thoại

Vietnamese

Etymology

Sino-Vietnamese word from 話 (“speech, talk, language, dialect”).

It is unclear why Vietnamese has the aspirated stop ‹th› as reflex of the Middle Chinese initial in this particular word. Other characters with the same initial yielded Sino-Vietnamese ‹h›, cf. 畫 (MC ɦˠuɛ^H, ɦˠwɛk̚) (SV: hoạ, hoạch), 橫 (MC ɦˠwæŋ) (SV: hoành), 滑 (MC ɦˠuat̚) (SV: hoạt).

Pronunciation

(Hà Nội) IPA^(key): [tʰwaːj˧˨ʔ]
(Huế) IPA^(key): [tʰwaːj˨˩ʔ]
(Hồ Chí Minh City) IPA^(key): [tʰ⁽ʷ⁾aːj˨˩˨]

Noun

thoại

(only in compounds) speech, talk, language
(only in compounds) dialect

Verb

thoại

(only in compounds) talk

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