Nẫu

Vietnamese

Etymology

Although this spelling is seemingly unetymological, it is more common than Nẩu. The dialects spoken in Bình Định and Phú Yên 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