Vietnamese is sino-tibetan ?

[Dylan Sung]

Chinese mama, baba, are words which can be found in languages across the world, but one would not say they are of a Chinese origin solely. The term is faux-amis false friends. They are words which look similar but may have independently different origins.

Dyl,

[Eng Wai]

Grasy wrote
"What does Vietnamese belong to?
Mon-Khmer, Miao-Yao, Tibeto-Burman, Tai-Kadai, Sinitic, Austronesian, Language Isolate?
So long we have removed the last 3. So we can only debate these:
Mon-Khmer, Miao-Yao, Tibeto-Burman, Tai-Kadai"

Mon-Khmer is a language group of Austro-Asiatic language family, miao-yao alone is a language family, daic / Tai-Kadai is a language family, sinitic/chinese and tibeto-burman are language groups which belong to Sino-tibetan language family. Asutronesian is a language family which consists of sub-groups like Malayo-polynesian, formosan (some taiwanese aboriginal languages) etc. Perhaps we don't need to jump to language groups if we can't even agree on the language family of Vietnamese. Here, my "language family" consists of language groups. And one language family cannot be related to other language family, while language groups are related.

Let me rephrase Grasy's words. So we can only debate this, austro-asiatic, miao-yao and sino-tibetan. Miao yao doesn't appeal to many linguist or people, I guess it can be eliminated, and we can only debate on Sino-tibetan and austro-asiatic. I don't think Vietnamese could be a language isolate because the sinitic vocabularies are generally agreed to originate from sinitic languages and the non-sinitic languages are frequently linked to mon-khemr.

To know the history of Vietnamese language, we should know the hisotry of Vietnamese people. Who contributed the most to the present Vietnamese? Is it the north Vietnamese who migrated from China in the past, or the hill people who speak mon-khmer languages? Now in Vietnam, who speak "Vietnamese"? Where do the Vietnamese come from?

I will try my best to explain the history of Malay language as a reference. Malay came from present Indonesia. THe languages employed, with written record, by ancient people in Malay penisular were sanskrit. The Malay language we are talking now is the language brought over from Indonesia. Maybe there were people speaking malayo-polynesian related languages then in Malay penisular, but through the migration history and the language grammar of Malay people we know that Malay is certainly Austroneisan, although lots of basic essential vocabularies in ancient written and modern Malay are of Arab, Parsi, Sanskrit, Chinese and English origin.

So I would like to ask a few questions regarding Vietnamese, and hope you guys can answer me.

i) The grammar of Vietnames is certainly too different from Chinese (grammar of Cantonese and Mandarin are different but not too different), however, are they similar to mon-Khmer or any other Austro-Aisatic languages, or any other families languages, eg miao-yao?

ii) Is the modern vietnamese now spoken in ancient vietnamese as well?

iii) Are the modern Vietnamese (etnhic, not nationality) direct descendant of ancient Veitnamese? Who are the ancient veitnamese?

iv) I read that there are 2 major dialects of Vietnamese, north and south. THe south has more mon-khmer characteristcs. Is it just because they are closer mon-khmer speaking regions, or the south Vietnamese are the "purer" form of Vietnamese, thus indicating Vietnamese being a mon-khmer language?

v) Is dong-son civilisation related to modern vietnamese? Or is it just an ancient civilisation that happend within modern vietnam border and has nothing to do with present vietnamese? Ancient civilisation in Malay penisular had nothing to do with modern Malay in Malaysia.

Etc etc

Thank you

Eng Wai

[%sig%]

[AlexNg]

Eng wai,

If you remembered my earlier post, north vietnam is the "purer" form as it existed as annam province of china a few thousand years ago. South vietnam is a recent conquest when the khmer empire fell.

You could be on the right track, the modern vietnamese and ancient vietnamese could be spoken differently. Just like modern mandarin and ancient or middle chinese are spoken differently.

Modern mandarin was influenced by northern tribal languages such as manchurian, mongol etc.

[Lang]

I believe that Vietnamese language is not related to Chinese. First, the Vietnamese have their own unique culture of their own before the Chinese invasion of their country. Second, Vietnam borrows lots of words from Cantonese. Borrowing words from another language doesn't make it similar. Ex: English borrowed lots of words from French, though its origin is Germanic. Third, Vietnamese are a very diverse people. They are probably mixed with many people whose languages get integrated into what we know as Vienamese language.

I'm a Vietnamese who dearly embraces Chinese culture. Though I'd love to say that Vietnamese are ethnically/linguistically similar to the people of Canton, the truth isn't necessarily so. Vietnamese is a Mon-Khmer language.

Lang.

[qrasy]

"Cloud" Japanese Kumo--Vietnamese M{a^}y--Muong M{o*}l
"Tree" Japanese Ki--Vietnamese C{a^}y-- Muong K{o*}l
"Rain" Japanese Ame--Vietnamese M{u*}a--Muong M{u*}a
"Hand" Japanese Te-- Vietnamese Tay--Muong Thay

What's going on here?

Dylan Sung:

>>>If you define tonal languages with those which relies on pitch differences to indicate meaning, then both modern Korean and Japanese displays these features. For example, the word 'nose' and 'flower' in Japanese are written using the syllables hana. What distinguishes the two is the pitch difference between them. Another pair is chopsticks and bridge, both written hashi, but distinguished by tone the first High-Low the latter Low-High pitch changes.
<<<Yes, but I think tonal language distinguishes not only pitch differences between syllables, but also the pitch difference in one syllable("contours").
Japanese would not distingush contour 55 and 53, I think.
So, Ha55-Na31 would mean the same as Ha53-Na21

>>>Korean uses the writing system known as Hangeul, which was created in 1444 AD by King Sejong. It is well known that this stage of the Korean language (often refered to as Middle Korean) is different to modern Korean. The hangeul writing of Sejong's day showed it had clearly defined symbols for tones (bang jeom), and was able to distinguish three different tones. These tone marks are incorporated in modern Unicode, but modern Korean doesn't employ the use of tones in it's everyday writing. Moreover there are instances of tonal dialects (like speakers in Gyeongsangdo) in Korean too, though the Seoul standard used for the national language is not tonal.
<<<"tonal dialects"? If the language Gyeongsandgo people used are really tonal, why is it called "dialect"? Korean and Gyeongsandgo could not be the same language if one is tonal but one is atonal, I think.

Eng Wai:
>>>Miao yao doesn't appeal to many linguist or people, I guess it can be eliminated, and we can only debate on Sino-tibetan and austro-asiatic
<<<But unappealing does not mean unpromising.

>>>I will try my best to explain the history of Malay language as a reference. Malay came from present Indonesia. THe languages employed, with written record, by ancient people in Malay penisular were sanskrit. The Malay language we are talking now is the language brought over from Indonesia. Maybe there were people speaking malayo-polynesian related languages then in Malay penisular, but through the migration history and the language grammar of Malay people we know that Malay is certainly Austroneisan, although lots of basic essential vocabularies in ancient written and modern Malay are of Arab, Parsi, Sanskrit, Chinese and English origin.
<<< I don't know where Malay come from, but it is said that Proto-Malayic comes from the Indochina peninsula.


Lang:
>>>I believe that Vietnamese language is not related to Chinese. First, the Vietnamese have their own unique culture of their own before the Chinese invasion of their country. Second, Vietnam borrows lots of words from Cantonese.
<<<Yes, but I think one can also borrow from close language. Vietnamese are not Sinitic, perhaps other group in Sino-Tibetan.

[Dylan Sung]

grasy:
<<<"tonal dialects"? If the language Gyeongsandgo people used are really tonal, why is it called "dialect"? Korean and Gyeongsandgo could not be the same language if one is tonal but one is atonal, I think.

Shanghai dialect is one of the Wu dialects of Chinese. It is said that it's tones behave more or less by pitch only, thus not really tonal in that sense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_dialect

Can Shanghai be called a dialect of Wu? The similarity with standard Korean and Gyeongsandgo is on the same par, IMO.

<<<Vietnamese are not Sinitic, perhaps other group in Sino-Tibetan.

Ethnicity does not decide what language a person speaks. Conversely, a language cannot be defined by the ethnicity of the speaker alone. Linguist take the careful step of eliminating ethnicity from their consideration. Only the words in the vocabulary, it's pronunciation, and it's syntax and grammar are necessary to analyse the language.

That's why I find this thread which diverges into considering skin colour and ethnicity irrelevant to the analysis of a language based on the merits of the language itself.

Bye folks, I'm away on my hols...

Dyl.

[qrasy]

OK, there is something I forgot to write.

AlexNg:

>>>Different word order alone does not mean it belongs to different family.
In fact, cantonese has some word order different from mandarin, eg.
male chicken is "kai kung" and not "kung kai". The same order as vietnamese, so I believe it is an influence from the bai yue people.
<<<Days ago we discussed this, French are reverse to English but they are both Indo-European, although with different group. Do you know the reverse order can often mean "the same" or "different but pointing to the same thing"? Japanese: Koneko--> Ko=Child (one more Vietnamese word?), Neko=cat-->Koneko=Kitten.
But this does not mean Japanese is Modified-Modifier language, since Koneko can also be translated "Small Cat"/"Young Cat"/"Childly cat" not "Cat's Child". They could make different sense, but pointing to the same thing.
"Kai Kung" could be thought to be "noun adjective", but it can also be translated "noun noun"

Eng Wai:

>>>Otherwise Vietnamese must be classified as creole.
<<<well, this is not creole, "a language which is based on another language, but with their own pronunciation and limited vocabulary".

>>>So we can only debate this, austro-asiatic, miao-yao and sino-tibetan.
<<< How about Tai-Kadai, can we debate this?

>>>iii) Are the modern Vietnamese (etnhic, not nationality) direct descendant of ancient Veitnamese? Who are the ancient veitnamese?
<<< Modern Vietnamese (etnhic, not nationality) are seemingly direct descendant of "Ancient Vietnamese". (What I mean here is the Bai-Yue, not the past dwellers of Vietnam.)

>>>Here, my "language family" consists of language groups. And one language family cannot be related to other language family, while language groups are related.
<<<but in www.paul-raedle.de/vtrain/db-xx-info.htm I read: "Today we know much more about the etymology of languages. Languages with a common origin are grouped into families. In turn, families can be grouped in stocks, and stocks in phyla [pl. of "phylum"]. Finally, phyla can be grouped in macrophyla."

>>>the sinitic vocabularies are generally agreed to originate from sinitic languages and the non-sinitic languages are frequently linked to mon-khemr.
<<< OK, actually there are many non-sinitic but tibeto-burman words found in the Vietnamese. It also appears at different Mon-Khmer languages. (note that even though these words seems not linked to sinitic, most of tibetan words in Mon-Khmer is also linked to Sinitic). It is suspicious since usually not more than 8 languages of Mon-Khmer has it. I think it could be a loan which was not distributed thoroughly. Seeing the forms you can say that this is very old.

>>>however, are they similar to mon-Khmer or any other Austro-Aisatic languages, or any other families languages, eg miao-yao?
<<<I am confused with Miao-Yao languages. Some are SOV, some are SVO. Some are Md-Mr, some are the reverse. It seems that it is between Tibeto-Burman, Tai-Kadai and Sinitic. Here we should consider special grammars ("grammatical peculiarities"). "Poetic expressions" like "the eye of sky" (sun), adam's apple sometimes can spread, so it is often unreliable.

Dylan Sung:

>>>Even in English, you can change pitch to infer different meaning.
<<<You know that pitch difference means the "Punctuation" of the sentence in an atonal language.

>>>For example, the word 'nose' and 'flower' in Japanese are written using the syllables hana. What distinguishes the two is the pitch difference between them. Another pair is chopsticks and bridge, both written hashi, but distinguished by tone the first High-Low the latter Low-High pitch changes.
<<< how about "kami" (above, god, hair, paper)? "Me" (Eye, Woman, seaweed, sprout)? Certainly there will be some "perfect" homonyms in its vocabulary. This is just "pitch", not contour tone.

>>>The hangeul writing of Sejong's day showed it had clearly defined symbols for tones (bang jeom), and was able to distinguish three different tones. These tone marks are incorporated in modern Unicode,
<<< Where can I find this "bang jeom" in Unicode? Also, I read in http://www.paul-raedle.de/vtrain/db-ko-info.htm:
"Word and sentence build-up is much like in Japanese, but, like French, Korean no longer uses accent to distinguish words." What is this accent? Is it tones or just registers? Notice that Korean is "Like French", which abandoned their "accent". If this "accent" is "tone" then French was tonal.

>>>Chinese mama, baba, are words which can be found in languages across the world, but one would not say they are of a Chinese origin solely. The term is faux-amis false friends. They are words which look similar but may have independently different origins.
<<<but there are too many words which is "claimed to be Mon-Khmer in origin but they are very similar to Sino-Tibetan". There are more than 40 basic words.

Lang:

>>>Though I'd love to say that Vietnamese are ethnically/linguistically similar to the people of Canton, the truth isn't necessarily so.
<<< Somewhere in this discussion there are words that explain that linguistic relationship could be different from ethnical relationship. I think Vietnamese is not very similar to Cantonese in language, but some persons here said that they are ethnically very similar.

>>>Vietnamese is a Mon-Khmer language.
<<< We are not sure about this so we are discussing it here.

[AlexNg]

If vietnamese is the original language of the ancient vietnamese people then ethnic relationship is involved.

Languages involved from a common ancestors and through migration in different parts of the world, slight modification of the original language occurs resulting in language family.

If vietnamese is really belongs to mon-khmer, then why is it that the vietnamese and khmer people are so different in looks ? They are genetically not from the same ancestors.

[qrasy]

Eng Wai:

>>>Perhaps we don't need to jump to language groups if we can't even agree on the language family of Vietnamese. Here, my "language family" consists of language groups.
<<< Well, not everyone agrees the grouping of the groups. There are still questions like "Is Tai-Kadai or/and Miao-Yao a family or just groups?".
But when we jump to groups, it will be easier.


Dylan Sung:

>>>Shanghai dialect is one of the Wu dialects of Chinese. It is said that it's tones behave more or less by pitch only, thus not really tonal in that sense.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_dialect
Can Shanghai be called a dialect of Wu? The similarity with standard Korean and Gyeongsandgo is on the same par, IMO.
<<< Who says that Shanghai are not tonal? Even though the contour may not be constant, it does have PITCH DIFFERENCE IN ONE SYLLABLE. Shanghai tones depend in pitch change, distinguishing "Raising" and "Lowering" tones. Japanese do not have it, Japanese will consider Na54 the same as Na45 (both are the same: High pitch"), while Shanghai not. I think even most Chinese will not distinguish contour 25 with 15.

>>>Ethnicity does not decide what language a person speaks. Conversely, a language cannot be defined by the ethnicity of the speaker alone. Linguist take the careful step of eliminating ethnicity from their consideration. Only the words in the vocabulary, it's pronunciation, and it's syntax and grammar are necessary to analyse the language.
<<< If I considered ethnicity, I would put Burmese outside Sino-Tibetan, but I didn't so. I only think that Vietnamese is not very similar to Mon-Khmer.

AlexNg:
>>>If vietnamese is really belongs to mon-khmer, then why is it that the vietnamese and khmer people are so different in looks ? They are genetically not from the same ancestors.
<<< This could match nil relationship, but it can also match"Substituting" or "Mixing" hypothesis.

[qrasy]

I have not read the article "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_dialect" but I have guessed that Shanghainese distinguishes rising and falling tones. They are /34/ and /53/, both would be considered high in Japanese. Pitch: >3=High; <3=Low