Japanese and Korean name 5 days of the week using words for traditional elements (fire, water, wood, metal, earth) and use the words for moon and sun in naming Sunday and Monday. Both languages combine those components with a 2nd component meaning day of the week. Table 1 shows the Japanese and Korean names in…… Continue reading Days of the week in East Asia
Tag: Vietnamese
Trains, chains and terrains
Both English and Polish permit syllables to start with a cluster /tr-/ or /dr-/, but the two languages treat these clusters differently. In English, these clusters are affricated, so for example the cluster /tr-/ in train sounds quite similar to the initial consonant in chain. On the other hand, in Polish, an initial cluster /tr-/…… Continue reading Trains, chains and terrains
18 dragons
I recently discovered a second place with a Chinese name that means 9 dragons. I already knew about the Kowloon (九龍) peninsula in Hong. Apparently, the name refers to eight mountains and a Chinese emperor. Kowloon – Wikipedia I’ve now discovered that the Mekong Delta is known in Vietnamese as Nine Dragons (Cửu Long) River.…… Continue reading 18 dragons
Mainland Southeast Asian languages
Mainland Southeast Asia is home to speakers of around 280 languages spread across 5 families: the Mon-Khmer branch of Austroasiatic (including Vietnamese and Khmer) Sino-Tibetan (including Mandarin and other Sinitic languages, and Burmese and other Tibeto-Burman languages) Tai-Kadai (including Thai and Lao) Hmong-Mien (languages of southwest China) Austronesian (languages spoken mainly in Oceania, but represented…… Continue reading Mainland Southeast Asian languages
Sounds of Vietnamese
Vietnamese (tiếng Việt) is in the Vietic subgroup of the Austroasiatic language family. Vietnamese is spoken as a first language by around 85 million people, mainly in Vietnam, where it is the official language. It has several times as many native speakers as all other Austroasiatic languages combined. This post covers: syllable structure word structure consonants vowels reduplication…… Continue reading Sounds of Vietnamese
More words distinguished only by tones
I posted recently about 4 words in Mandarin and 6 Vietnamese words, each pronounced ma, but distinguished phonetically (and phonologically) by bearing different tones. Some words distinguished only by tones – Language Miscellany I’ve now come across a list of 4 Burmese words, each pronounced ma, and also distinguished by bearing different tones. Burmese…… Continue reading More words distinguished only by tones
Some words distinguished only by tones
If you have ever tried to learn Mandarin, you have probably come across a list of 4 words (with different meanings) that, although they are made up of the same vowel and consonant, have different pronunciations because they bear different tones. I recently came across a similar list exemplifying the 6 tones of Vietnamese. Mandarin…… Continue reading Some words distinguished only by tones
Disyllabic compound nouns in east and southeast Asia
In Chinese, many basic words are made up of one syllable, but many other words are compounds of 2 monosyllabic words. Many of those compounds were also borrowed into Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese, even though none of those three languages has any known genetic relationship to Chinese. The following table lists a few of…… Continue reading Disyllabic compound nouns in east and southeast Asia
Great sound charts for 14 languages
There is a superb collection of sound charts at https://ielp.ehe.osu.edu/sep/interactive-ipa-charts They cover 14 languages: Arabic, Bengali, English, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Nepali, Persian, Spanish, Tamil, Turkish and Vietnamese. The document for each language contains: a chart showing the consonants used in that language, transcribed using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) another chart showing those…… Continue reading Great sound charts for 14 languages
Some fruits, vegetables and animals in Vietnamese
The site Starkey Comics has some cartoons illustrating Vietnamese names for a few: fruits and vegetables Vietnamese Fruits and Vegetables, Literally Translated – Starkey Comics animals Vietnamese Animal Names – Starkey Comics Here is a list of the items covered. I’ve given 2 versions of the literal meaning: first, the literal meaning of the individual…… Continue reading Some fruits, vegetables and animals in Vietnamese