bặt vô âm tín

Vietnamese

Alternative forms

• biệt vô âm tín

Etymology

Apparently a Vietnamese construct from Sinitic elements: 拔 (bá, “to pull”), 無／无 (“not have, nothing”), 音信 (yīnxìn, “news”). Compare the obsolete/archaic compound bặt tin (“radio silent”).

The morpheme bặt is of particular interest; its modern "standard" Sino-Vietnamese reading is bạt with long vowel. This "four-character compound" is also attested as biệt vô âm tín; this "alternation" of the first morpheme is also seen in bặt tăm vs. biệt tăm, the latter form probably represents contamination by biệt (別, “to part, to leave”). Furthermore, some dictionaries (including Đại Nam Quấc âm tự vị (1895)) defines bặt as if it is a variant of bật, which is likely a native word; there was probably some more contamination involved.

Pronunciation

• (Hà Nội) IPA^(key): [ʔɓat̚˧˨ʔ vo˧˧ ʔəm˧˧ tin˧˦]
• (Huế) IPA^(key): [ʔɓak̚˨˩ʔ vow˧˧ ʔəm˧˧ tin˦˧˥]
• (Hồ Chí Minh City) IPA^(key): [ʔɓak̚˨˩˨ vow˧˧ ʔəm˧˧ tɨn˦˥] ~ [ʔɓak̚˨˩˨ jow˧˧ ʔəm˧˧ tɨn˦˥]

Idiom

bặt vô âm tín • (拔無音信)

1. missing; whereabouts unknown; complete radio silent

   Nó đi bụi mấy năm trời bặt vô âm tín, vậy mà tuần trước tự nhiên ló mặt về nhà như không.

   He ran away, not a whit of contact nor news for a few years, yet just last week, I saw him at home acting as if nothing happened at all.