Nẫu

Vietnamese

Etymology

Although this spelling is seemingly unetymological, it is more common than Nẩu. The dialects spoken in these provinces are Southern so they do have hỏi-ngã merger (a general Southern feature). These dialects generally have lower range of fundamental frequency in semitones across all tones (between 27-39 Hz for all tones in Hoài Nhơn, compared to something like 34-52 Hz in Northern dialects), although it is not totally clear to how this plays into the perception of this merged C tone (hỏi-ngã) as ngã (C2) instead of hỏi (C1).

Pronunciation

(Hà Nội) IPA^(key): [nəw˦ˀ˥]
(Huế) IPA^(key): [nəw˧˨]
(Saigon) IPA^(key): [nəw˨˩˦]

Proper noun

Nẫu

Alternative form of Nẩu (“Bình Định and Phú Yên”)
tiếng Nẫu ― the dialects spoken in these two provinces