Hostname: page-component-76d6cb85b7-7262s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-07-14T05:33:46.949Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The History of Vietnamese Final Palatals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Laurence C. Thompson
Laurence C. Thompson*
Affiliation:
University of Hawaii
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

There has been considerable controversy about the nature and interpretation of the elements written -ch, -nh in standard northern Vietnamese; several recent analyses deny them separate status, equating them with final velars. Comparison with the corresponding finals in other dialects suggests they were originally distinct from velars, and this view is further supported by comparative evidence from the related Muong language. The results of the study have implications for the further comparison of Vietnamese and Muong with other Austroasiatic languages and raise some questions about the part Chinese loanwords have played in the development of these elements.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 43 , Issue 1 , March 1967 , pp. 362 - 371
Copyright
Copyright © 1967 by Linguistic Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Barker, Milton E. 1963. Proto-Vietnamuong initial labial consonants. Van-hoa Nguyetsan [Monthly review of culture, Saigon] 12. 491–500.Google Scholar
Barker, Milton E. 1966. Vietnamese-Muong tone correspondences. In Zide 1966, 9–27.Google Scholar
Barker, Muriel A., and Barker, Milton E. ca. 1964. Proto-Vietnamuong (Annamoung) final consonants and vowels. Saigon, Summer Institute of Linguistics (mimeographed work paper). [I am informed that a revision of this paper is to appear in a forthcoming issue of Van-hoa Nguyet-san.].Google Scholar
Cadière, L. 1905. Les hautes vallées du Song-Gianh. Bulletin de l'École Française d'Extrême-Orient 5. 349–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chéon, A. 1905. Notes sur les Muong de la province de Son tay. Bulletin de l'École Française d'Extrême-Orient 5. 328–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chéon, A. 1907. Note sur les dialectes Nguon, Sac et Muong. Bulletin de l'École Française d'Extrême-Orient 7. 87–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cuisinier, Jeanne. 1951. Prières accompagnant les rites agraires chez les Muongs de Man duc. (École Française d'Extrême-Orient, Publications, 33.) Hanoi.Google Scholar
Day, Arthur C. 1962. Final consonants in northern Vietnamese. Transactions of the Historical Research Institute (Saigon) 3. 3–22.Google Scholar
de Rhodes, Alexandre. 1651. Dictionarium annamiticum, lusitanum et latinum. Rome [Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith].Google Scholar
Emeneau, Murray B. 1951. Studies in Vietnamese (Annamese) grammar. Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press.Google Scholar
Haudricourt, A. G. 1952. Les voyelles brèves du vietnamien. Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique 48:1.90–3.Google Scholar
Haudricourt, A. G. 1954a. Comment reconstruire le chinois archaïque. Word 10. 351–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haudricourt, A. G. 1954b. De l'origine des tons en vietnamien. Journal Asiatique 242. 69–82.Google Scholar
Haudricourt, A. G. 1966. The limits and connections of Austroasiatic in the northeast. In Zide 1966, 44–56.Google Scholar
Henderson, Eugénie J. A. 1951. The phonology of loanwords in some Southeast Asian languages. Transactions of the Philological Society 1951. 131–58.Google Scholar
Henderson, Eugénie J. A. 1965. The articulation of final ‘-nh’ and ‘-ch’ in Vietnamese. Proceedings of the Fifth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, ed. by Zwirner, Eberhard and Bethge, Wolfgang, 348–52. Basel and New York, S. Karger.Google Scholar
Henderson, Eugénie J. A. 1966. Towards a prosodic statement of Vietnamese syllable structure. In memory of J. R. Firth, ed. by Bazell, C. E., Catford, J. C., Halliday, M. A. K. and Robins, R. H., 163–97. London, Longmans.Google Scholar
Jones, Robert B. Jr., and Thong, Huynh Sanh. 1960. Introduction to spoken Vietnamese. Washington, ACLS.Google Scholar
Ly, Le van. 1948. Le parler vietnamien. Paris, Huong Anh. (2d ed., revised, 1960, Saigon, Ministry of Education.).Google Scholar
Maspero, Henri. 1912. Études sur la phonétique historique de la langue annamite: les initiales. Bulletin de l'École Française d'Extrême-Orient 12:1.1–127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bat-Tuy, Nguyen. 1949. [Scientific study of Vietnamese letters and syllables.] Saigon.Google Scholar
Bat-Tuy, Nguyen. 1959. [Vietnamese linguistics.] Saigon. (Includes revised edition of Nguyen Bat-Tuy 1949, with separate pagination.).Google Scholar
Hoa, Nguyen Dinh. 1959. Hoa's Vietnamese-English Dictionary. Saigon, Binh-Minh.Google Scholar
Hoa, Nguyen Dinh. 1966 Speak Vietnamese. 2d ed. (revised). Tokyo and Rutland, Vt.; Tuttle.Google Scholar
Phuong, Nguyen The. 1958. [The Muong language and the common origin of the Muong and Vietnamese peoples.] Tap san nghien cuu van su dia [Studies in literature, history and geography, Hanoi] 42. 68–75.Google Scholar
Pinnow, H.-J. 1959. Versuch einer historischen Lautlehre der Kharia-Sprache. Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz.Google Scholar
Pulleyblank, E. G. 1962. The consonantal system of Old Chinese. Asia Major ns 9. 58–144, 206-65.Google Scholar
Pulleyblank, E. G. 1963. An interpretation of the vowel systems of Old Chinese and of written Burmese. Asia Major ns 10. 200–21.Google Scholar
Smalley, Williams, and Van, Nguyen van. 1954. Vietnamese for missionaries, Books I, II, III. Dalat, Imprimerie Evangélique. (2d ed., Saigon, 1957.).Google Scholar
Thompson, Laurence C. 1965. A Vietnamese grammar. Seattle, University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, Ruth S. 1966. A comparison of Muong with some Mon-Khmer languages. In Zide 1966, 203–13.Google Scholar
Zide, Norman H. (ed.) 1966. Studies in comparative Austroasiatic linguistics. The Hague, Mouton.Google Scholar