Hán Việt

Vietnamese Etymology 漢 Han 越 Vietnamese. Pronunciation Adjective vi linguistics of a lexical item borrowed from en Classical Chinese Usage notes Often translated as en Sino-Vietnamese, and even such broadly understood English term may be defined with the above strict definition. Hán Việt refers to a specific class of lexical items lifted from Classical Chinese texts, or text used by the bureaucratic and educated class. These items were borrowed with systematically derived pronunciations, with very few exceptions. Not all Chinese-borrowed items are considered Hán Việt. Compare vi hè non-Hán Việt and vi hạ Hán Việt, both of which mean "summer", but the former was borrowed from spoken Chinese. Due to the systematic method (fanqie) with which Hán Việt pronunciations were and are still derived from en Middle Chinese, the vowel /ɛ/ in the former item is not valid, but the vowel /a/ in the latter item is. Items borrowed from spoken Chinese varieties or languages like the Cantonese vi tả pín lù do not count, either. Compare ja 漢語 kango, which refers to the Japanese equivalent lexical class that also disregards non-Classical-Chinese Chinese-borrowed items. See also Hán Tạng Sino-Tibetan vi Việt Trung (diplomatically) Sino-Vietnamese vi Vietnam