Talk:già

Vietnamese etymology (“from earlier *rà”)

@PhanAnh123: I was wondering about the reason for this: “from earlier *rà (as consonants merged in certain dialects, già became the standard spelling)”. Could you please elaborate, or point me to any source on this?

*r seems an unusual source for the modern pronunciations. Từ điển Việt–Bồ–La, pp. 270 had già /ʝa^A2/. Could it be the diffusion of a dialectal MV /ʝ/ outcome for PV /*k-r/? (i.e. Developing via /*k-r/ > /*ɽ/ or /*ʂ/ > /ʝ/ instead.) Thanks! Wyang (talk) 00:54, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

One of the Nôm characters for this word points out the pronunciation that was very similar to the proto-Vietic form (痂, phonetic 加 (OC *kraːl), although this is rather odd as when Nôm as invented the Middle Chinese period had already ended), I think this is the earlier reading, while the other character (𦓅) now could be read as both rà (as in rà soát) and già ("old"), I think this is the later reading. As we don't have direct phonetic evidences of pre-Latin alphabet Vietnamese, I think that to say rà is the earlier form of già is fair enough. The sound change of /*ɽ/ > /ʝ/ is true for this word, but we need some other examples of this, as this is the odd one out, /*ɽ/ tend to be quite intact.PhanAnh123 (talk) 04:07, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

@PhanAnh123: Thanks for the explanation above. Some more thoughts on this:

• Regarding Nôm for già: I could find four characters used to write this meaning: 查 (SV tra; MC /d͡ʒˠ-/), 痂 (phonetic 加: SV gia; MC /kˠ-/), 𦓅 (phonetic 茶: SV trà; MC /ɖˠ-/), 𫅷 (phonetic 茶: SV trà; MC /ɖˠ-/), all pointing to a palatal initial of /ʝ/, /c/ or /ɟ/ in Middle Vietnamese. 𦓅 seemingly writes some kind of palatal initial; it doesn't make sense for 𦓅 to write two words identically pronounced as rà. Its phonetic component is 茶 (SV trà; MC /ɖˠ-/), while the usual Nôm phonetic representations of ra are 羅 (SV la; MC /l-/) and 呂 (SV lã; MC /l-/), cf. ra 囉 𠚢 𦋦, rà 攞, rá 筥, rã 𣳮, rả 呂. Quốc ngữ r is usually written with a phonetic part pronounced as /l/ or a simple alveolar stop in Middle Chinese, not a retroflex.
• Regarding rà: I'm not sure about the etymology of the rà in rà soát. Nôm Foundation says the use of 𦓅 to write rà in rà soát is per Anthony Trần Văn Kiệm's Giúp đọc Nôm và Hán Việt (2004), but its Lookup for Giúp đọc Nôm và Hán Việt records that 𦓅, alongside 𦚐, were used to write rà in ruột rà. It's not found in the more comprehensive Tự Điển Chữ Nôm Dẫn Giải by Nguyễn Quang Hồng, where 𦓅 only has one reading già. The only use I could find in the Nôm literature was in Nhật dụng thường đàm (1851): 大膓羅𦛌𦓅 “đại tràng là ruột rà”, written by Phạm Đình Hổ. My suspicion is that using it to write rà is a relatively rare and late use of the character, motivated by the existing common use of 𦓅 to write già, and is used only by author(s) whose dialect have merged gi and r into /z/, as is possibly the case of Phạm Đình Hổ.
• Regarding the *rà intermediate: A problem with this is that it assumes two irregular sound changes in history, via an intermediate that we do not yet have direct evidence for. In other words, we have to assume there was an unexpected deprefixation of *k-raː to yield *rà, then the irregular change of *rà > Middle Vietnamese /ʝa^A2/ (if I have understood it correctly). IMO there is also a third possibility for this Middle Vietnamese reflex, in addition to the hypotheses of a *rà intermediate and spirantisation of /*ɽ/, which is that /*k.r/ had irregularly evolved into /*k.l/ in early Vietnamese, and the cluster /*kl/ regularly developed into /ʝ/ in the north, recorded in Middle Vietnamese and diffused to the south. This also explains the tra form used in some Central areas. (See pp. 11 of Michaud et al.'s article on the Phong Nha dialect for a similar case.) A parallel case may be giòi, from Proto-Vietic *k-rɔːj. I think we should probably be less specific about the details, only commenting that it is an irregular reflex of the Proto-Vietic term.

Thanks, Wyang (talk) 08:11, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Your observation of the reading and history of rà is detailed and accurate. Pardon me for my lack of research beforehand. I think your explanation of /*k.r/ turned into /*k.l/ is quite plausible. But note that in North Central Vietnamese, the dialectal form of giòi is ròi (which, interestingly, is a homonym of ròi/ruồi). As North Central Vietnamese is quite conservative in regard of both consonants and vowels, is it "fair" to say that the /*k-/ was somehow dropped (compare rừng)? PhanAnh123 (talk) 08:56, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

@PhanAnh123 No worries, and thanks! Good point about ròi. Indeed, dropping of /*k-/ seems likely in view of the North Central Vietnamese reflex, assuming it hadn't been contaminated in its initial by ruồi. Wyang (talk) 09:33, 30 March 2018 (UTC)