French
The House of Oojah Learn to Speak French Audio Books
  • About the Vietnamese Language:
    Vietnamese , formerly known under the French colonization as Annamese (see Annam), is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of the Vietnamese people , who constitute 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese, most of whom live in the United States. It is also spoken as a second language by some ethnic minorities of Vietnam. It is part of the Austroasiatic language family, of which it has the most speakers by a significant margin (several times larger than the other Austroasiatic languages put together). Much vocabulary has been borrowed from Chinese, and it was originally written using the Chinese writing system. The Vietnamese writing system in use today is an adapted version of the Latin alphabet, with additional diacritics for tones and certain letters. Vietnamese was identified more than 150 years ago to be part of the Viet-Muong (or Vietic) grouping of the Mon-Khmer branch of the Austroasiatic language family, a family that also includes Khmer, spoken in Cambodia, as well as various tribal and regional languages, such as the Munda languages, spoken in eastern India, and others in southern China. Even though this is supported by etymological comparison , some linguists still believe that Viet-Muong is a separate family, genealogically unrelated to other Mon-Khmer languages. The ancestor of the Vietnamese language was originally based in the area of the Red River in what is now northern Vietnam, and during the subsequent expansion of the Vietnamese language and people into what is now central and southern Vietnam , Vietnamese was linguistically influenced primarily by Chinese, which came to predominate politically in the 2nd century B.C.E. With the rise of Chinese political dominance came radical importation of Chinese vocabulary and grammatical influence. As Chinese was, for a prolonged period, the only medium of literature and government, as well as the primary written language of the ruling class in Vietnam, much of the Vietnamese lexicon in all realms consists of Hán Vi?t (Sino-Vietnamese) words. In fact, as the vernacular language of Vietnam gradually grew in prestige toward the beginning of the second millennium, the Vietnamese language was written using Chinese characters adapted to write Vietnamese, in a similar pattern as used in Japan (kanji), Korea (hanja), and other countries in the Sinosphere. As contact with the West grew, the system of Romanized writing was developed in the 17th century by Portuguese and other Europeans involved in proselytizing and trade in Vietnam. When France invaded Vietnam in the late 19th century, French gradually replaced Chinese as the official language in education and government. Vietnamese adopted many French terms. In addition, many Sino-Vietnamese terms were devised for Western ideas imported through the French. However, the Romanized script did not come to predominate until the beginning of the 20th century, when education became widespread and a simpler writing system was found more expedient for teaching and communication with the general population.
  • History of the Dutch Language
    The history of the Dutch language begins around AD 450–500, after Old Frankish, one of the many West Germanic tribal languages, was split by the Second Germanic consonant shift while at more or less the same time the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law led to the development of the direct ancestors of modern Dutch Low Saxon, Frisian and English. The northern dialects of Old Frankish generally did not participate in either of these two shifts, except for a small amount of phonetic changes, and are hence known now as Old Low Franconian; the "Low" refers to dialects not influenced by the consonant shift. The most south-eastern dialects of the Franconian languages became part of High, though not Upper, German even though a dialect continuum remained. The fact that Dutch did not undergo the sound changes may be the reason why some people say that Dutch is like a bridge between English and German. Within Old Low Franconian there were two subgroups: Old East Low Franconian and Old West Low Franconian, which is better known as Old Dutch. East Low Franconian was eventually absorbed by Dutch as it became the dominant form of Low Franconian, although it remains a noticeable substrate within the southern Limburgish dialects of Dutch. Because the two groups were so similar it is often very hard to determine whether a text is Old Dutch or Old East Low Franconian, hence most linguists will generally use Old Dutch synonymously with Old Low Franconian and most of the time do not differentiate. Dutch, coincidentally like other Germanic languages, is conventionally divided into three phases. In the development of Dutch these phases were: * 450/500–1150 Old Dutch (First attested in the Salic Law) * 1150–1500 Middle Dutch (Also called "Diets" in popular use, though not by linguists) * 1500–present Modern Dutch (Saw the creation of the Dutch standard language and includes contemporary Dutch) The transition between these languages was very gradual and one of the few moments linguists can detect somewhat of a revolution is when the Dutch standard language emerged and quickly established itself. It should be noted that Standard Dutch is very similar to most Dutch dialects. The development of the Dutch language is illustrated by the following sentence in Old, Middle and Modern Dutch. "Irlôsin sol an frithe sêla mîna fan thên thia ginâcont mi, wanda under managon he was mit mi" (Old Dutch) "Erlossen sal [hi] in vrede siele mine van dien die genaken mi, want onder menegen hi was met mi" (Middle Dutch) (Using same word order) "Verlossen zal hij in vrede ziel mijn van degenen die [te] na komen mij, want onder velen hij was met mij" (Modern Dutch) (Using correct contemporary Dutch word order) "Hij zal mijn ziel in vrede verlossen van degenen die mij te na komen, want onder velen was hij met mij" (Modern Dutch) (see Psalm 55:19) "He will deliver my soul in peace from those who attack me, because, amongst many, he was with me" (English translation) (see Psalm 55:18) A process of standardization started in the Middle ages, especially under the influence of the Burgundian Ducal Court in Dijon (Brussels after 1477). The dialects of Flanders and Brabant were the most influential around this time. The process of standardization became much stronger at the start of the 16th century, mainly based on the urban dialect of Antwerp. In 1585 Antwerp fell to the Spanish army: many fled to the Northern Netherlands, especially the province of Holland, where they influenced the urban dialects of that province. In 1637, a further important step was made towards a unified language, when the first major Dutch Bible translation was created that people from all over the United Provinces could understand. It used elements from various, even Dutch Low Saxon, dialects but was predominantly based on the urban dialects of Holland.