blái

Middle Vietnamese

Etymology

Attested in the Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum (1651), a dictionary based chiefly on the Northern dialects. The modern reflexes of this Northern form are no longer in common use in Modern Vietnamese.

The modern North Central form trấy is not a reflex of this form, but from a different form that went through a different diphthongization process. The Middle Vietnamese form ancestral to the modern Southern Vietnamese form, although technically unattested, should be phonologically identical to the Northern Middle Vietnamese form here. The modern Southern form is listed as a "descendant" in this entry for convenience.

Pronunciation

• (Đông Kinh) [ɓlaːj^B1]

Noun

blái

1. fruit

Descendants

• Northern Vietnamese: giái (inland dialects), lái, tái (coastal dialects)
• Southern Vietnamese: trái

  → Northern Vietnamese: trái