sông Cửu Long

sông (“river”) + Cửu Long (九龍, “nine dragons”), literally “River of the Nine Dragons”, referring to the nine main distributaries of the Mekong in its lower reaches before it enters the sea.

An alternative theory holds that Cửu Long 九龍 (MC kjuwX ljowng) is essentially a disyllabified, Sino-Vietnamese phono-semantic matching of Proto-Vietic *k-roːŋ (“river”), whence Modern Vietnamese sông. Although this practice is widely attested (compare Dóng vs. Phù Đổng, Trầu vs. Phù Lưu, Trèm vs. Từ Liêm), the geographical remoteness from the Vietnamese heartland (Northern and North Central Vietnam) and the rather recent settlement history of Vietnamese speakers in the region may cast some doubt on the theory.

• (Hà Nội) IPA^(key): [səwŋ͡m˧˧ kiw˧˩ lawŋ͡m˧˧]
• (Huế) IPA^(key): [ʂəwŋ͡m˧˧ kɨw˧˨ lawŋ͡m˧˧] ~ [səwŋ͡m˧˧ kɨw˧˨ lɔŋ˧˧]
• (Hồ Chí Minh City) IPA^(key): [ʂəwŋ͡m˧˧ kɨw˨˩˦ lawŋ͡m˧˧] ~ [səwŋ͡m˧˧ kɨw˨˩˦ lawŋ͡m˧˧]

sông Cửu Long

1. The collective name for the distributaries of the Mekong River in Vietnam's territory.