PREFACE
The Vietnamese or Annamese[1] language was spoken in 1936-1937 by about sixteen million people in Indo-China, including most of the inhabitants of the Tonkinese delta in the north, the Mekong delta and the plains of Cochin China in the south, and between these two areas the long mountainous coastal strip of what was until recently the kingdom of Annam. The name Annamese is from An-nam ("the pacified south"), the native form of the name given to the country anciently by the Chinese. This name was continued in use by the French. Apparently another name, Việt-nam, has been in fairly general use among the educated people of the country (if not used by all the people) for a longish period.[2] In revolutionary circles and writings since the Second World War, and officially by the French since March, 1946, this name has been used to the exclusion of the other, which now seems to be tainted with connotations of "slavery." In the name Việt-nam, the second element is the word meaning "south" and the first is an ancient (Chinese) word for non-Chinese tribes or districts in southern China and then for the Annamese. It seems necessary at this time to use both names for the language, since "Annamese" will for a long time remain the more familiar in the scholarly literature.
The language has mildly differentiated dialects, the boundaries of which have been roughly given by Henri Maspero, "Études sur la phonétique historique de la langue annamite. Les initiales," in Bulletin de l'École Française d'Extrême-Orient, 12 (1912).1.1-127, especially 1-3.[3] They fall into two groups: Tonkinese-Cochin Chinese, and the dialects of Haut-Annam. The latter group is given as reaching from about Tourane northward to about Vinh, including Huě, the capital of the kingdom of Annam, but apparently the city of Vinh is not included. The former group is cut in two by the Haut-Annam group, into the Tonkinese of the delta and North Annam as far south as Vinh, and Cochin Chinese, which reaches from about Tourane southward to the southernmost limit of the language. Tonkinese and Cochin Chinese[4] are slightly differentiated from one another by differences of pronunciation and of vocabulary. Within both there are further subdialects; and it seems probable that the speech of Vinh, as represented by my major informant, is to be classed as a Tonkinese subdialect. The Haut-Annam dialects are markedly different in phonetics from all the others and are characterized by Maspero as archaic.
The work that I have been able to do on the language was begun in preparing for and conducting an Army Specialized Training Course during a year and a half from the summer of 1943 to the end of 1944. My thanks are due to the
- ↑ I prefer this form to "Annamite," since the latter is undoubtedly a borrowing from French, perhaps somewhat under the influence of Biblical forms like Canaanite, Amorite, etc. The analogy of other English ethnic and language names in the Far East (e.g., Chinese, Japanese, Burmese, Siamese, Cantonese) favors Annamese. The newer name, Vietnamese, should present no problem.
- ↑ I have no knowledge of how long. Is it fifty years, or a hundred, or a thousand?
- ↑ This supersedes L. Cadière, Phonétique annamite (dialecte du Haut-Annam), Publications de l'École Française d'Extrême-Orient, 3 (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1902).
- ↑ This dialect has been treated by Maurice Grammont, "Recherches expérimentales sur la prononciation du cochinchinois," Mémoires de la Société de Linguistique de Paris, 16 (1909-1910).69-86, as well as in practical manuals by various authors, none of them very enlightening. Most of the manuals, however, concentrate on the Tonkinese dialect.
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