Vietnamese phonology

Initial consonants

• /w/ is the only consonant sound permitted to form consonant clusters with other consonants.
• In many regions of Northern Vietnam, the pair and have merged into one, they are no longer two opposing phonemes. Some native Vietnamese speakers who lack linguistic knowledge believe that pronouncing the initial consonant of a word whose orthographic form begins with the letter l as, n as is nói ngọng. The phenomenon of no longer distinguishing from in words whose orthographic form begins with the letter n or l has three manifestations:

1. The initial consonant of all words whose orthographic form begins with n or l is.
2. The initial consonant of all words is.
3. In some words, the initial consonant corresponding to the letter n at the beginning of the spelling form of the word is, with l being, in some other words the sound corresponding to n is, with l being.

• In Northern dialects, some words have the initial consonant as the voiced palatal nasal, such as nhuộm, nhức, nhỏ, nhổ, nhốt, have phonetic variants with the initial consonant. This sound is written with the letter d or gi or r depending on the word.
• Some words with the initial consonant being the voiced velar nasal also have phonetic variants with the initial consonant being the voiced velar fricative, which are used in some places in the North. For example, the words ngáy, ngẫm also have phonetic variants gáy, gẫm.
• In Northern dialects, the voiceless bilabial plosive is only the initial consonant in a few loanwords from other languages, mainly from French. In writing, the sound is written with the letter p, as in sâm panh, derived from French champagne. Not every word in another language that has the initial consonant have the corresponding Vietnamese loanword with the initial consonant. In some words, the sound is replaced by the sound. For example, both syllables of the word búp bê have the initial consonant, not. In Southern dialects, the initial consonant of words whose spelling form begins with the letter p is in many speakers.
• The glottalized stops are preglottalized and voiced: . This glottal closure is often not released before the release of the oral closure, resulting in the characteristic implosive pronunciation. However, sometimes the glottal closure is released prior to the oral release in which case the stops are pronounced. Therefore, the primary characteristic is preglottalization with implosion being secondary.
• are bilabial, while are labiodental.
• are denti-alveolar, while are apico-alveolar.
• are phonetically lamino-alveolar.
• are often slightly affricated, but they are unaspirated.
• A glottal stop is inserted before words that begin with a vowel or in Northern dialects:

  Hanoi initials

• are denti-lamino-alveolar:.
• is apico-alveolar:.
• d, gi and r are all pronounced.
• ch and tr are both pronounced, while x and s are both pronounced.
• The highly salient merger of and as mentioned above, characteristic of the speech of many lower- and working-class Vietnamese in the Red River Delta, is sometimes consciously manipulated to humorous and/or pejorative effect in colloquial Hanoi speech.
• occur in a small number of foreign loans, e.g. < panne 'breakdown', < garage, < billiard. For many speakers, however, is realized as and as.
• There are no retroflex consonants,,, instead there are palato-alveolar consonants:,, in spelling pronunciations taught in schools.

  Saigon initials

• is apico-alveolar.
• is palatalized lamino-alveolar:.
• Some people pronounce d as, and gi as in situations where the distinction is necessary, most people pronounce both as.
• Historically, is pronounced in common speech, merging with d and gi. However, it is becoming distinct and pronounced as, especially in careful speech or when reading a text. In traditional performance including Cải lương, Đờn ca tài tử, Hát bội and some old speakers of Overseas Vietnamese, it is pronounced as consonant cluster or. In loanwords, it is pronounced, or, for example, va li is pronounced, or.
• Historically, a distinction is made between ch and tr, as well as between x and s. However, in many speakers, these two pairs are becoming merged as and respectively.
• In southern speech, the phoneme, generally represented in Vietnamese linguistics by the letter, has a number of variant pronunciations depending on the speaker. A person can also have many pronunciations. It may occur as a retroflex fricative, an alveolar approximant, an alveolar flap, a trill, or a tapped fricative/fricative trill. In the border area between Ho Chi Minh City and Long An province, the letter is pronounced as a palatal approximant. In many areas in the Mekong Delta, the letter is pronounced as a velar fricative.

  Simplification of consonant clusters in southern dialects

• In southern speech,,, and are usually pronounced, including among educated urban speakers. The cluster go is very rare, seen only in goá ‘widowed’. The cluster ngw shows greater loss in rural varieties than in urban ones.
• In informal speech, the voiceless velar fricative is often transformed into the corresponding voiceless bilabial and labiodental consonants, and the prevocalic is deleted, for example: cá khoai is pronounced as cá phai, khóa máy is pronounced as phá máy, khỏe không? is pronounced as phẻ không?. This pronunciation is observed only in rural southern dialects, and it does not occur in the speech of educated speakers.
• There are only a few words where the bilabial and labiodental consonants are followed by the prevocalic. Most of them are French loanwords, for example: tiền boa, đậu pơ-ti-poa, xe buýt, vải voan. The initial consonant is kept and the prevocalic is lost and pronounced as: tiền bo, đậu bo, xe bít, vải von.
• After the consonant clusters of the remaining articulators followed by the prevocalic, the initial consonant is kept and the prevocalic is lost as above, for example: vô duyên is pronounced as vô diên, cái loa is pronounced as cái la.

  Comparison of initials

Vowels

Vowel nuclei

• All vowels are unrounded except for the four back rounded vowels:.
• In the South, the high vowels are all diphthongized in open syllables:, Ba Vì .
• and are pronounced shorter than the other vowels. These short vowels only occur in closed syllables.
• The vowels and are marginal. As with the other short/long vowel pairs, short and long and are only distinguished in closed syllables. For some speakers the distinction may be one of vowel quality or of the articulation of the syllable coda in addition to or instead of vowel quantity.
• : Many descriptions, such as Thompson,,, consider this vowel to be close back unrounded:. However, Han's instrumental analysis indicates that it is more central than back., and also transcribe this vowel as central. But according to Kirby, is frequently realized as mid centralized, leading some authors to transcribe it as .

  Closing sequences