Lost Tongues of the Red River: Annamese Middle Chinese & the Origins of the Vietnamese Language

In Lost Tongues of the Red River, John D. Phan uncovers the history of a Sinitic language rooted in the Red River Plain of northern Vietnam, which he calls “Annamese Middle Chinese.” The life and death of this language stimulated dramatic speech transformations in the region, giving rise to a new language in the early second millennium—Vietnamese.