Etymological Study of Vietnamese Words for Textiles and Clothing (original) (raw)

(VIDEO OF TALK: https://youtu.be/L8gkuo0sWaY) In this talk, I present an overview of the etymological origins of Vietnamese words in the domain of clothing, textiles, and related products. These include textile materials (e.g., silk, rattan, etc.), actions of manufacturing (e.g., weaving, plaiting, etc.), aspects of colors and coloration (e.g., dye, color terms, etc.), clothing (e.g., hats, lower/upper-body garments, etc.), and other woven products (e.g., rugs/carpets, curtains, mats, baskets, etc.). Relative chronologies of the words can be posited through historical phonological study. For a still general but more precise chronology, a combination of the historical linguistic lexical data and archaeo-historical information shows how these words are associated with historical periods and ethnohistorical events (e.g., the Austroasiatic dispersal c. 2000 BCE, the Han Dynasty expansion circa c. 200 BCE to 200 CE, the post-Chinese-administration period of the 2nd millennium, the Colonial era, etc.). This etymological study thus presents a broad picture of past language contact and ethnohistorical linguistic developments in this domain in Vietnamese.