Vietnamese phonology

The phonology of Vietnamese features 19 consonant phonemes, with 5 additional consonant phonemes used in Vietnamese's Southern dialect, and 4 exclusive to the Northern dialect. Vietnamese also has 14 vowel nuclei, and 6 tones that are integral to the interpretation of the language. Older interpretations of Vietnamese tones differentiated between "sharp" and "heavy" entering and departing tones. This article is a technical description of the sound system of the Vietnamese language, including phonetics and phonology. Two main varieties of Vietnamese, Hanoi and Saigon, which are slightly different to each other, are described below. Initial consonants which exist only in the Northern dialect are in red, while those that exist only in the Southern dialect are in blue. /w/ is the only initial consonant permitted to form consonant clusters with other consonants. /p/ occurs syllable-initially only in loan words, but some speakers pronounce as /ɓ/ (as in sâm banh, derived from French champagne). The glottalized stops are preglottalized and voiced: [ʔɓ, ʔɗ] (the glottis is always closed before the oral closure). 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 [ʔb, ʔd]. Therefore, the primary characteristic is preglottalization with implosion being secondary. /ɓ, m/ are bilabial, while /f, v/ are labiodental. /t, th/ are denti-alveolar ([t̪, t̪h]), while /ɗ, n, l/ are apico-alveolar. /c, ɲ/ are phonetically lamino-palatoalveolar (the blade of the tongue makes contact behind the alveolar ridge). /ʈ, c/ are often slightly affricated [ʈ͡ʂ, t͡ɕ], but they are unaspirated. A glottal stop [ʔ] is inserted before words that begin with a vowel or /w/: {| cellpadding="5" style="line-height: 1.0em;" | ăn | 'to eat' | /ăn/ | → | [ʔăn] |- | uỷ | 'to delegate' | /wi/ | → | [ʔwi] |} d, gi and r are all pronounced /z/.

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Checked tone

A checked tone, commonly known by the Chinese calque entering tone, is one of the four syllable types in the phonology of Middle Chinese. Although usually translated as "tone", a checked tone is not a tone in the phonetic sense but rather a syllable that ends in a stop consonant or a glottal stop. Separating the checked tone allows -p, -t, and -k to be treated as allophones of -m, -n, and -ng, respectively, since they are in complementary distribution. Stops appear only in the checked tone, and nasals appear only in the other tones.

Glottal stop

The glottal stop or glottal plosive is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ʔ. As a result of the obstruction of the airflow in the glottis, the glottal vibration either stops or becomes irregular with a low rate and sudden drop in intensity. Features of the glottal stop: It has no phonation at all, as there is no airflow through the glottis.

Tone (linguistics)

Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or to inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other para-linguistic information and to convey emphasis, contrast and other such features in what is called intonation, but not all languages use tones to distinguish words or their inflections, analogously to consonants and vowels. Languages that have this feature are called tonal languages; the distinctive tone patterns of such a language are sometimes called tonemes, by analogy with phoneme.