Sino-Vietnamese
Encyclopedia
Sino-Vietnamese are the elements in the Vietnamese language
derived from Chinese
. They account for between 30% to 60% of the Vietnamese vocabulary, not including naturalized word borrowings from China. This vocabulary was originally written with Hán Tự (漢字), Chinese characters that were used in the Vietnamese writing system, but like all written Vietnamese, is now written with quốc ngữ
(國語), the Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet that was adopted in the early 20th century for writing the Vietnamese language.
, politics
, education
, and philosophy
entered the common lexicon. Like Sino-Korean and Sino-Japanese, these terms are pronounced differently in Vietnamese. Over the years, a system establishing rules on how to pronounce Chinese characters was developed.
As contact with the West grew, Western concepts were taken into Vietnamese through the filter of Chinese. Western works were translated into Chinese and read by the literati. Western names, approximated in Chinese (in some cases approximated in Japanese and then borrowed into Chinese), were further garbled in Vietnamese pronunciations. For example, Portugal became , and in Vietnamese Bồ Đào Nha. England became Anh Cát Lợi shortened to Anh , while America became Mỹ Lợi Gia , shortened to Mỹ . Interestingly, club became kurabu in Japan, was borrowed to China, then to Vietnam, is read as câu lạc bộ, and abbreviated CLB, which can be an abbreviation for club.
Recently, Sino-Vietnamese has been playing a less important role in Vietnamese as efforts are made to use native Vietnamese words or phonetic pronunciations of certain foreign words in cases where Sino-Vietnamese is considered pointless or simply an elaborate form of phoneticizing. Wherever there exists adequate native Vietnamese terminology, native terms will tend to be used. For example, the White House
is referred to as Nhà Trắng, as opposed to the austere-sounding Bạch Ốc .
Another example is the Vietnamese name of countries; except for the most deeply ingrained, or ones with Chinese references (e.g. "Trung Quốc" for China), Vietnamese names for countries of the world are now close to their original spelling or pronunciation instead of Sino-Vietnamese. This practice of naming countries is similar to other sinoxenic languages such as Japanese and Korean. However, China-specific names and concepts (toponyms or political, literary, religious, scientific, medical, and technical terminology) continue to be rendered in Sino-Vietnamese.
Sometimes regional variation can be found in the prevalence of a Sino-Vietnamese or native term. For example, máy bay is the standard (Hanoi) word for an aeroplane; in the south, phi cơ (from ) is more common but losing popularity.
-based words in English: they are used more in formal context than in everyday life. Because Chinese and Vietnamese use different order for subject and modifier, compound Sino-Vietnamese words or phrases might appear ungrammatical in Vietnamese sentences. For example, the Sino-Vietnamese phrase bạch mã (白馬 - white horse) can be expressed in Vietnamese as ngựa trắng (horse white). For this reason, compound words containing native Vietnamese and Sino-Vietnamese words are very rare and are considered improper by some (for example, chung cư "apartment building" was originally derived from chúng cư 眾居 "multiple dwelling", but with the syllable chúng "multiple" replaced with chung, a pure Vietnamese word meaning "shared" or "together". These tend to only happen with "native" words with the same etymology as their Sino-Vietnamese counterparts.).
Some Sino-Vietnamese words are entirely invented by the Vietnamese and are not used in Chinese, such as linh mục (靈牧 - spiritual shepherd) for pastor
. Others are no longer used in modern Chinese or have other meanings. For example, the Vietnamese word lý thuyết, meaning 'theory', is from the Chinese word 理說, which is no longer in use. The official name for the United States in Vietnamese is Hoa Kỳ (花旗). This is a former Chinese name of the United States and translates literally as "flower flag".
Writing Sino-Vietnamese words with quốc ngữ had caused some confusions about the origins of some terms, due to the large amount of homophones in Chinese and Sino-Vietnamese. For example, both 明 (bright) and 冥 (dark) are read as minh, thus the word "minh" has two contradictory meanings: bright and dark (although the "dark" meaning is now esoteric and is used in only a few compound words). Perhaps for this reason, the Vietnamese name for Pluto
isn't Minh Vương Tinh (冥王星 - lit. underworld king star) as in other East Asian languages, but is Diêm Vương Tinh (閻王星), named after the Hindu
and Buddhist
deity Yama
. During the Hồ Dynasty, Vietnam was officially known as Đại Ngu (大虞 - Great Peace). Unfortunately, most modern Vietnamese know ngu as "stupid" (愚); consequently, some misinterpret it as "Big Idiot" (大愚). Conversely, the Han River
in South Korea
is often erroneously translated as sông Hàn (韓) when it should be sông Hán (漢) due to the name's similarity with the country name. However, the homograph/homophone problem is not as serious as it appears, because although many Sino-Vietnamese words have multiple meanings when written with quốc ngữ, usually only one has widespread usage, while the others are relegated to obscurity. Furthermore, Sino-Vietnamese words are usually not used alone, but in compound words, thus the meaning of the compound word is preserved even if individually each has multiple meanings.
Most importantly, since quốc ngữ is an exact phonetic transcription of the spoken language, its understandability is as high as or higher than a normal conversation.
Vietnamese language
Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam...
derived from Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
. They account for between 30% to 60% of the Vietnamese vocabulary, not including naturalized word borrowings from China. This vocabulary was originally written with Hán Tự (漢字), Chinese characters that were used in the Vietnamese writing system, but like all written Vietnamese, is now written with quốc ngữ
Vietnamese alphabet
The Vietnamese alphabet, called Chữ Quốc Ngữ , usually shortened to Quốc Ngữ , is the modern writing system for the Vietnamese language...
(國語), the Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet that was adopted in the early 20th century for writing the Vietnamese language.
History
As a result of a thousand years of Chinese control, and a further thousand years of strong Chinese influence, a lot of Chinese vocabulary was adopted into Vietnamese. Literary Chinese was used in administration, and thus terms relating to scienceScience
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
, politics
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
, education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
, and philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
entered the common lexicon. Like Sino-Korean and Sino-Japanese, these terms are pronounced differently in Vietnamese. Over the years, a system establishing rules on how to pronounce Chinese characters was developed.
As contact with the West grew, Western concepts were taken into Vietnamese through the filter of Chinese. Western works were translated into Chinese and read by the literati. Western names, approximated in Chinese (in some cases approximated in Japanese and then borrowed into Chinese), were further garbled in Vietnamese pronunciations. For example, Portugal became , and in Vietnamese Bồ Đào Nha. England became Anh Cát Lợi shortened to Anh , while America became Mỹ Lợi Gia , shortened to Mỹ . Interestingly, club became kurabu in Japan, was borrowed to China, then to Vietnam, is read as câu lạc bộ, and abbreviated CLB, which can be an abbreviation for club.
Recently, Sino-Vietnamese has been playing a less important role in Vietnamese as efforts are made to use native Vietnamese words or phonetic pronunciations of certain foreign words in cases where Sino-Vietnamese is considered pointless or simply an elaborate form of phoneticizing. Wherever there exists adequate native Vietnamese terminology, native terms will tend to be used. For example, the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
is referred to as Nhà Trắng, as opposed to the austere-sounding Bạch Ốc .
Another example is the Vietnamese name of countries; except for the most deeply ingrained, or ones with Chinese references (e.g. "Trung Quốc" for China), Vietnamese names for countries of the world are now close to their original spelling or pronunciation instead of Sino-Vietnamese. This practice of naming countries is similar to other sinoxenic languages such as Japanese and Korean. However, China-specific names and concepts (toponyms or political, literary, religious, scientific, medical, and technical terminology) continue to be rendered in Sino-Vietnamese.
Sometimes regional variation can be found in the prevalence of a Sino-Vietnamese or native term. For example, máy bay is the standard (Hanoi) word for an aeroplane; in the south, phi cơ (from ) is more common but losing popularity.
Usage
Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary has a status similar to that of LatinLatin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
-based words in English: they are used more in formal context than in everyday life. Because Chinese and Vietnamese use different order for subject and modifier, compound Sino-Vietnamese words or phrases might appear ungrammatical in Vietnamese sentences. For example, the Sino-Vietnamese phrase bạch mã (白馬 - white horse) can be expressed in Vietnamese as ngựa trắng (horse white). For this reason, compound words containing native Vietnamese and Sino-Vietnamese words are very rare and are considered improper by some (for example, chung cư "apartment building" was originally derived from chúng cư 眾居 "multiple dwelling", but with the syllable chúng "multiple" replaced with chung, a pure Vietnamese word meaning "shared" or "together". These tend to only happen with "native" words with the same etymology as their Sino-Vietnamese counterparts.).
Some Sino-Vietnamese words are entirely invented by the Vietnamese and are not used in Chinese, such as linh mục (靈牧 - spiritual shepherd) for pastor
Pastor
The word pastor usually refers to an ordained leader of a Christian congregation. When used as an ecclesiastical styling or title, this role may be abbreviated to "Pr." or often "Ps"....
. Others are no longer used in modern Chinese or have other meanings. For example, the Vietnamese word lý thuyết, meaning 'theory', is from the Chinese word 理說, which is no longer in use. The official name for the United States in Vietnamese is Hoa Kỳ (花旗). This is a former Chinese name of the United States and translates literally as "flower flag".
Writing Sino-Vietnamese words with quốc ngữ had caused some confusions about the origins of some terms, due to the large amount of homophones in Chinese and Sino-Vietnamese. For example, both 明 (bright) and 冥 (dark) are read as minh, thus the word "minh" has two contradictory meanings: bright and dark (although the "dark" meaning is now esoteric and is used in only a few compound words). Perhaps for this reason, the Vietnamese name for Pluto
Pluto
Pluto, formal designation 134340 Pluto, is the second-most-massive known dwarf planet in the Solar System and the tenth-most-massive body observed directly orbiting the Sun...
isn't Minh Vương Tinh (冥王星 - lit. underworld king star) as in other East Asian languages, but is Diêm Vương Tinh (閻王星), named after the Hindu
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
and Buddhist
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
deity Yama
Yama (Buddhism and Chinese mythology)
Yama the name of the Buddhist dharmapala and judge of the dead, who presides over the Buddhist Narakas , "Hells" or "Purgatories". Although ultimately based on the god Yama of the Hindu Vedas, the Buddhist Yama has developed different myths and different functions from the Hindu deity...
. During the Hồ Dynasty, Vietnam was officially known as Đại Ngu (大虞 - Great Peace). Unfortunately, most modern Vietnamese know ngu as "stupid" (愚); consequently, some misinterpret it as "Big Idiot" (大愚). Conversely, the Han River
Han River (Korea)
The Han River is a major river in South Korea and the fourth longest river on the Korean peninsula after the Amnok, Duman, and Nakdong rivers. It is formed by the confluence of the Namhan River , which originates in Mount Daedeok, and the Bukhan River , which originates on the slopes of Mount...
in South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
is often erroneously translated as sông Hàn (韓) when it should be sông Hán (漢) due to the name's similarity with the country name. However, the homograph/homophone problem is not as serious as it appears, because although many Sino-Vietnamese words have multiple meanings when written with quốc ngữ, usually only one has widespread usage, while the others are relegated to obscurity. Furthermore, Sino-Vietnamese words are usually not used alone, but in compound words, thus the meaning of the compound word is preserved even if individually each has multiple meanings.
Most importantly, since quốc ngữ is an exact phonetic transcription of the spoken language, its understandability is as high as or higher than a normal conversation.