1. Overview

Vietnamese belongs to the Mon-Khmer language family, having numerous basic Mon-Khmer etyma (Shorto 2006), but it is unlike other Mon-Khmer languages, which typically do not have complex tone systems, do have numerous polysyllabic words, and utilize morphology that includes prefixes and infixes. Instead, Vietnamese, like Thai and Hmong, belongs to the “inner Sinosphere” (Chinese loanwords in Southeast Asia). All have had sociolinguistic contact with the Chinese in…