ơn | ên | ôn | in | ưn | un | iên | ươn | uôn | |
| ăt | at | et | ot | ât | ơt | êt | ôt | it | ưt | ut | iêt | ươt | uôt | |
| ăng | ang | anh | ong | âng | – | ênh | ông | inh | ưng | ung | iêng | ương | uông | |
| ăc | ac | ach | oc | âc | – | êch | ôc | ich | ưc | uc | iêc | ươc | uôc |
Saigon finals
Merger of finals
While the variety of Vietnamese spoken in Hanoi has retained finals faithfully from Middle Vietnamese, the variety spoken in Ho Chi Minh City has drastically changed its finals. Rimes ending in merged with those ending in, respectively, so they are always pronounced, respectively, after the short front vowels . However, they are always pronounced after the other vowels. After rounded vowels, many speakers close their lips, i.e. they pronounce as. Subsequently, vowels of rimes ending in labiovelars have been diphthongized, while vowels of rimes ending in alveolar have been centralized. Otherwise, some Southern speakers distinguish and after in formal speech, but there are no Southern speakers who pronounce "ch" and "nh" at the end of syllables as.Table of Saigon finals
The short back vowels in the rimes have been diphthongized and centralized, meanwhile, the consonants have been labialized. Similarly, the short front vowels have been centralized which are realized as central vowels and the "unspecified" consonants have been affected by Coronal Spreading from the preceding front vowels which are surfaced as coronals .The other closed dialects which have also been merged in codas, but some vowels are pronounced differently in some dialects:
| Hue | Quang Nam | Binh Dinh | Sai Gon | |
| ung, uc | , | , | , | , |
| un, ut | , | , | , | , |
| ênh, êch | , | , | , | , |
| ên, êt | , | , | , | , |
| inh, ich | , | , | , | , |
| in, it | , | , | , | , |
The ông, ôc rimes is merged into ong, oc as, in many Southern speakers, but not with ôn, ôt as pronounced,. The oong, ooc and eng, ec rimes are few and are mostly loanwords or onomatopoeia. The ôông, ôôc rimes are the "archaric" form before become ông, ôc'' by diphthongization and still exist in North Central dialect in many placenames. The articulation of these rimes in North Central dialect are, without a simultaneous bilabial closure or labialization.
With the above phonemic analyses, the following is a table of rimes ending in in the Saigon dialect:
Tone
Vietnamese vowels are all pronounced with an inherent tone. Tones differ in- pitch
- length
- contour melody
- intensity
- phonation
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 and smaller differences within the major areas. 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:
- The ngang tone is level at around the mid level and is produced with modal voice phonation. Alexandre de Rhodes describes this as "level"; describes it as "high level".
- The huyền tone starts low-mid and falls. Some Hanoi speakers start at a somewhat higher point. It is sometimes accompanied by breathy voice phonation in some speakers, but this is lacking in other speakers: bà =. Alexandre de Rhodes describes this as "grave-lowering"; describes it as "low falling".
- The hỏi tone starts a mid level and falls. It starts with modal voice phonation, which moves increasingly toward tense voice with accompanying harsh voice. In Hanoi, the tone is mid falling. In other northern speakers, the tone is mid falling and then rises back to the mid level. This characteristic gives this tone its traditional description as "dipping". However, the falling-rising contour is most obvious in citation forms or when syllable-final; in other positions and when in fast speech, the rising contour is negligible. The hỏi also is relatively short compared with the other tones, but not as short as the nặng tone. Alexandre de Rhodes describes this as "smooth-rising"; describes it as "dipping-rising".
- The ngã tone is mid rising. Many speakers begin the vowel with modal voice, followed by strong creaky voice starting toward the middle of the vowel, which is then lessening as the end of the syllable is approached. Some speakers with more dramatic glottalization have a glottal stop closure in the middle of the vowel. In Hanoi Vietnamese, the tone starts at a higher pitch than other northern speakers. Alexandre de Rhodes describes this as "chesty-raised"; describes it as "creaking-rising".
- The sắc tone starts as mid and then rises in much the same way as the ngã tone. It is accompanied by tense voice phonation throughout the duration of the vowel. In some Hanoi speakers, the ngã tone is noticeably higher than the sắc tone, for example: sắc = ; ngã = . Alexandre de Rhodes describes this as "acute-angry"; describes it as "high rising".
- The nặng tone starts mid or low-mid and rapidly falls in pitch. It starts with tense voice that becomes increasingly tense until the vowel ends in a glottal stop closure. This tone is noticeably shorter than the other tones. Alexandre de Rhodes describes this as "chesty-heavy"; describes it as "constricted".
Southern varieties
The nặng tone are pronounced as low rising tone in fast speech or low falling-rising tone in more careful utterance.
The ngã and hỏi tone are merged into a mid falling-rising which is somewhat similar hỏi tone of non-Hanoi Northern accent mentioned above.
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 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, syllables ending in a vowel or nasal allowed for three tonal distinctions, but syllables ending with, or had no tonal distinctions. Rather, they were consistently pronounced with 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,, and. These are not phonemically distinct from the sắc and nặng tones, however, and hence not considered as separate tones by modern linguists and are not distinguished in the orthography.Syllables and phonotactics
According to, there are 4,500 to 4,800 possible spoken syllables, and the standard national orthography can represent 6,200 syllables. A description of syllable structure and exploration of its patterning according to the Prosodic Analysis approach of J.R. Firth is given in Henderson.The Vietnamese syllable structure follows the scheme:
where
In other words, a syllable has an obligatory nucleus and tone, and can have an optional consonant onset, an optional on-glide, 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:
- does not occur in native Vietnamese words
- does not occur after labial consonants
- does not occur after in native Vietnamese words
G: The offglide may be or. Together, V and G must form one of the diphthongs or triphthongs listed in the section on Vowels.
- offglide does not follow the front vowels
- offglide does not follow the rounded vowels
- with some exceptions, the offglide cannot occur if the syllable contains a onglide
T: Syllables are spoken with an inherent tone contour:
- Six tone contours are possible for syllables with offglides, closed syllables with nasal codas, and open syllables—i.e., those without consonant codas.
- If the syllable is closed with one of the oral stops, only two contours are possible: the sắc and the nặng tones.
- Less common rimes may not be represented in this table.
- The nặng tone mark has been added to all rimes in this table for illustration purposes only. It indicates which letter tone marks in general are added to, largely according to the "new style" rules of Vietnamese orthography as stated in :vi:Quy tắc đặt dấu thanh trong chữ quốc ngữ#Ki.E1.BB.83u m.E1.BB.9Bi|Quy tắc đặt dấu thanh trong chữ quốc ngữ. In practice, not all these rimes have real words or syllables that have the nặng tone.
- The IPA representations are based on. Different dialects may have different pronunciations.