Some historical changes in Vietnamese initial consonants through the local vocal landscape of Nghe Tinh

Abstract

The paper aims to reconstruct some historical phonetic change processes in Vietnamese onsets. Based on lexical data from 2 dictionaries of Nghe Tinh dialect, with the method of synchronic description and historical comparison, the paper tried to identify some correspondences between fossils in Nghe Tinh dialect with words currently used in the Northern dialect. To support the reconstruction of the onsets, these data were compared with the data from the Muong language and previous research on the onsets origins. The historical phonetic change processes presented in the paper include spirantization (* b > v, *th > d/gi, *tr > s, *th > s/x, *tr > l) and spirantization along with sonorization (*ph > v, *k > g, *ch > d/gi, *tr > d/gi). The presentation will hopefully promote further research to record and preserve the features of the conservative dialects, particularly as  they face the threat of disappearance in the rapid modern period of urbanization and dialect homogenization.