Comments on: Vietnamese Loan Words and the Uniqueness of the Language

By: brooklynmonk

brooklynmonk — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 14:48:43 +0000

Vietnamese is a Monk Khmer language, you could verify that with thirty seconds of research. I speak Khmer and am currently a full-time student at university in Saigon and without a doubt, Vietnamese is a Mon Khmer language. I don't know that i claimed Vietnamese is a mix of the three languages, i said it had cognates from all three, whereby more than half the vocabulary is from Chinese. I never claimed that Vietnamese was an off-shoo of Khmer. I claimed that they are both in the same language family, which they are. If you have research to the contrary, please share it with us.

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By: brooklynmonk

brooklynmonk — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 14:44:40 +0000

I think you are asking the same question as i am "does etymology play an active role in the language learning process, or does it merely describe that fascinating academic pursuit? " Clearly with European languages it helps. if you speak Spanish, learning Italian takes about eight weeks, but somehow the cognates across Asian languages don't seem to be as helpful.

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By: Joe

Joe — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 02:11:17 +0000

Vietnamese and Khmer share some cognates but out and out calling the Vietnamese language a mixture of "Khmer and Chinese and French" is just hilarious.
That the language family is called "mon-khmer" to begin with is due to westerners naming it so, not that Vietnamese is just an offshoot of Khmer.

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By: Qinshi

Qinshi — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 00:13:40 +0000

Modern Vietnamese is the result of thousands of years of continual contact between the Kinh (Viet) and surrounding peoples, most notably the Chinese. Just out of the top of my head, if you gave me a pen and paper, I could write down at least 1-1500 different Chinese syllables that were loaned to Vietnamese. Many modern technical, scientific, higher vocabulary in general are of Chinese or Japanese-made-Chinese origin. These include things like xã-hội (society), công-ty (company), nhạc-hội (concert), đại-học (university), hiệu-trưởng (school principal/headmaster) etc…

I'd just like to add to some of the terms you mentioned in your awesome article! I think you made a mix up when you said that most Chinese loanwords were of 1 syllable and Mon-Khmer loanwords were of 2 syllables. It is the other way around

Also, it is not ideal to use Mandarin as a comparison for the Chinese loanwords as it has had massive sound changes (as you yourself noticed!) A more ideal comparison would be to Cantonese. For example, 大學/大学 as you mentioned is đại-học in Vietnamese, 대학 dae-hak in Korean, 大学 dai-gaku in Japanese and 大學 dai-hok in Cantonese. Mandarin has merged many sounds and lost the -p, -k, -t endings.

Yes there are plenty of terms with one Chinese syllable and 1 native or other loanword one. Bao tay, bánh bao, cao máu etc…

A car in Vietnamese depending on region is either (xe) ô-tô or xe (hơi). Machinery in general have 2 terms; máy móc (native) or the loaned cơ khí from Chinese. An airplane is either máy bay or phi cơ. A camera is either máy (chụp) ảnh or máy chụp hình.

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By: Qinshi

Qinshi — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 23:57:45 +0000

Actually whether or not Vietnamese is Mon-Khmer or not is still being disputed.

Yes, Vietnamese borrows some French words such as ca-vát/cà-vạt (a tie), cà-phê (coffee), cao-su (rubber), xà-phòng/xà-bông (soap) etc… but the amount of Chinese loanwords is enormous and as you said equates to at least 50-60% of the Vietnamese words, not counting those older borrowings that were nativised such as năm/niên (year), mùi/vị (flavour), sắt/thiết (iron) etc.

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By: Qinshi

Qinshi — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 23:52:20 +0000

Vietnamese borrowed and shares a lot of words with Khmer. Con, cháu are just to name 2.

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By: AvianPower

AvianPower — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 13:32:29 +0000

Check out this paper: http://www.vny2k.com/vny2k/SiniticVietnamese.htm

And about hạnh phúc – it is 幸福 in Chinese.

By the way, which atlas did you use for your picture? It looks like it's from the DK Atlas or one of its derivatives.

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By: Antonio Graceffo

Antonio Graceffo — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 15:35:44 +0000

I am more familiar with french loan words in Khmer. where many words are clearly concepts the Khmers didnt have before the french came. for example: cheese, christmas, magazine, but for some reason a lot of science words and political words, higher words, were replaced by French words, although there is a perfectly good khmer word being used in thailand. in vietnam, the french words were very few and all clearly french concepts like cheese, but th chinese words spanned a huge gamot. education words, like schools and subjects, are all chinese, which makes sense because the chinese culture is so pro education, but also words for police and public safety, traffic…a lot of words are chinese. in fact it may be as much as 60%. so why those words are chosen i am not sure. i need to do more research and study when i go back to vietnam.

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By: Tommy

Tommy — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 04:32:21 +0000

I really enjoyed your post, and it has started me thinking again about the big etymological picture. As a practical question, I am curious how your observations are a part of a language learning module. For example, are there any patterns or big generalizations we can make about loan words in Vietnamese vocabulary, or do you think it all case-by-case and dependent on research and experience of the individual learner? In other words, does etymology play an active role in the language learning process, or does it merely describe that fascinating academic pursuit?

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By: antonio graceffo

antonio graceffo — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:35:10 +0000

yes you are right about japanese. some of the pronunciations are a bit different from chinese, like machine is ghi chi but yes, you can see the common origin, especially the chinese characters.

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