| Mường | |
| Nativename: | Thiểng Mường |
| Ethnicity: | Muong |
| States: | Vietnam |
| Region: | Hòa Bình Province, Thanh Hóa Province, Phú Thọ Province, Sơn La Province |
| Speakers: | 1.1 million |
| Date: | 1999 census |
| Script: | Latin (Chữ Quốc ngữ) |
| Ref: | e18 |
| Familycolor: | Austro-Asiatic |
| Fam2: | Vietic |
| Fam3: | Viet–Muong |
| Iso3: | mtq |
| Glotto: | muon1246 |
| Glottorefname: | Muong |
Mường (mtq|thiểng Mường; vi|tiếng Mường) is a group of dialects spoken by the Mường people of Vietnam. They are in the Austroasiatic language family and closely related to Vietnamese. According to Phan (2012), the Mường dialects are not a single language, or even most closely related to each other, but rather are an ethnically defined and paraphyletic taxon.[1]
Mường dialects are primarily spoken in mountainous regions of the northern Vietnamese provinces of Hòa Bình, Thanh Hóa, Vĩnh Phúc, Yên Bái, Sơn La, and Ninh Bình.
Mường has all six tones of Vietnamese; however, the nặng (heavy) tone is present only in Phú Thọ and Thanh Hóa provinces while in Hòa Bình Province, it is merged with the sắc (sharp) tone.
Mường had no written form until Western academics in the 20th century developed a provisional alphabet based on a modified Vietnamese alphabet, including additional consonants like w and allowing different consonant pairs and final consonants than Vietnamese.
In September 2016, the People's Committee of Hòa Bình Province adopted resolution 2295/QĐ-UBND, specifying a new Mường alphabet to be used in instruction within the province. The alphabet consists of 28 letters and four tone marks.[2] The provincial Communist Party of Vietnam newspaper, Hòa Bình điện tử (mtq|Wa̒ Bi̒nh diê̠n tứ) began publishing its electronic edition in Mường in addition to Vietnamese and English, surprising some readers with the unusual orthography.[3]
The alphabet is as follows:
A, Ă, Â, B, C, D, Đ, E, Ê, G, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, Ô, Ơ, P, Q, R, T, U, Ư, V, W, X, Y
The letters F, J, S, and Z are only used in loanwords.
The following table details the consonants of those dialects that show a full voiced-voiceless distinction in the stops (being Mường Bi, Mường Thành, Mường Động, and Ba Trại). The spelling is given in italics.
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m pronounced as //m// | n pronounced as //n// | nh pronounced as //ɲ// | ng pronounced as //ŋ// | |||
| Stop | voiceless | p pronounced as //p// | t pronounced as //t// | ch pronounced as //c// | c pronounced as //k// | ||
| aspirated | ph pronounced as //pʰ// | th pronounced as //tʰ// | kh pronounced as //kʰ// | ||||
| voiced | b pronounced as //b// | đ pronounced as //d// | g pronounced as //ɡ ~ ɣ// | ||||
| Fricative | voiceless | x pronounced as //s// | h pronounced as //h// | ||||
| voiced | v/w/o/u pronounced as //β// | d/gi/i/y pronounced as //z ~ j// | |||||
| Lateral | l, tl pronounced as //l, tl ~ kl// | ||||||
The Mường Vang dialect completely lacks the distinction between the voiced and unvoiced stop pairs pronounced as //p b//, pronounced as //t d//, pronounced as //k ɡ//, having only the voiceless one of each pair. The Mường Khói and Mường Ống dialects have the full voiceless series, but lack pronounced as //ɡ// among the voiced stops. The Thạch Sơn dialect on the other hand lacks pronounced as //p//.
Furthermore, the Mường Khói dialect lacks the aspirated alveolar pronounced as //tʰ//, but has a pronounced as //hr// instead. This dialect is also described as having the labio-velars pronounced as //kʷ// and pronounced as //kʷʰ//.
All of these consonants can appear syllable-initially. At the end of syllables only the nasals pronounced as //m n ɲ ŋ//, the voiceless stops pronounced as //p t c k//, the lateral pronounced as //l//, and the glides pronounced as //j w// occur. Of these phonemes, the palatals pronounced as //c ɲ// have been analysed as glide + velar pronounced as //ʲk ʲŋ//. Furthermore, the distribution of syllable-final pronounced as //c ɲ l// seems to be more restricted than the distribution of the other final consonants.
The vowel inventory is given in the following table. It appears to be quite uniform among the different dialects. Two of the vowels (pronounced as //ɤ// and pronounced as //a//) can be long or short.
| Front | Back | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| unrounded | rounded | |||
| Close | i pronounced as //i// | ư pronounced as //ɯ// | u pronounced as //u// | |
| Mid | ê pronounced as //e// | ơ, â pronounced as //ɤː, ɤ// | ô pronounced as //o// | |
| Open | e pronounced as //ɛ// | a, ă pronounced as //aː, a// | o pronounced as //ɔ// | |
Apart from these monophthongs, there are also three diphthongs pronounced as //iə, ɯə, uə//.
All Mường dialects are tonal. The Kim Thương dialect (Phú Thọ province) has been the object of an experimental phonetic study.[4]
| zero | không | không | from Middle Chinese 空 | sony សូន្យ | from Sanskrit शून्य (śūnya, “zero”) | |||
| one | mốch, môch | một |
| muŏy មួយ |
| |||
| two | hal | hai |
| pir ពីរ |
| |||
| three | pa | ba |
| bĕi បី |
| |||
| four | pổn | bốn |
| buŏn បួន |
| |||
| five | đằm, đăm | năm |
| pram ប្រាំ |
| |||
| six | khảu | sáu |
| prămmuŏy ប្រាំមួយ | ||||
| seven | páy | bảy |
| prămpir ប្រាំពីរ | ||||
| eight | thảm | tám |
| prămbĕi ប្រាំបី | ||||
| nine | chỉn | chín |
| prămbuŏn ប្រាំបួន | ||||
| ten | mườl | mười |
| dáb ដប់ | from Old Chinese 十 (*di̯əp) | |||
| hundred | tlăm | trăm |
| muŏy rôy មួយរយ | from Thai, ร้อย (roi) | |||
| water | đác | nước (dialects include nác) |
| tɨk ទឹក |
| |||
| language | thiểng | tiếng | from Old Chinese 聲 | phiəsaa ភាសា | from Sanskrit भाषा (bhāṣā) | |||
| river | không | sông |
| tŭənlei ទន្លេ (kŭənlɔɔng គន្លង) |
| |||
| sky | tlời | trời (Middle Vietnamese: blời) |
| meik មេឃ | From Sanskrit मेघ (megha, “cloud”) | |||
| moon | tlăng | trăng (Middle Vietnamese: blăng) |
| look khae លោកខែ | From Sanskrit लोक (loka, “world”) and Proto-Mon-Khmer *khəjʔ (“moon; month”) | |||
| bird | chim | chim |
| baksəy បក្សី | From Sanskrit पक्षि (pakṣi) | |||
| forest | rầng | rừng |
| prɨy ព្រៃ |
|
| Mường | Vietnamese | |
|---|---|---|
| Cải tlỗng chăng bong, lòng chăng yểng. | Cái bụng không vâng, lòng không theo. | |
| Nả tang chái tlốc. | Nó đang chải đầu. | |
| Tlước ăn chay khau ăn nhúc. | Trước ăn chay sau ăn thịt. | |
| Ho là thôn mễ Tử. | Tôi là cháu bà Tự. |