Vietnamese language

The Vietnamese language belongs to the northern (Viet-Muong) subgroup of the Vietnamese language group of the Austro - Asian family . Genetically close to the Mueong language , from which it was separated, according to glottochronology , around the beginning of our era ^[2] .

In the past, it was attributed to the Sino-Tibetan or Thai languages, however, studies of Mueong, Kiyoy and Tjyt languages ​​showed that they are related to Vietnamese and only underwent Chineseization to a lesser extent ^[3] .

The material of the hand language made it possible to accurately classify the Vietnamese language ^[4] :

The Vietnamese language has evolved from a non- tone ancestor common with the Muong language, after some time tones appeared in it. After the start of active borrowing from Chinese in Vietnamese, new phonemes appeared - / ʂ / and / ʈ / .

Three main dialect areas are distinguished, divided into numerous dialects and dialects:

• northern (center - the city of Hanoi ),
• central ( Hue city)
• southern ( Ho Chi Minh city).

In the central dialects, more archaic features have been preserved. Dialect differences affect mainly phonetics and vocabulary .

Phonology

The number of syllables in the Vietnamese language is strictly fixed, and is about 2500 (without tones; the number differs in dialects) ^{[ specify ]} . The total number of phonemes also depends on the dialect and method of isolating phonemes (for example, in Hanoi - from 32 ^[5] to 35 ^[6] ).

In the Hanoi dialect, vocalism is represented by 11 monophthongs , 19 diphthongs and 4 trifthongs ^[7] ). The 3 central diphthongs are usually considered separate phonemes, and the rest are a combination of half vowels j and w with vowels. Two pairs of vowels (/ a / and / ɜ̆ /) differ only in longitude-brevity.

Consonantism includes 19 initial consonants and 10 terminals. Terminal consonant consonants are implosive, that is, they do not end with an explosion, which is typical for many languages ​​of the range of Southeast Asia. The maximum number of positions in a syllable is four (“consonant + half-vowel + vowel + consonant”), the minimum is two (“consonant + vowel”, if the spelling syllable begins with a vowel, it actually starts the guttural bow ^[8] ). The number of tones varies in different dialects from 4 to 6, sandhi tones are absent. Syllables ending in a dull syllable are realized with only two tones.

Vietnamese is an isolating syllable and tonal language. Among the Vietnamese languages, it stands out for the completed process of monosillabilization (reduction of historically polysyllabic words to one syllable, the absence of initial consonants ) and a tendency toward polysilabilization (to the formation of polysyllabic lexical units), more tones, less inventory of terminals.

Morphology

The Vietnamese language is characterized by the absence of inflection and the presence of analytical forms . Significant parts of speech are divided into names and predicates , including verbs and adjectives. Classifiers are usually considered a subdivision of names. Nominal and verb grammatical categories are expressed using service words. The terms of kinship are often used as personal pronouns. There are prepositions , postpositions are absent.

Word formation

The main method of word formation is root compilation ; reduplication and affixes of Chinese origin are also used. A feature of the Vietnamese language is the monosyllabicity of the components involved in the compounding.

Syntax

The word order in the simple sentence is " subject + predicate + addition ." A definition usually follows a defined one; classifiers occupy a position between a numeral and a noun.

Vocabulary

The vocabulary of the Vietnamese language, in addition to the original Austro-Asian vocabulary, includes a significant number of borrowings from the Chinese language (up to 60%), belonging to different historical periods, and from Thai .

Until the end of the 19th century, the Vietnamese language functioned as the language of everyday communication and fiction (the official written and literary language in Vietnam was classical Chinese ). The beginning of the formation of the literary Vietnamese language dates back to the end of the 17th century . The formation of the modern literary Vietnamese language was accelerated by the French colonization of Vietnam (second half of the XIX century), as the French contributed to the development of the Vietnamese language with the aim of weakening the position of the Chinese language and culture. The modern literary Vietnamese language is based on the Hanoi dialect of the northern dialect. The written form of the literary language is based on the sound composition of the central dialect and the tone system of the northern dialect.

By the XIII-XIV centuries. on the basis of Chinese writing , the Vietnamese hieroglyphic writing “ ti-nom ” ( Vietnamese chữ nôm , ti-nom 字 喃 , letters. “folk letter”) was formed , which was used until the beginning of the 20th century but was not widely used and never had official status . The outstanding literary monuments written in ti-nom include The Complaints of the Soldiers by the poetess Doan Thi Die (1705–48), The Complaints of the Royal Concubine by the poetess Nguyen Zia Thieu (1741–98), and the poem Nguyen Zu (1765–1820) The wailing of a tormented soul ”and others.

The modern Vietnamese script “ thu kuok ngi ” ( Vietnamese chữ quốc ngữ , ty-nom 字 國語 , letters. “National letter”) was created on a Latin graphic basis by the European Catholic missionary Alexander de Rod in the 17th century, officially introduced in use in 1910 . It uses diacritics to indicate tones; each syllable is separated by a space.

Nguyen Chuong Tho sent to the court proposals to create a hieroglyphic alphabet that could be used to write Vietnamese words, but the colonial French government tried to destroy all Chinese influence on Vietnam, and therefore the proposal was not accepted ^[9] .

The Quokings do not reflect the changes that have occurred with the language over the past two hundred years . In particular, although the pronunciation of rhymes in the Hanoi dialect has not changed much since then, many initials are now read differently. Therefore, syllables written as “gia”, “za” and “ra” are read the same in this dialect.

• Vietnamese language (practical transcription)

• Solntsev V.M. , Lekomtsev Yu.K., Mkhitaryan T.T., Glebova I.I. Vietnamese language / Ed. ed. V. M. Solntsev. - M .: Publishing house of oriental literature, 1960. - 100 p. - ( Languages ​​of the foreign East and Africa ). - 2,000 copies.
• Sandakova L.L., Tyumeneva E.I. Vietnamese language. Translation allowance for senior courses. - M .: LLC "East-West", 2004. - S. 211. - 1000 copies. - ISBN 5-478-00020-5 .
• Glebova I., Wu Dang At. Beginner course of the Vietnamese language . - M .: IMO Publishing House, 1963. - S. 244. - 3150 copies.
• Bystrov I.S., Nguyen Tai Kan, Stankevich N.V. Grammar of the Vietnamese language. L., 1975
• Gordina M.V., Bystrov I.S. Phonetic system of the Vietnamese language. M., 1984
• Panfilov V.S. Grammatical structure of the Vietnamese language. SPb .: Center "Petersburg Oriental Studies", 1993. 412 p.
• Peyros I. I. Genetic classification of the Austro-Asian languages. The dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philology. M., 2004 (manuscript)
• Nguyen, Bich Thuan. (1997). Contemporary Vietnamese: An intermediate text . Southeast Asian language series. Northern Illinois University, Center for Southeast Asian Studies.
• Thompson LC A Vietnamese grammar. Seattle, 1965 Mon-Khmer Studies Journal

Dictionaries

• Chu Bích Thu [ea] Từ điển tiếng Việt phổ thông / Viện ngôn ngữ học. TP. Hồ Chí Minh, 2002.
• Từ điển tiếng Việt / Ed. Hoàng Phê. 3d ed. Hà Nội, 1994.

Vietnamese-Russian dictionaries

• Glebova I.I. et al. Vietnamese-Russian Dictionary. / Ed. I.M. Oshanina and Wu Dang Ata. M., GIS. 1961.616 p. 40,000 copies
• Alikanov K.M., Ivanov V.V., Malkhanova I.A. Russian-Vietnamese dictionary. T. 1-2. M., 1977.
• Aleshina I.E. Russian-Vietnamese educational dictionary. 5000 words. M., Rus. lang 1988.502 p.
• Glebova I.I., Sokolov A.A. Vietnamese-Russian Dictionary. About 60,000 words. M., Rus. lang 1992.792 s. 10500 copies
• The large Vietnamese-Russian dictionary. In 4 tons. About 100,000 words and phrases. / Ans. ed. N.V. Solntseva, Wu Lock and others M., East. lit. 2006.V.1. 2006.781 p.

Russian-Vietnamese Dictionaries

• Russian-Vietnamese food industry dictionary: approx. 15,000 terms. / Ed. A.I. Sorokin and others M., Rus. lang 1984. 254 p.
• Fam Van Long . Russian-Vietnamese Dictionary of Immunology: approx. 3000 terms. M., Rus. lang 1984. 85 p.
• Russian-Vietnamese dictionary of biological names. OK. 15,000 titles. M. Hanoi. 1985.332 s.
• Russian-Vietnamese dictionary of natural sciences. OK. 11000 terms. / Comp. N. S. Kuznetsov et al. M. Hanoi, Rus. lang 1986. 210 p.
• Russian-Vietnamese Dictionary of Cytology, Histology and Embryology: approx. 9000 terms. / Ed. L.V. Grigorieva, Duan Xuan Myou. M. Hanoi, Rus. lang.-Medicine. 1986. 244 p.
• Russian-Vietnamese building dictionary: approx. 37,000 terms. / Ed. T.N. Tsaya, Fam Kin Kyong. M. Hanoi, 1989.632 s.
• Russian-Vietnamese sports dictionary: About 28,000 terms. / Ed. S. M. Vaitsekhovsky. M. Hanoi, Rus. lang 1990.607 p.
• Pogorelova M.V., Cheong Thi Phuong Thanh . Dictionary of Russian gaps on the background of the Vietnamese language. Voronezh, 2007.154 s.
• Sünnerberg M. A. Russian-Vietnamese thematic dictionary. M., Humanities. 2007.500 p.
• Barinova E.V., Nguyen Van Thak . Russian-Vietnamese dictionary of musical terms. M., IJ RAS. 2008.204 p.