Tone

If you're new to these arts, this is the place to ask "stupid" questions and get directions!
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cybrxkhan
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Re: Tone

Post by cybrxkhan »

Theta wrote:Are you from south Vietnam? I've read that's a characteristic difference in the dialects there compared to those in the North.
3 of my grandparents were from the North, 1 from the Central region. However, both sides of my family ran to the South before my parents were born. I was born here, and picked up generally my parents' and grandparents' way of speaking.

Generally, all my grandparents speak with Northern accent (even my grandfather from the Central region; even though he died when I was ~12 so I don't remember much of his speech, I am almost certain he spoke Northern usually, and switched to Central when he was with people from Central - it's common practice for Central dialect speakers, since their dialect is insanely difficult to understand). My parents also usually have a clearly Northern accent, although some Southern vocabulary has seeped into our speech as my parents lived in S. Vietnam for the time they were in Vietnam. As for me, I've been told that I have a very strong Northern accent (albeit one that is slightly "Americanized" since I was born here).
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thetha
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Re: Tone

Post by thetha »

That's quite interesting, I suppose the barriers between the dialects of Vietnamese aren't so strong. I've always wondered how the Central dialect ended up being so strongly different from the South and North dialects.
This probably isn't the right thread for getting into this, but how do you mean your accent in Vietnamese has become 'Americanized'?
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cybrxkhan
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Re: Tone

Post by cybrxkhan »

Theta wrote:That's quite interesting, I suppose the barriers between the dialects of Vietnamese aren't so strong. I've always wondered how the Central dialect ended up being so strongly different from the South and North dialects.
This probably isn't the right thread for getting into this, but how do you mean your accent in Vietnamese has become 'Americanized'?
I've heard that the Central dialect is in actuality the most conservative of the Vietnamese dialects (which does make sense, given that it's a more isolated area), and it retains the Vietnamese of several centuries past to some extent. The most notable thing about it is how much they don't distinguish between tones as much, at least to the ears of other Vietnamese.

Anyhow, when I said "Americanized", I refer to my Vietnamese being 'bastardized', so to speak, by American English. It's a term used by many Vietnamese - and I'm pretty sure other immigrant groups also speak about newer generations speaking native tongues in the same way - to describe when we use, for instance, American grammatical structures or American "pronounciation" in our Vietnamese, as if we were non-Vietnamese (white) speakers trying to master Vietnamese. For instance, a few years back, I couldn't pronounce the difference between aspirated <t> and unaspirated <t>, which Vietnamese contrasts, and furthermore, I would aspirate any <t> if it was the first sound, just like in English (I'm better now, in case you were wondering). However, for me, I think my unconscious application of English grammar to Vietnamese is more blatant. Stuff like that. It's not the same as the pidgin kind of thing a lot of 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants use (which I do all the time), since that's more "conscious", so to speak - I'm talking about when my Vietnamese isn't "perfect".
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Re: Tone

Post by Rainchild »

Did someone already mention recorded language lessons as a way to learn to hear tone systems? It seems that I often see recorded Mandarin lessons and sometimes recorded Vietnamese lessons when I shop at large stores like Costco.

Once you learn to hear one or more natlang tone systems, you can expropriate them or vary them according to your taste when you make your own tone language.

By the way, add me to the list of conlangers who have designed tone languages. I've got one that uses a combination of register tones and vowel/diphthong alternation to differentiate word-classes.

When it comes to tone, you're not alone.

:-)

Jim G.
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