Glottal Stop Initials and Nasalization in Sino-Vietnamese and Southern Chinese

Abstract

Middle Chinese glottal stop Ying 影 [ʔ-] initials usually develop into zero initials with rare occasions of nasalization in modern day Sinitic languages and Sino-Vietnamese. Scholars such as Edwin Pullyblank (1984) and Jiang Jialu (2011) have briefly mentioned this development but have not yet thoroughly investigated it. There are approximately 26 Sino-Vietnamese words with Ying- initials that nasalize. Scholars such as John Phan (2013: 2016) and Hilario deSousa (2016) argue that Sino-Vietnamese in part comes from a spoken interaction between Việt-Mường and Chinese speakers in Annam speaking a variety of Chinese called Annamese Middle Chinese AMC, part of a larger dialect continuum called Southwestern Middle Chinese SMC. Phan and deSousa also claim that SMC developed into dialects spoken in Southwestern China today (Phan, Desousa: 2016). Using data of dialects mentioned by Phan and deSousa in their hypothesis, this study investigates initial nasalization in Ying-initial words in Southwestern Chinese Languages and in the 26 Sino-Vietnamese words. This study uses the working hypothesis of Phan and deSousa as a framework to investigate a possible common origin for both Southwestern Middle Chinese and Sino-Vietnamese initial nasalization of Ying-initial syllables. Not all of the Sino-Vietnamese Ying-initial words nasalized under the same condition; we find nasalization occurring both in the Hán-Việt HV and readings for Chữ Nôm CN characters as well as for alternate readings, that is to say: readings of Chinese origin that exist outside of the HV and CN reading traditions.