Misplaced Pages

#530469

117-515: Hạ Long Bay or Halong Bay ( Vietnamese : Vịnh Hạ Long , IPA: [vînˀ hâːˀ lawŋm] ) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and popular travel destination in Quảng Ninh province , Vietnam . The name Hạ Long means "descending dragon". Administratively, the bay belongs to Hạ Long city, Cẩm Phả city, and is a part of Vân Đồn district . The bay features thousands of limestone karsts and islets in various shapes and sizes. Hạ Long Bay

234-636: A minor syllable occurred). These fricatives were not present in Proto-Viet–Muong, as indicated by their absence in Mường , but were evidently present in the later Proto-Vietnamese stage. Subsequent loss of the minor-syllable prefixes phonemicized the fricatives. Ferlus 1992 proposes that originally there were both voiced and voiceless fricatives, corresponding to original voiced or voiceless stops, but Ferlus 2009 appears to have abandoned that hypothesis, suggesting that stops were softened and voiced at approximately

351-555: A classic fenglin landscape with heights ranging from 50–100 metres (160–330 ft), and height/width ratios of up to about six. Another specific feature of Hạ Long Bay is the abundance of lakes inside the limestone islands. For example, Dau Be island has six enclosed lakes. All these island lakes occupy drowned dolines within fengcong karst . Hạ Long Bay is located in northeastern Vietnam, from E106°55' to E107°37' and from N20°43' to N21°09'. The bay stretches from Quang Yen town, past Hạ Long city, Cẩm Phả city to Vân Đồn District ,

468-483: A country, they had to fight against invaders. To assist the Vietnamese in defending their country, the gods sent a family of dragons as protectors. This family of dragons began spitting out jewels and jade . These jewels turned into the islands and islets dotting the bay, linking together to form a great wall against the invaders. Under magics, numerous rock mountains abruptly appeared on the sea, ahead of invaders' ships;

585-415: A drip stalagmite that forms below as material is carried through the tubular stalactite and piles up on the floor beneath. Sometimes the tubular form collapses near the distal end, most likely when the pressure of escaping gases decreased and still-molten portions of the stalactites deflated and cooled. Often these tubular stalactites acquire a twisted, vermiform appearance as bits of lava crystallize and force

702-419: A high density of 775 islets. The limestone in this bay has gone through 500 million years of formation in different conditions and environments. The evolution of the karst in this bay has taken 20 million years under the impact of the tropical wet climate. The geo-diversity of the environment in the area has created biodiversity , including a tropical evergreen biosystem and a seashore biosystem. Hạ Long Bay

819-447: A main vowel component followed by a shorter semivowel offglide /j/ or /w/ . There are restrictions on the high offglides: /j/ cannot occur after a front vowel (i, ê, e) nucleus and /w/ cannot occur after a back vowel (u, ô, o) nucleus. The correspondence between the orthography and pronunciation is complicated. For example, the offglide /j/ is usually written as i ; however, it may also be represented with y . In addition, in

936-547: A marine and coastal ecosystem. Livistona halongensis , Impatiens halongensis , Chirita halongensis, Chirita hiepii, Chirita modesta, Paraboea halongensis , and Alpinia calcicola are among the seven endemic species found in the bay. There is also some bioluminescent plankton. The many islands that dot the bay are home to a great many other species, including (but likely not limited to): 477 magnoliales , 12 pteris , 20 salt marsh flora; and 4 amphibia , 10 reptilia , 40 aves , and 4 mammalia . Common aquatic species found in

1053-399: A mature karst landscape developed during a warm, wet, tropical climate. The sequence of stages in the evolution of a karst landscape over a period of 20 million years requires a combination of several distinct elements including a massive thickness of limestone, a hot wet climate and slow overall tectonic up lift. The process of karst formation is divided into five stages, the second of which is

1170-476: A number of beautiful beaches on the smaller islands. A community of around 1,600 people live on Hạ Long Bay in four fishing villages: Cua Van, Ba Hang, Cong Tau and Vong Vieng in Hung Thang ward, Hạ Long city. They live on floating houses and are sustained through fishing and marine aquaculture (cultivating marine biota), plying the shallow waters for 200 species of fish and 450 different kinds of mollusks . Many of

1287-545: A number of fishing villages for sightseeing tours. Located within Hạ Long and Bái Tử Long are archaeological sites such as Mê Cung and Thiên Long. There are remains from mounds of mountain shellfish ( Cyclophorus ), spring shellfish ( Melania , also called Thiana ), some freshwater water mollusc and some rudimentary labour tools. The main way of life of Soi Nhụ's inhabitants included catching fish and shellfish, collecting fruits and digging for bulbs and roots. Their living environment

SECTION 10

#1732845320531

1404-448: A paper published in 1856. Later, in 1920, French-Polish linguist Jean Przyluski found that Mường is more closely related to Vietnamese than other Mon–Khmer languages, and a Viet–Muong subgrouping was established, also including Thavung , Chut , Cuoi , etc. The term "Vietic" was proposed by Hayes (1992), who proposed to redefine Viet–Muong as referring to a subbranch of Vietic containing only Vietnamese and Mường . The term " Vietic "

1521-536: A policy to relocate the households living in the bay to resettle, in order to stabilize their life and to protect the landscape of the heritage zone. More than 300 households living in fishing villages in Hạ Long Bay have been relocated ashore in Khe Cá Resettlement Area, now known as Zone 8 (Hà Phong Ward, Hạ Long City) since May 2014. This project will continue to be implemented. The province will only retain

1638-532: A process of tonogenesis , in which distinctions formerly expressed by final consonants became phonemic tonal distinctions when those consonants disappeared. These characteristics have become part of many of the genetically unrelated languages of Southeast Asia; for example, Tsat (a member of the Malayo-Polynesian group within Austronesian ), and Vietnamese each developed tones as a phonemic feature. After

1755-626: A representative on the Government Council for Nationalities, an advisory body of the Czech Government for matters of policy towards national minorities and their members. It also grants the community the right to use Vietnamese with public authorities and in courts anywhere in the country. Vietnamese is taught in schools and institutions outside of Vietnam, a large part contributed by its diaspora . In countries with Vietnamese-speaking communities Vietnamese language education largely serves as

1872-481: A role to link descendants of Vietnamese immigrants to their ancestral culture. In neighboring countries and vicinities near Vietnam such as Southern China, Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand, Vietnamese as a foreign language is largely due to trade, as well as recovery and growth of the Vietnamese economy. Since the 1980s, Vietnamese language schools ( trường Việt ngữ/ trường ngôn ngữ Tiếng Việt ) have been established for youth in many Vietnamese-speaking communities around

1989-441: A rounded or cone-shaped stalagmite . Unlike stalactites, stalagmites never start out as hollow "soda straws". Given enough time, these formations can meet and fuse to create a speleothem of calcium carbonate known as a pillar, column, or stalagnate. Another type of stalactite is formed in lava tubes while molten and fluid lava is still active inside. The mechanism of formation is the deposition of molten dripping material on

2106-473: A special feature of the karst of Hạ Long Bay. The dissolution process of sea water acting on the limestone and erosion by wave action creates notches at the base of the cliffs. In advantageous conditions, dissolution of the limestone allows the cliff notches to be steadily deepened and extended into caves. Many of these at sea level extend right through the limestone hills into drowned dolinas which are now tidal lakes. A distinguishing feature of marine notch caves

2223-511: A stage commonly termed Middle Vietnamese ( tiếng Việt trung đại ). The pronunciation of the "rime" of the syllable, i.e. all parts other than the initial consonant (optional /w/ glide, vowel nucleus, tone and final consonant), appears nearly identical between Middle Vietnamese and modern Hanoi pronunciation. On the other hand, the Middle Vietnamese pronunciation of the initial consonant differs greatly from all modern dialects, and in fact

2340-406: A stalactite. They are normally a few centimeters long and with a diameter of approximately 4 to 5 mm (0.16 to 0.20 inches). The growth rate of stalactites is significantly influenced by supply continuity of Ca saturated solution and the drip rate. A straw shaped stalactite which has formed under a concrete structure can grow as much as 2 mm per day in length, when the drip rate

2457-546: A third of the Vietnamese lexicon in all realms, and may account for as much as 60% of the vocabulary used in formal texts. Vietic languages were confined to the northern third of modern Vietnam until the "southward advance" ( Nam tiến ) from the late 15th century. The conquest of the ancient nation of Champa and the conquest of the Mekong Delta led to an expansion of the Vietnamese people and language, with distinctive local variations emerging. After France invaded Vietnam in

SECTION 20

#1732845320531

2574-509: A very narrow (≈4 to 5 mm diameter), hollow tube commonly known as a " soda straw " stalactite. Soda straws can grow quite long, but are very fragile. If they become plugged by debris, water begins flowing over the outside, depositing more calcite and creating the more familiar cone-shaped stalactite. Stalactite formation generally begins over a large area, with multiple paths for the mineral rich water to flow. As minerals are dissolved in one channel slightly more than other competing channels,

2691-474: Is bordered on the south and southeast by Lan Ha Bay, on the north by Hạ Long city, and on the west by Bai Tu Long Bay. The bay has a 120-kilometre-long (75 mi) coastline and is approximately 1,553 km (600 sq mi) in size with about 2,000 islets. The area designated by UNESCO as the World Natural Heritage Site incorporates 434 km (168 sq mi) with 775 islets, of which

2808-431: Is a center of a larger zone that includes Bai Tu Long Bay to the northeast, and Cát Bà Island to the southwest. These larger zones share a similar geological, geographical, geomorphological , climate, and cultural characters. Hạ Long Bay has an area of around 1,553 km (600 sq mi), including 1,969 islets, most of which are limestone. The core of the bay has an area of 334 km (129 sq mi) with

2925-436: Is a mineral formation that hangs from the ceiling of caves , hot springs , or man-made structures such as bridges and mines. Any material that is soluble and that can be deposited as a colloid , or is in suspension , or is capable of being melted , may form a stalactite. Stalactites may be composed of lava , minerals , mud , peat , pitch , sand , sinter , and amberat (crystallized urine of pack rats ). A stalactite

3042-421: Is a slow leak and where there are calcium, magnesium or other ions in the water supply, although they form much more rapidly there than in the natural cave environment. These secondary deposits, such as stalactites, stalagmites, flowstone and others, which are derived from the lime, mortar or other calcareous material in concrete , outside of the "cave" environment, can not be classified as " speleothems " due to

3159-405: Is added to the mix, the calcium oxide in the cement reacts with water to form calcium hydroxide (Ca(OH) 2 ). The chemical formula for this is: Over time, any rainwater that penetrates cracks in set (hard) concrete will carry any free calcium hydroxide in solution to the edge of the concrete. Stalactites can form when the solution emerges on the underside of the concrete structure where it

3276-516: Is also spoken by the Jing people traditionally residing on three islands (now joined to the mainland) off Dongxing in southern Guangxi Province , China . A large number of Vietnamese speakers also reside in neighboring countries of Cambodia and Laos . In the United States, Vietnamese is the sixth most spoken language , with over 1.5 million speakers, who are concentrated in a handful of states. It

3393-450: Is an absolutely smooth and horizontal ceiling cut through the limestone. Some marine notch caves had not been not formed at present sea level, but old sea levels related to sea level changes in Holocene transgression, event to Pleistocene sea levels. Some of them preserved the development of old karstic foot caves in mainland environments or preserved the remnants of older phreatic caves. One of

3510-528: Is approximately 11 minutes between drops. Changes in leachate solution pH can facilitate additional chemical reactions, which may also influence calthemite stalactite growth rates. The White Chamber in the Jeita Grotto 's upper cavern in Lebanon contains an 8.2 m (27 ft) limestone stalactite which is accessible to visitors and is claimed to be the longest stalactite in the world. Another such claim

3627-412: Is as extensive as Hạ Long Bay. Some of the most remarkable geological events in Hạ Long Bay's history have occurred in the last 1,000 years, include the advance of the sea, the raising of the bay area, strong erosion that has formed coral, and, pure blue and heavily salted water. This process of erosion by seawater has deeply engraved the stone, contributing to its fantastic beauty. Present-day Hạ Long Bay

Hạ Long Bay - Misplaced Pages Continue

3744-551: Is between 2 and 2.2 metres (6.6 and 7.2 ft). Hạ Long Bay has the typical diurnal tide system (tide amplitude ranges from 3.5–4 metres or 11–13 feet). The salinity is from 31 to 34.5MT in the dry season and lower in the rainy season. Of the 1,969 islands in Hạ Long, only approximately 40 are inhabited. These islands range from tens to thousands of hectares in size, mainly in the East and Southeast of Hạ Long Bay. In recent decades, thousands of villagers have been starting to settle down on

3861-722: Is home to 14 endemic floral species and 60 endemic faunal species. Historical research surveys have shown the presence of prehistoric human beings in this area tens of thousands years ago. The successive ancient cultures are the Soi Nhụ culture around 18,000–7,000 BC, the Cái Bèo culture 7,000–5,000 BC and the Hạ Long culture 5,000–3,500 years ago. Hạ Long Bay also marked some important events in Vietnamese history , with many artifacts found in Bài Thơ mountain, Đầu Gỗ cave, and Bãi Cháy. Nguyễn Trãi praised

3978-641: Is made for a 20 m (66 ft) limestone stalactite that hangs in the Chamber of Rarities in the Gruta Rei do Mato ( Sete Lagoas , Minas Gerais , Brazil). However, cavers have often encountered longer stalactites during their explorations. One of the longest stalactites viewable by the general public is in Pol an Ionain (Doolin Cave), County Clare , Ireland, in a karst region known as The Burren ; what makes it more impressive

4095-449: Is not necessarily a speleothem , though speleothems are the most common form of stalactite because of the abundance of limestone caves. The corresponding formation on the floor of the cave is known as a stalagmite . The most common stalactites are speleothems , which occur in limestone caves. They form through deposition of calcium carbonate and other minerals, which is precipitated from mineralized water solutions . Limestone

4212-415: Is notated i or y (with the difference between the two often indicating differences in the quality or length of the preceding vowel), and after /ð/ and /β/ , where it is notated ĕ . This ĕ , and the /j/ it notated, have disappeared from the modern language. Note that b [ɓ] and p [p] never contrast in any position, suggesting that they are allophones. The language also has three clusters at

4329-522: Is often mistaken for a tilde in modern reproductions of early Vietnamese writing. As a result of emigration , Vietnamese speakers are also found in other parts of Southeast Asia , East Asia , North America , Europe , and Australia . Vietnamese has also been officially recognized as a minority language in the Czech Republic . As the national language, Vietnamese is the lingua franca in Vietnam. It

4446-578: Is often mistakenly thought as being an monosyllabic language, Vietnamese words typically consist of from one to many as eight individual morphemes or syllables; the majority of Vietnamese vocabulary are disyllabic and trisyllabic words. Vietnamese is written using the Vietnamese alphabet ( chữ Quốc ngữ ). The alphabet is based on the Latin script and was officially adopted in the early 20th century during French rule of Vietnam . It uses digraphs and diacritics to mark tones and some phonemes . Vietnamese

4563-441: Is on Bo Hon Island. From its truncated entrance chambers on a ledge high on the cliff, a passage of more than 10m high and wide descends to the south. Tam Cung is a large phreatic fissure cave that developed in the bedding planes of the limestone dividing the fissure cave into three chambers. Lau Dai is a cave with a complex of passages extending over 300 meters on the south side of Con Ngua Island. Thien Cung and Dau Go are remnants of

4680-447: Is probably second in the entire world only to Yangshuo , in China. However, Hạ Long Bay has also been invaded by the sea so that the geomorphology of its limestone islands are, at least in part, the consequence of marine erosion. The marine invasion distinguishes Hạ Long Bay and makes it unique in the world. There are other areas of submerged karst towers which were invaded by the sea, but none

4797-685: Is pronounced with one of six inherent tones , centered on the main vowel or group of vowels. Tones differ in: Tone is indicated by diacritics written above or below the vowel (most of the tone diacritics appear above the vowel; except the nặng tone dot diacritic goes below the vowel). The six tones in the northern varieties (including Hanoi), with their self-referential Vietnamese names, are: Stalactite A stalactite ( UK : / ˈ s t æ l ə k ˌ t aɪ t / , US : / s t ə ˈ l æ k t aɪ t / ; from Ancient Greek σταλακτός ( stalaktós )  'dripping', from σταλάσσειν ( stalássein )  'to drip')

Hạ Long Bay - Misplaced Pages Continue

4914-416: Is reversed and particles of calcium carbonate are deposited. The reversed reaction is: An average growth rate is 0.13 mm (0.0051 inches) a year. The quickest growing stalactites are those formed by a constant supply of slow dripping water rich in calcium carbonate (CaCO 3 ) and carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), which can grow at 3 mm (0.12 inches) per year. The drip rate must be slow enough to allow

5031-410: Is significantly closer to the modern Saigon dialect than the modern Hanoi dialect. The following diagram shows the orthography and pronunciation of Middle Vietnamese: ^1 [p] occurs only at the end of a syllable. ^2 This letter, ⟨ ꞗ ⟩ , is no longer used. ^3 [j] does not occur at the beginning of a syllable, but can occur at the end of a syllable, where it

5148-544: Is surface water, groundwater and thermal mineral water on the shore of the Hạ Long – Bái Tử Long Bays, as well as other environmental resources. In terms of marine geology, this area is recorded as an especially coastal sedimentary environment. In the alkaline seawater environment, the chemical denudation process of calcium carbonate proceeds rapidly, creating wide, strangely shaped marine notches. The bottom surface sediments are various from clay mud to sand, however, silty mud and clay mud dominate in distribution. Especially,

5265-400: Is suspended in the air, for example, on a ceiling or a beam. When the solution comes into contact with air on the underside of the concrete structure, another chemical reaction takes place. The solution reacts with carbon dioxide in the air and precipitates calcium carbonate . When this solution drops down it leaves behind particles of calcium carbonate and over time these form into

5382-423: Is the chief form of calcium carbonate rock which is dissolved by water that contains carbon dioxide , forming a calcium bicarbonate solution in caverns. The chemical formula for this reaction is: This solution travels through the rock until it reaches an edge and if this is on the roof of a cave it will drip down. When the solution comes into contact with air the chemical reaction that created it

5499-534: Is the fact that the stalactite is held on by a section of calcite less than 0.3 m (3.2 sq ft). Stalactites are first mentioned (though not by name) by the Roman natural historian Pliny in a text which also mentions stalagmites and columns and refers to their formation by the dripping of water. The term "stalactite" was coined in the 17th century by the Danish Physician Ole Worm , who coined

5616-408: Is the first language of the majority of the Vietnamese population, as well as a first or second language for the country's ethnic minority groups . In the Czech Republic , Vietnamese has been recognized as one of 14 minority languages, on the basis of communities that have resided in the country either traditionally or on a long-term basis. This status grants the Vietnamese community in the country

5733-406: Is the old karstic foot caves which include Trinh Lu, Bo Nau, Tien Ong and Trong caves. Foot caves are a ubiquitous feature of karst landscapes which have reached a stage of widespread lateral undercutting at base level. They may extend back into maze caves of stream caves draining from larger cave systems within the limestone. They are distinguished by the main elements of their passages being close to

5850-498: Is the result of this long process of geological evolution that has been influenced by so many factors. Due to all these factors, tourists visiting Hạ Long Bay are not only treated to one of the natural wonders of the world, but also to a precious geological museum that has been naturally preserved in the open air for the last 300 million years. Two ecosystems coexist in Ha Long Bay: a tropical, moist, evergreen rainforest ecosystem and

5967-634: Is the third-most spoken language in Texas and Washington; fourth-most in Georgia, Louisiana, and Virginia; and fifth-most in Arkansas and California. Vietnamese is the third most spoken language in Australia other than English, after Mandarin and Arabic. In France, it is the most spoken Asian language and the eighth most spoken immigrant language at home. Vietnamese is the sole official and national language of Vietnam. It

SECTION 50

#1732845320531

6084-502: Is threatening many endangered species of fish. Local government and businesses are aware of the problems and many measures have been taken to minimise the impact of tourism on the bay environment for sustainable economic growth like introducing eco-friendly tours and tight waste control on resorts. In 1962, the Vietnam Ministry of Culture, Sport and Tourism designated Hạ Long Bay a 'Renowned National Landscape Monument'. Hạ Long Bay

6201-413: Is used, among others, by Gérard Diffloth , with a slightly different proposal on subclassification, within which the term "Viet–Muong" refers to a lower subgrouping (within an eastern Vietic branch) consisting of Vietnamese dialects, Mường dialects, and Nguồn (of Quảng Bình Province ). Austroasiatic is believed to have dispersed around 2000 BC. The arrival of the agricultural Phùng Nguyên culture in

6318-446: Is written with two Chinese characters or in a composite character made of two different characters. This conveys the transformation of the Vietnamese lexicon from sesquisyllabic to fully monosyllabic under the pressure of Chinese linguistic influence, characterized by linguistic phenomena such as the reduction of minor syllables; loss of affixal morphology drifting towards analytical grammar; simplification of major syllable segments, and

6435-953: The Mon–Khmer branch of the Austroasiatic language family (which also includes the Khmer language spoken in Cambodia , as well as various smaller and/or regional languages , such as the Munda and Khasi languages spoken in eastern India, and others in Laos , southern China and parts of Thailand). In 1850, British lawyer James Richardson Logan detected striking similarities between the Korku language in Central India and Vietnamese. He suggested that Korku , Mon , and Vietnamese were part of what he termed "Mon–Annam languages" in

6552-587: The Red River Delta at that time may correspond to the Vietic branch. This ancestral Vietic was typologically very different from later Vietnamese. It was polysyllabic, or rather sesquisyllabic , with roots consisting of a reduced syllable followed by a full syllable, and featured many consonant clusters. Both of these features are found elsewhere in Austroasiatic and in modern conservative Vietic languages south of

6669-597: The Vietnamese orthography with the phonetic pronunciation to the right. Some consonant sounds are written with only one letter (like "p"), other consonant sounds are written with a digraph (like "ph"), and others are written with more than one letter or digraph (the velar stop is written variously as "c", "k", or "q"). In some cases, they are based on their Middle Vietnamese pronunciation; since that period, ph and kh (but not th ) have evolved from aspirated stops into fricatives (like Greek phi and chi ), while d and gi have collapsed and converged together (into /z/ in

6786-460: The 19th century, the name Hạ Long Bay had not been recorded in the old books of the country. It has been called other names such as An Bang, Lục Thủy, and Vân Đồn. In the late 19th century, the name Hạ Long Bay appeared on the Maritime Map of France. The French-language Hai Phong News reported "Dragon appears on Hạ Long Bay". According to local legend, when Vietnam had just started to develop into

6903-505: The Ba Ham lakes lying within its fengcong karst. The Bay contains examples of the landscape elements of fengcong, fenglin and karst plain. These are not separate evolutionary stages but the result of natural non – uniform processes in the denudation of a large mass of limestone. Marine erosion created the notches which in some places have been enlarged into caves. The marine notch is a feature of limestone coastline but, in Hạ Long Bay, it has created

7020-622: The CO 2 to degas from the solution into the cave atmosphere, resulting in deposition of CaCO 3 on the stalactite. Too fast a drip rate and the solution, still carrying most of the CaCO 3 , falls to the cave floor where degassing occurs and CaCO 3 is deposited as a stalagmite. All limestone stalactites begin with a single mineral-laden drop of water. When the drop falls, it deposits the thinnest ring of calcite. Each subsequent drop that forms and falls deposits another calcite ring. Eventually, these rings form

7137-561: The French colonial era. The following diagram shows the phonology of Proto–Viet–Muong (the nearest ancestor of Vietnamese and the closely related Mường language ), along with the outcomes in the modern language: ^1 According to Ferlus, * /tʃ/ and * /ʄ/ are not accepted by all researchers. Ferlus 1992 also had additional phonemes * /dʒ/ and * /ɕ/ . ^2 The fricatives indicated above in parentheses developed as allophones of stop consonants occurring between vowels (i.e. when

SECTION 60

#1732845320531

7254-459: The Quaternary Period. Due to a simultaneous combination of ideal factors such as thick, pale, grey, and strong limestone layers, which are formed by fine-grained materials; hot and moist climate and slow tectonic process as a whole; Hạ Long Bay has had a complete karst evolution for 20 million years. There are many types of karst topography in the bay, such as karst field . Hạ Long Bay is

7371-710: The Red River Delta and into the adjacent uplands, possibly to escape Chinese encroachment. The oldest layer of loans from Chinese into northern Vietic (which would become the Viet–Muong subbranch) date from this period. The northern Vietic varieties thus became part of the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area , in which languages from genetically unrelated families converged toward characteristics such as isolating morphology and similar syllable structure. Many languages in this area, including Viet–Muong, underwent

7488-519: The Red River area. The language was non-tonal, but featured glottal stop and voiceless fricative codas. Borrowed vocabulary indicates early contact with speakers of Tai languages in the last millennium BC, which is consistent with genetic evidence from Dong Son culture sites. Extensive contact with Chinese began from the Han dynasty (2nd century BC). At this time, Vietic groups began to expand south from

7605-767: The World Heritage List according to its outstanding examples representing major stages of the Earth's history and its original limestone karstic geomorphologic features. Hạ Long Bay and its adjacent areas consist of a part of the Sino-Vietnamese composite terrane having its development history from pre-Cambrian up to present day. During Phanerozoic, terrigenous, volcanogenic and cherty -carbonate sediments containing in abundance graptolites , bivalves, brachiopods , fishes, foraminiferans , corals, radiolarias , and flora, separated from one from another by 10 stratigraphic gaps, but

7722-567: The bay include: cuttlefish ( mực ); oyster ( hào ); cyclinae ( ngán ); prawns (penaeidea ( tôm he ), panulirus ( tôm hùm ), parapenaeopsis ( tôm sắt ), etc.); sipunculoideas ( sá sùng ); nerita ( ốc đĩa ); charonia tritonis ( ốc tù và ); and cà sáy . A new species of sponge, Cladocroce pansinii , was discovered in underwater caves attached to the bay in 2023. With an increasing tourist trade, mangroves and seagrass beds have been cleared and jetties and wharves have been built for tourist boats. Game fishing , often near coral reefs,

7839-596: The beauty of Hạ Long Bay 500 years ago in his verse Lộ nhập Vân Đồn , in which he called it "a rock wonder in the sky". In 1962, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of North Vietnam listed Hạ Long Bay in the National Relics and Landscapes publication. In 1994, the core zone of Hạ Long Bay was listed as a World Heritage Site under Criterion VII, and was listed for a second time under Criterion VIII. The name Hạ Long ( chữ Hán : 下龍) means "descending dragon". Before

7956-471: The beginning of syllables, which have since disappeared: Most of the unusual correspondences between spelling and modern pronunciation are explained by Middle Vietnamese. Note in particular: De Rhodes's orthography also made use of an apex diacritic, as in o᷄ and u᷄ , to indicate a final labial-velar nasal /ŋ͡m/ , an allophone of /ŋ/ that is peculiar to the Hanoi dialect to the present day. This diacritic

8073-459: The boundary between Devonian and Carboniferous has been considered as continuous. The limestone karstic geomorphology of the bay has developed since the Miocene , especially the cone-shaped hills (fengcong), or isolated high limestone karst towers (fenglin) with many remnants of old phreatic caves, old karstic foot caves, and marine notch caves forming magnificent limestone karst landforms unique to

8190-417: The carbonate materials originated from organisms make up 60 to 65% sedimentary content. The surface sediments of coral reefs are mainly sand and pebbles, of which the carbonate materials account for more than 90%. The intertidal zone sediments are various, from clay mud to sand and gravel, depending on distinguished sedimentary environments such as mangrove marshes, tidal flats, beaches etc. At the small beaches,

8307-512: The ceilings of caves, however with lava stalactites formation happens very quickly in only a matter of hours, days, or weeks, whereas limestone stalactites may take up to thousands of years. A key difference with lava stalactites is that once the lava has ceased flowing, so too will the stalactites cease to grow. This means that if the stalactite were to be broken it would never grow back. The generic term lavacicle has been applied to lava stalactites and stalagmites indiscriminately and evolved from

8424-488: The change of suprasegment instruments. For example, the modern Vietnamese word "trời" (heaven) was read as *plời in Old/Ancient Vietnamese and as blời in Middle Vietnamese. The writing system used for Vietnamese is based closely on the system developed by Alexandre de Rhodes for his 1651 Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum . It reflects the pronunciation of the Vietnamese of Hanoi at that time,

8541-486: The core zone is delimited by 69 points: Dau Go island on the west, Ba Ham lake on the south and Cong Tay island on the east. The protected area is from the Cái Dăm petrol store to Quang Hanh ward, Cẩm Phả city and the surrounding zone. The climate of the bay is tropical, wet, sea islands, with two seasons: hot and moist summer, dry and cold winter. The average temperature is from 15–25 °C (59–77 °F), and annual rainfall

8658-466: The daughter languages from distinctions in the initial and final consonants. Vietnamese tones developed as follows: Glottal-ending syllables ended with a glottal stop /ʔ/ , while fricative-ending syllables ended with /s/ or /h/ . Both types of syllables could co-occur with a resonant (e.g. /m/ or /n/ ). At some point, a tone split occurred, as in many other mainland Southeast Asian languages . Essentially, an allophonic distinction developed in

8775-415: The definition of the term. The term " calthemite " is used to encompass these secondary deposits which mimic the shapes and forms of speleothems outside the cave environment. The way stalactites form on concrete is due to different chemistry than those that form naturally in limestone caves and is due to the presence of calcium oxide in cement. Concrete is made from aggregate, sand and cement. When water

8892-442: The diphthongs [āj] and [āːj] the letters y and i also indicate the pronunciation of the main vowel: ay = ă + /j/ , ai = a + /j/ . Thus, tay "hand" is [tāj] while tai "ear" is [tāːj] . Similarly, u and o indicate different pronunciations of the main vowel: au = ă + /w/ , ao = a + /w/ . Thus, thau "brass" is [tʰāw] while thao "raw silk" is [tʰāːw] . The consonants that occur in Vietnamese are listed below in

9009-438: The dominant channel begins to draw more and more of the available water, which speeds its growth, ultimately resulting in all other channels being choked off. This is one reason why formations tend to have minimum distances from one another. The larger the formation, the greater the interformation distance. The same water drops that fall from the tip of a stalactite deposit more calcite on the floor below, eventually resulting in

9126-402: The dragon's children wriggled their tails violently was called Bạch Long Vĩ island ( Bạch : white-color of the foam made when Dragon's children wriggled, Long : dragon, Vĩ : tail), present-day Tra Co peninsula, Móng Cái . The bay consists of a dense cluster of some 1,600 limestone monolithic islands each topped with thick jungle vegetation, rising spectacularly from the ocean. Several of

9243-399: The flow in different directions. These tubular lava helictites may also be influenced by air currents through a tube and point downwind. A common stalactite found seasonally or year round in many caves is the ice stalactite, commonly referred to as icicles , especially on the surface. Water seepage from the surface will penetrate into a cave and if temperatures are below freezing ,

9360-452: The formation of the distinctive do line karst. This is followed by the development of fengcong karst, which can be seen in the groups of hills on Bo Hon and Dau Be Inland. These cones with sloping sides average 100m in height with the tallest exceeding 200m. Fenglin karst is characterized by steep separate towers. The hundreds of rocky islands that form the beautiful and famous landscape of the Bay are

9477-414: The forward ships struck the rocks and each other. After winning the battle, the dragons were interested in peaceful sightseeing of the Earth, and then decided to live in this bay. The place where the mother dragon descended was named Hạ Long, the place where the dragon's children attended upon their mother was called Bái Tử Long island ( Bái : attend upon, Tử : children, Long : dragon), and the place where

9594-427: The horizontal and are commonly related to denuded or accumulated terraces at the old base levels. Trinh Nu, which is one of the larger foot caves in Hạ Long Bay with its ceiling at about 12m above sea level and about 80m in length, was developed in multiple stages. Bo Nau, a horizontal cave containing old stalactite deposits, cuts across the 25o dip of the bedding plane. The third group is the marine notch caves which're

9711-411: The individual towers of a classic Fenglin landscape where the intervening plains have been submerged by the sea. Most towers reach a height of between 50 and 100m with a height to width ratio of about 6. The karst dolines were flooded by the sea, becoming the abundance of lakes that lie within the limestone islands. For example, Dau Be island at the mouth of the Bay has six enclosed lakes including those of

9828-498: The islands are hollow, with enormous caves. Hang Dau Go (Wooden Stakes cave) is the largest grotto in the Hạ Long area. French tourists visited in the late 19th century, and named the cave Grotte des Merveilles . Its three large chambers contain large numerous stalactites and stalagmites (as well as 19th-century French graffiti ). There are two bigger islands, Tuần Châu and Cát Bà , that have permanent inhabitants, as well as tourist facilities including hotels and beaches. There are

9945-409: The islands have acquired their names as a result of their unusual shapes. Such names include Voi Islet (elephant), Ga Choi Islet ( fighting cock ), Khi Islet ( monkey ), and Mai Nha Islet (roof). 989 of the islands have been given names. Birds and land animals including bantams , antelopes , monkeys, and lizards also live on some of the islands. Almost all these islands are as individual towers in

10062-604: The islands, the Vietnamese army stopped the Chinese invaders from landing. In 1288, General Trần Hưng Đạo stopped Mongol ships from sailing up the nearby Bạch Đằng River by placing steel-tipped wooden stakes at high tide, sinking the Mongol Kublai Khan 's fleet. Hạ Long Bay was the site of the first ever raising of the new national flag of the Provisional Central Government of Vietnam on 5 June 1948 during

10179-446: The late 19th century, French gradually replaced Literary Chinese as the official language in education and government. Vietnamese adopted many French terms, such as đầm ('dame', from madame ), ga ('train station', from gare ), sơ mi ('shirt', from chemise ), and búp bê ('doll', from poupée ), resulting in a language that was Austroasiatic but with major Sino-influences and some minor French influences from

10296-413: The lava tube, coating and recoating the stalactite with more material. They can vary from a few millimeters to over a meter in length. As lava flows through a tube, material will be splashed up on the ceiling and ooze back down, hardening into a stalactite. This type of formation results in an irregularly-shaped stalactite, looking somewhat like stretched taffy . Often they may be of a different color than

10413-481: The lives of Hạ Long Bay inhabitants have much improved due to new travel businesses. Residents of the floating villages around Hạ Long Bay now offer bedrooms for rent, boat tours, and fresh seafood meals to tourists. While this is an isolating, back-breaking lifestyle, floating village residents are considered wealthy compared to residents of other Hạ Long Bay islands. At present , the Quảng Ninh provincial government has

10530-427: The main syllable). When a minor syllable occurred, the main syllable's initial consonant was intervocalic and as a result suffered lenition , becoming a voiced fricative. The minor syllables were eventually lost, but not until the tone split had occurred. As a result, words in modern Vietnamese with voiced fricatives occur in all six tones, and the tonal register reflects the voicing of the minor-syllable prefix and not

10647-488: The mature landscape. Within Hạ Long Bay, the main accessible caves are the older passages that survive from the time when the karst was evolving through its various stages of fengcong and fenglin . Three main types of caves can be recognized in the limestone islands (Waltham, T. 1998): The first group consists of old phreatic caves which include Sung Sot, Tam Cung, Lau Dai, Thien Cung, Dau Go, Hoang Long, Thien Long. Nowadays, these caves lie at various heights. Sung Sot cave

10764-477: The modern tidal level. It has passed through many stages in its formation. The karst landscape of Hạ Long Bay is of international significance and of fundamental importance to the science of geomorphology. The fenglin tower karst, which is the type present in much of Hạ Long Bay, is the most extreme form of limestone landscape development. If these karst landscapes are broadly compared in terms of their height, steepness and number of their limestone towers, Hạ Long Bay

10881-533: The most unusual features of Hạ Long Bay is the Bo Ham lake group of hidden lakes and their connecting tunnel – notch caves in Dau Be Island. From the island's perimeter cliff a cave, 10m wide at water level and curving so that it is almost completely dark, extends about 150m to Lake 1. Luon Cave is on Bo Hon Island and extends 50m meters to an enclosed tidal lake. It has a massive stalactite hanging 2m down and truncated at

10998-497: The north and /j/ in the south). Not all dialects of Vietnamese have the same consonant in a given word (although all dialects use the same spelling in the written language). See the language variation section for further elaboration. Syllable-final orthographic ch and nh in Vietnamese has had different analyses. One analysis has final ch , nh as being phonemes /c/, /ɲ/ contrasting with syllable-final t , c /t/, /k/ and n , ng /n/, /ŋ/ and identifies final ch with

11115-507: The original lava that formed the cave. When the roof of a lava tube is cooling, a skin forms that traps semi-molten material inside. Trapped gases expansion forces lava to extrude out through small openings that result in hollow, tubular stalactites analogous to the soda straws formed as depositional speleothems in solution caves. The longest known is almost 2 meters in length. These are common in Hawaiian lava tubes and are often associated with

11232-405: The plain-voiced stops became voiceless and the allotones became new phonemic tones. The implosive stops were unaffected, and in fact developed tonally as if they were unvoiced. (This behavior is common to all East Asian languages with implosive stops.) As noted above, Proto-Viet–Muong had sesquisyllabic words with an initial minor syllable (in addition to, and independent of, initial clusters in

11349-651: The pristine islands and build new communities such as Sa Tô Island (Hạ Long City) and Thắng Lợi Island (Vân Đồn district). The population of Hạ Long Bay is about 1,540, mainly in Cửa Vạn, Ba Hang and Cặp Dè fishing villages (Hùng Thắng Ward, Hạ Long City). Residents of the bay mostly live on boats and rafts buoyed by tires and plastic jugs to facilitate the fishing, cultivating and breeding of aquatic and marine species. Fish require feeding every other day for up to three years, when they are eventually sold to local seafood restaurants for up to 300,000 Vietnamese dong per kilogram. Today,

11466-546: The same except that ơ [əː] is of normal length while â [ə] is short – the same applies to the vowels long a [aː] and short ă [a] . The centering diphthongs are formed with only the three high vowels (i, ư, u). They are generally spelled as ia, ưa, ua when they end a word and are spelled iê, ươ, uô, respectively, when they are followed by a consonant. In addition to single vowels (or monophthongs ) and centering diphthongs, Vietnamese has closing diphthongs and triphthongs . The closing diphthongs and triphthongs consist of

11583-410: The same old cave system. They both survive in the northern part of Dau Go Island at between 20 and 50m above sea level. Thien Cung has one large chamber more than 100m long, blocked at its ends and almost subdivided into smaller chambers by a massive wall of stalactites and stalagmites. Dau Go is a single large tunnel descending along a major set of fractures to a massive choke. The second group of caves

11700-465: The same time, according to the following pattern: ^3 In Middle Vietnamese , the outcome of these sounds was written with a hooked b (ꞗ), representing a /β/ that was still distinct from v (then pronounced /w/ ). See below. ^4 It is unclear what this sound was. According to Ferlus 1992, in the Archaic Vietnamese period (c. 10th century AD, when Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary

11817-408: The sand sediments may be dominated quartz or carbonate materials. The sediment layers of the intertidal zone, the upper sea bed with a plain surface conserving ancient rivers, the systems of caves and their sediments, traces of ancient marine action forming distinctive notches, beaches and marine terraces, and mangrove swamps are important evidence of geological events and processes taking place during

11934-584: The signing of the Halong Bay Agreements ( Accords de la baie d’Along ) by High Commissioner Emile Bollaert and President Nguyễn Văn Xuân . During the Vietnam War , many of the channels between the islands were heavily mined by the United States Navy , some of which continue to pose threats to shipping routes in the present day. In 2000, UNESCO's World Heritage Committee inscribed Hạ Long Bay in

12051-827: The site that must be addressed. In 2012, the New 7 Wonders Foundation officially named Hạ Long Bay as one of the New 7 Wonders of Nature . Hạ Long Bay is also a part of the Club of the Most Beautiful Bays of the World. In writings about Hạ Long Bay, the following Vietnamese writers wrote: "Hạ Long, Bái Tử Long - Dragons were hidden, only stones still remain On the moonlight nights, stones meditate as men do..." Lord Trịnh Cương overflowed with emotion: "Mountains are glistened by water shadow, water spills all over

12168-617: The sky". The inhabitants of the bay and its adjacent city have transmitted numerous ancient tales explaining names given to various isles and caves in the bay. Vietnamese language Like many languages in Southeast Asia and East Asia , Vietnamese is highly analytic and is tonal . It has head-initial directionality, with subject–verb–object order and modifiers following the words they modify. It also uses noun classifiers . Its vocabulary has had significant influence from Middle Chinese and loanwords from French . Although it

12285-484: The split from Muong around the end of the first millennium AD, the following stages of Vietnamese are commonly identified: After expelling the Chinese at the beginning of the 10th century, the Ngô dynasty adopted Classical Chinese as the formal medium of government, scholarship and literature. With the dominance of Chinese came wholesale importation of Chinese vocabulary. The resulting Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary makes up about

12402-505: The syllable-initial ch /c/ . The other analysis has final ch and nh as predictable allophonic variants of the velar phonemes /k/ and /ŋ/ that occur after the upper front vowels i /i/ and ê /e/ ; although they also occur after a , but in such cases are believed to have resulted from an earlier e /ɛ/ which diphthongized to ai (cf. ach from aic , anh from aing ). (See Vietnamese phonology: Analysis of final ch , nh for further details.) Each Vietnamese syllable

12519-567: The tones, whereby the tones in syllables with voiced initials were pronounced differently from those with voiceless initials. (Approximately speaking, the voiced allotones were pronounced with additional breathy voice or creaky voice and with lowered pitch. The quality difference predominates in today's northern varieties, e.g. in Hanoi , while in the southern varieties the pitch difference predominates, as in Ho Chi Minh City .) Subsequent to this,

12636-422: The voicing of the main-syllable stop in Proto-Viet–Muong that produced the fricative. For similar reasons, words beginning with /l/ and /ŋ/ occur in both registers. (Thompson 1976 reconstructed voiceless resonants to account for outcomes where resonants occur with a first-register tone, but this is no longer considered necessary, at least by Ferlus.) Old Vietnamese/Ancient Vietnamese was a Vietic language which

12753-629: The water will form stalactites. They can also be formed by the freezing of water vapor . Similar to lava stalactites, ice stalactites form very quickly within hours or days. Unlike lava stalactites however, they may grow back as long as water and temperatures are suitable. Ice stalactites can also form under sea ice when saline water is introduced to ocean water. These specific stalactites are referred to as brinicles . Ice stalactites may also form corresponding stalagmites below them and given time may grow together to form an ice column. Stalactites can also form on concrete , and on plumbing where there

12870-409: The word icicle. Like limestone stalactites, they can leave lava drips onto the floor that turn into lava stalagmites and may eventually fuse with the corresponding stalactite to form a column. The shark tooth stalactite is broad and tapering in appearance. It may begin as a small driblet of lava from a semi-solid ceiling, but then grows by accreting layers as successive flows of lava rise and fall in

12987-452: The world such as in the United States , Germany and France . Vietnamese has a large number of vowels . Below is a vowel diagram of Vietnamese from Hanoi (including centering diphthongs ): Front and central vowels (i, ê, e, ư, â, ơ, ă, a) are unrounded , whereas the back vowels (u, ô, o) are rounded. The vowels â [ə] and ă [a] are pronounced very short, much shorter than the other vowels. Thus, ơ and â are basically pronounced

13104-705: The world. The Quaternary geology was developed through 5 cycles with the intercalation of marine and continental environments. The present Hạ Long Bay, in fact, appeared after the Middle Holocene maximum transgression, leaving ultimate zone of lateral undercutting in the limestone cliffs bearing many shells of oysters , having the 14C age as 2280 to >40,000 y. BP. Geological resources are abundant, including anthracite , petroleum, lignite , phosphate, oil shale , limestone and cement additives, kaolin , silica sand, dolomite , quartzite of exogenous origin, antimony , and mercury of hydrothermal origin. Additionally, there

13221-543: Was a coastal area unlike other Vietnamese cultures, for example, those found in Hòa Bình and Bắc Sơn . Located in Hạ Long and Cát Bà island its inhabitants developed to the level of sea exploitation. Cái Bèo culture is a link between Soi Nhụ culture and Hạ Long culture. Hạ Long Bay was the setting for historical naval battles against Vietnam's coastal neighbors. On three occasions, in the labyrinth of channels in Bạch Đằng River near

13338-487: Was borrowed) it was * r̝ , distinct at that time from * r . The following initial clusters occurred, with outcomes indicated: A large number of words were borrowed from Middle Chinese , forming part of the Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary . These caused the original introduction of the retroflex sounds /ʂ/ and /ʈ/ (modern s , tr ) into the language. Proto-Viet–Muong did not have tones. Tones developed later in some of

13455-601: Was first listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994, in recognition of its outstanding, universal aesthetic value. In 2000, the World Heritage Committee additionally recognised Hạ Long Bay for its outstanding geological and geomorphological value, and its World Heritage Listing was updated. In October 2011, the World Monuments Fund included the bay on the 2012 World Monuments Watch , citing pressure from tourism and associated developments as threats to

13572-484: Was historically written using chữ Nôm , a logographic script using Chinese characters ( chữ Hán ) to represent Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary and some native Vietnamese words, together with many locally invented characters representing other words. Early linguistic work in the late 19th and early 20th centuries ( Logan 1852, Forbes 1881, Müller 1888, Kuhn 1889, Schmidt 1905, Przyluski 1924, and Benedict 1942) classified Vietnamese as belonging to

13689-812: Was separated from Viet–Muong around the 9th century, and evolved into Middle Vietnamese by 16th century. The sources for the reconstruction of Old Vietnamese are Nom texts, such as the 12th-century/1486 Buddhist scripture Phật thuyết Đại báo phụ mẫu ân trọng kinh ("Sūtra explained by the Buddha on the Great Repayment of the Heavy Debt to Parents"), old inscriptions, and a late 13th-century (possibly 1293) Annan Jishi glossary by Chinese diplomat Chen Fu (c. 1259 – 1309). Old Vietnamese used Chinese characters phonetically where each word, monosyllabic in Modern Vietnamese,

#530469