Why do you think Vietnamese is not popular as other Asian la

User avatar
Yasna
Posts:2672
Joined:2011-09-12, 1:17
Country:USUnited States (United States)
Re: Why do you think Vietnamese is not popular as other Asian la

Postby Yasna » 2013-06-01, 19:24

Tenebrarum wrote:"Diacritics everywhere" applies to a lot of other Latin alphabets as well, but I don't see you good Anglo folks say anything about them. That's intriguing.

I think Polish looks ugly too but I have no interest in Polish so I don't usually click on Polish threads.
Ein Buch muß die Axt sein für das gefrorene Meer in uns. - Kafka

ffrench
Posts:1906
Joined:2009-11-11, 20:45
Country:GBUnited Kingdom (United Kingdom)

Re: Why do you think Vietnamese is not popular as other Asian la

Postby ffrench » 2013-06-01, 19:35

Certainly. I won't deny the Latin-based script has its own beauty. I'm also a fan of exonyms like Ý, although I don't necessarily like the way multisyllabic loanwords seem to upset the balance of the look (e.g. Tiếng Ireland), but again, a sort of charm of its own, and it might be more distancing to have exonyms for everything, like Latvian or Esperanto.

User avatar
Tenebrarum
Posts:6633
Joined:2006-06-22, 17:02
Real Name:Duy
Gender:male

Re: Why do you think Vietnamese is not popular as other Asian la

Postby Tenebrarum » 2013-06-01, 19:46

Hmm I actually say Ái Nhĩ Lan myself, because I think the Ireland/Iceland confusion is embarrassing and easily avoidable by using the Sino-Vietnamese names (Ái Nhĩ Lan vs. Băng Đảo).

State-controlled TV broadcasting from Hanoi insists on saying Ốt-x(ơ)tơ-rây-li-a and I-ta-li-a for the familiar and pronounceable Úc and Ý though, along with Ai-rơ-len and Ai-xơ-len (seriously??), which speaks volumes about this regime's level of intellect.
!Chalice! Communion wafer of the tabernacle

ffrench
Posts:1906
Joined:2009-11-11, 20:45
Country:GBUnited Kingdom (United Kingdom)

Re: Why do you think Vietnamese is not popular as other Asian la

Postby ffrench » 2013-06-01, 20:11

Damn. All this glancing at Vietnamese Wikipedia has got a bit of wanderlust going. (Not enough for me to start learning though...)

User avatar
mōdgethanc
Posts:10890
Joined:2010-03-20, 5:27
Gender:male
Location:Toronto
Country:CACanada (Canada)

Re: Why do you think Vietnamese is not popular as other Asian la

Postby mōdgethanc » 2013-06-01, 22:01

Tenebrarum wrote:"Diacritics everywhere" applies to a lot of other Latin alphabets as well, but I don't see you good Anglo folks say anything about them. That's intriguing.
Actually I think Czech looks like a pile of puke, but even that language still doesn't have diacritics on nearly every single syllable as well as more than one on the same letter. That's why I and other people think Vietnamese looks "cluttered". Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, though, and I've always thought that Quoc Ngu suits Vietnamese much better than Chu Nom did. I can admire its functionality while finding it ugly to look at.
In any case, please make don't state your view on aesthetics like it's the only truth in the world. Vietnamese is a language with very nationalistic speakers so the potential for flame is high. Some people would construe your smug disapproval of the way their language looks as a personal spit in their face (and frankly, you can't really blame them). If a statement like "I think Celtic languages will go extinct in 200 years" warrants someone going bad shit insane, I think we must cut back on this type of it-doesn't-fit-my-idea-of-beauty trashing.
My view of it is nothing but my own opinion. I've heard lots of people say traditional Chinese looks cluttered and unreadable, and they're entitled to that opinion.

The term is "batshit crazy", by the way. Don't ask me who came up with it.
korn wrote:What do you mean by "smallish"? Vietnam is comparable with Germany regarding it's size and population. And I never heard of anyone saying "Germany is a smallish country."
It is compared to China, a country which is right next to it and constantly in the public eye. Besides, Germany is an economic powerhouse and Vietnam isn't (even if it's growing fast), and Germany is in the heart of Europe while Vietnam is on the other side of the world from the West. That's why I'm not surprised most Westerners have no interest in it. You also have to keep in mind that German is an Indo-European language while Vietnamese isn't and therefore it's much closer to other European languages.
We are both wrong I guess
I prefer to call them logograms, but the characters that are in fact ideograms were once pictographs. I dropped the ball on that one by saying ideogram when I meant logogram.
[ˈmoːdjeðɑŋk]

User avatar
johnklepac
Posts:2809
Joined:2012-12-06, 2:18
Real Name:Your Onions
Gender:male
Location:Chicago/Southwest Ohio
Country:USUnited States (United States)

Re: Why do you think Vietnamese is not popular as other Asian la

Postby johnklepac » 2013-06-01, 22:41

mōdgethanc wrote:Actually I think Czech looks like a pile of puke

Personally, I'd rate it lower than Polish, about the same as Serbo-Croatian, and above Slovak (that l' and stuff look really ugly to me). But I took it up because of its ancestral relevance to me.

but even that language still doesn't have diacritics on nearly every single syllable as well as more than one on the same letter.

What about Hungarian with its "ő" as in "Erdős"?

ffrench
Posts:1906
Joined:2009-11-11, 20:45
Country:GBUnited Kingdom (United Kingdom)

Re: Why do you think Vietnamese is not popular as other Asian la

Postby ffrench » 2013-06-01, 22:49

johnklepac wrote:
mōdgethanc wrote:but even that language still doesn't have diacritics on nearly every single syllable as well as more than one on the same letter.

What about Hungarian with its "ő" as in "Erdős"?

What about it? The Hungarumlaut is just like a long German or Swedish umlaut. Vietnamese has diacritics on top of each other, like ẫ, that's what gets me.

User avatar
johnklepac
Posts:2809
Joined:2012-12-06, 2:18
Real Name:Your Onions
Gender:male
Location:Chicago/Southwest Ohio
Country:USUnited States (United States)

Re: Why do you think Vietnamese is not popular as other Asian la

Postby johnklepac » 2013-06-02, 0:48

ffrench wrote:What about it? The Hungarumlaut is just like a long German or Swedish umlaut. Vietnamese has diacritics on top of each other, like ẫ, that's what gets me.

Oh, I know what it does. My point is that it has double diacritics.

User avatar
mōdgethanc
Posts:10890
Joined:2010-03-20, 5:27
Gender:male
Location:Toronto
Country:CACanada (Canada)

Re: Why do you think Vietnamese is not popular as other Asian la

Postby mōdgethanc » 2013-06-02, 0:51

johnklepac wrote:
ffrench wrote:What about it? The Hungarumlaut is just like a long German or Swedish umlaut. Vietnamese has diacritics on top of each other, like ẫ, that's what gets me.

Oh, I know what it does. My point is that it has double diacritics.
I think it's a single diacritic. You don't say ä is "a with two dots above".
[ˈmoːdjeðɑŋk]

User avatar
JackFrost
Posts:16240
Joined:2004-11-08, 21:00
Real Name:Jack Frost
Gender:male
Location:Montréal, Québec
Country:CACanada (Canada)

Re: Why do you think Vietnamese is not popular as other Asian la

Postby JackFrost » 2013-06-02, 3:11

ffrench wrote:Vietnamese has diacritics on top of each other, like ẫ, that's what gets me.

 is considered to be a full letter in Vietnamese, so the tilde would be the actual diacritic.
Neferuj paħujkij!

User avatar
johnklepac
Posts:2809
Joined:2012-12-06, 2:18
Real Name:Your Onions
Gender:male
Location:Chicago/Southwest Ohio
Country:USUnited States (United States)

Re: Why do you think Vietnamese is not popular as other Asian la

Postby johnklepac » 2013-06-02, 3:51

mōdgethanc wrote:
johnklepac wrote:Oh, I know what it does. My point is that it has double diacritics.
I think it's a single diacritic. You don't say ä is "a with two dots above".

I've seen it described that way many times, but fair enough. The double diacritics in Vietnamese are, IIRC, to indicate both sound and tone, so it's different anyhow.

User avatar
mōdgethanc
Posts:10890
Joined:2010-03-20, 5:27
Gender:male
Location:Toronto
Country:CACanada (Canada)

Re: Why do you think Vietnamese is not popular as other Asian la

Postby mōdgethanc » 2013-06-02, 4:41

johnklepac wrote:I've seen it described that way many times, but fair enough. The double diacritics in Vietnamese are, IIRC, to indicate both sound and tone, so it's different anyhow.
Okay, but it's still a single diacritic. The name in Unicode might be "two dots above" or something like that, but it's more widely known as the dieresis or the umlaut and seen as one marking.

Anyway, I know what the Vietnamese diacritics are for. Doesn't mean I'm not allowed to find them ugly or unwieldy. I know all the ins and outs of English spelling, and I wouldn't complain if someone said it was either or both of those two things.
[ˈmoːdjeðɑŋk]

User avatar
limoneneis
Posts:240
Joined:2007-09-03, 10:34
Gender:female

Re: Why do you think Vietnamese is not popular as other Asian la

Postby limoneneis » 2013-06-02, 11:11

I think Vietnamese is very beautiful and I also like the script. It's really convenient that it marks the tones. There is also a very good textbook called "Elementary Vietnamese".
[flag=]kl[/flag][flag=]ja[/flag]

User avatar
korn
Posts:311
Joined:2008-04-23, 11:29
Real Name:emaN laeR
Gender:male
Location:Bavaria
Country:DEGermany (Deutschland)

Re: Why do you think Vietnamese is not popular as other Asian la

Postby korn » 2013-06-14, 18:55

Please correct all my mistakes, no matter how trivial they may seem to you, also, please help me to improve my phrases. Thank you in advance!
---
S'il vous plaît, corrigez toutes mes fautes, même si elles vous paraissent insignifiantes. Et aidez-moi, s'il vous plaît, à améliorer ma façon de m'exprimer. Merci d'avance!
---
Nếu tôi viết chỗ nào chưa đúng, dù là lỗi nhỏ hay nghiêm trọng, thì các bạn hãy sửa lại giúp tôi hoặc góp ý để tôi có thể học hỏi và rút kinh nghiệm. Cám ơn các bạn nhé!

User avatar
Pangu
Posts:429
Joined:2010-05-05, 11:23
Gender:male
Country:USUnited States (United States)

Re: Why do you think Vietnamese is not popular as other Asian la

Postby Pangu » 2013-06-14, 19:43


"Popular" or common? Two very different things, the former implies that many non-Vietnamese speak it, while the latter just means there are many Vietnamese in Texas, which is true as I live here.

User avatar
korn
Posts:311
Joined:2008-04-23, 11:29
Real Name:emaN laeR
Gender:male
Location:Bavaria
Country:DEGermany (Deutschland)

Re: Why do you think Vietnamese is not popular as other Asian la

Postby korn » 2013-06-17, 10:07

Tenebrarum wrote:State-controlled TV broadcasting from Hanoi insists on saying Ốt-x(ơ)tơ-rây-li-a and I-ta-li-a for the familiar and pronounceable Úc and Ý though, along with Ai-rơ-len and Ai-xơ-len (seriously??), which speaks volumes about this regime's level of intellect.


In my opinion the "onomatopoetic" translations of international names have their advantages. In particular, it makes international names easier to recognize of how they sound, both by foreigners as well as by the Vietnamese.
Please correct all my mistakes, no matter how trivial they may seem to you, also, please help me to improve my phrases. Thank you in advance!
---
S'il vous plaît, corrigez toutes mes fautes, même si elles vous paraissent insignifiantes. Et aidez-moi, s'il vous plaît, à améliorer ma façon de m'exprimer. Merci d'avance!
---
Nếu tôi viết chỗ nào chưa đúng, dù là lỗi nhỏ hay nghiêm trọng, thì các bạn hãy sửa lại giúp tôi hoặc góp ý để tôi có thể học hỏi và rút kinh nghiệm. Cám ơn các bạn nhé!

User avatar
Tenebrarum
Posts:6633
Joined:2006-06-22, 17:02
Real Name:Duy
Gender:male

Re: Why do you think Vietnamese is not popular as other Asian la

Postby Tenebrarum » 2013-06-26, 8:35

If foreigners can guess what countries from looking at those monstrosities (bar Italy, that's an easy one) and listening to TV presenters pronounce them, I'll send them cookies.
!Chalice! Communion wafer of the tabernacle

User avatar
Pangu
Posts:429
Joined:2010-05-05, 11:23
Gender:male
Country:USUnited States (United States)

Re: Why do you think Vietnamese is not popular as other Asian la

Postby Pangu » 2013-06-26, 15:28

korn wrote:
Tenebrarum wrote:State-controlled TV broadcasting from Hanoi insists on saying Ốt-x(ơ)tơ-rây-li-a and I-ta-li-a for the familiar and pronounceable Úc and Ý though, along with Ai-rơ-len and Ai-xơ-len (seriously??), which speaks volumes about this regime's level of intellect.

In my opinion the "onomatopoetic" translations of international names have their advantages. In particular, it makes international names easier to recognize of how they sound, both by foreigners as well as by the Vietnamese.

Why does it matter that foreign names in Vietnamese are recognizable by foreigners or not? These names are meant for VIETNAMESE to understand, not foreigners.

If wanting foreigners to easily understand foreign names in Vietnamese, the best thing to do is simply take each language's own pronunciation. But that doesn't make sense to me.

I am sure it's easier for Vietnamese to remember and understand "My" as opposed to "United States of America" (or some form of it).

User avatar
mōdgethanc
Posts:10890
Joined:2010-03-20, 5:27
Gender:male
Location:Toronto
Country:CACanada (Canada)

Re: Why do you think Vietnamese is not popular as other Asian la

Postby mōdgethanc » 2013-06-26, 19:35

I don't find anything ambiguous about Chinese 美國, 法國, 義國, at least not any more than "EU" or "USA". Maybe Vietnamese could make more use of quốc (as a prefix or suffix, whatever the word order is) for disambiguation if it doesn't already.
[ˈmoːdjeðɑŋk]

User avatar
Tenebrarum
Posts:6633
Joined:2006-06-22, 17:02
Real Name:Duy
Gender:male

Re: Why do you think Vietnamese is not popular as other Asian la

Postby Tenebrarum » 2013-06-27, 12:11

mōdgethanc wrote:義國

What is that?

mōdgethanc wrote:Maybe Vietnamese could make more use of quốc (as a prefix or suffix, whatever the word order is) for disambiguation if it doesn't already.

But why are you talking about ambiguity all of a sudden? Vietnamese has no problem of this sort when it comes to country names. The Ireland-Iceland confusion is because the communist regime decided to abandon the Sino names for no reason.
!Chalice! Communion wafer of the tabernacle


Return to “South East Asian Languages”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 9 guests