Vietnamese Tiếng Việt
Pronunciation:	tiɜŋ₃₅ vḭɜt₃₁ (Northern) tiɜŋ₃₅ jḭɜk₃₁ (Southern)
Spoken in:	Vietnam USA Cambodia France Australia Canada
Region:	Southeast Asia
Total speakers:	70-73 million native (includes 3 million overseas) 80 million total
Ranking:	13–17 (native); in a near tie with Korean, Telugu, Marathi and Tamil
Language family:	Austro-Asiatic[1]  Mon-Khmer   Vietic    Viet-Muong     Vietnamese
Writing system:	Latin alphabet (quốc ngữ)
Official status
Official language in:	Vietnam
Regulated by:	no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	vi
ISO 639-2:	vie
ISO 639-3:	vie
Major Vietnamese-speaking communities
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Vietnam (ˌviːɛtˈnɑːm Việt Nam) officially The United States of America —commonly referred to as the The Kingdom of Cambodia ( formerly known as Kampuchea (, transliterated: Preăh Réachéanachâkr Kâmpŭchea) is a country in South East This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Australia topics. Country to "Dominion of Canada" or "Canadian Federation" or anything else please read the Talk Page This is a list of languages, ordered by the number of native-language speakers, with some data for second-language use This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system Marathi (mr मराठी Marāṭhī) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of what is considered western India. Tamil (ta தமிழ்; t̪əmɨɻ is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. List of language familiesA language family is a group of Languages related by descent from a common ancestor called the Proto-language of that family The Austro-Asiatic languages are a large Language family of Southeast Asia, and also scattered throughout India and Bangladesh. The Mon-Khmer languages are the autochthonous Language family of Southeast Asia. The Vietic languages are a branch of the Austroasiatic Language family. The Vietic languages are a branch of the Austroasiatic Language family. A writing system is a type of Symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in Language. The Vietnamese alphabet has the following 29 letters in collating order Description The Vietnamese alphabet called Chữ Quốc Ngữ Vietnam (ˌviːɛtˈnɑːm Việt Nam) officially This is a list of bodies that regulate Standard languages Natural languages Auxiliary languages Interlingua The auxiliary language ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages ISO 639 -3 (ISO 639-32007 is an international standard for Language codes The standard describes three‐letter codes for identifying languages In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's

Vietnamese (tiếng Việt, or less commonly Việt ngữ^[2]), formerly known under French colonization as Annamese (see Annam), is the national and official language of Vietnam. Annam (An Nam was a French protectorate in what is now the central area of Vietnam. A national language is a Language (or language variant, ie Dialect) which has some connection - de facto or de jure - with An official language is a Language that is given a special legal status in a particular Country, State, or other territory A language is a dynamic set of visual auditory or tactile Symbols of Communication and the elements used to manipulate them Vietnam (ˌviːɛtˈnɑːm Việt Nam) officially It is the mother tongue of the Vietnamese people (người Việt or người Kinh), who constitute 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese, most of whom live in the United States. A first language (also mother tongue, native language, arterial language, or L1) is the language a human being learns from birth The Vietnamese people (người Việt or vi ''người Kinh'' are an Ethnic group originating from what is now northern Vietnam and southern China. Originating in what is now southern China and northern Vietnam, the Vietnamese people pushed southward over two millennia to occupy the entire eastern seacoast Overseas Vietnamese ( Vietnamese: Việt Kiều, a Sino-Vietnamese word literally translating to "Vietnamese sojourner" refers to Vietnamese The United States of America —commonly referred to as the It is also spoken as a second language by some ethnic minorities of Vietnam. It is part of the Austroasiatic language family, of which it has the most speakers by a significant margin (several times larger than the other Austroasiatic languages put together). The Austro-Asiatic languages are a large Language family of Southeast Asia, and also scattered throughout India and Bangladesh. List of language familiesA language family is a group of Languages related by descent from a common ancestor called the Proto-language of that family Much vocabulary has been borrowed from Chinese, especially words that denote abstract ideas in the same way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek, and it was originally written using the Chinese writing system, albeit in a modified format and was pronounced in the Vietnamese way. A Chinese character, also known as a Han character ( is a Logogram used in writing Chinese (hanzi Japanese ( The Vietnamese writing system in use today is an adapted version of the Latin alphabet, with additional diacritics for tones and certain letters. The Vietnamese alphabet has the following 29 letters in collating order Description The Vietnamese alphabet called Chữ Quốc Ngữ

Geographic distribution

As the national language of the majority ethnic group, Vietnamese is spoken throughout Vietnam by the Vietnamese people as well as by ethnic minorities. The Vietnamese people (người Việt or vi ''người Kinh'' are an Ethnic group originating from what is now northern Vietnam and southern China. It is also spoken in overseas Vietnamese communities, most notably in the United States, where it has more than one million speakers and is the seventh most-spoken language (it is 3rd in Texas, 4th in Arkansas and Louisiana, and 5th in California^[3]). Texas ( is a state geographically located in the South Central United States and is also known as the Lone Star State. Arkansas ( is a state located in the southern region of the United States. The State of Louisiana ( or, État de Louisiane, pronounced) is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America California ( is a US state on the West Coast of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. In Australia, it is the sixth most-spoken language. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Australia topics.

According to the Ethnologue, Vietnamese is also spoken by substantial numbers of people in Australia, Cambodia, Canada, China, Côte d'Ivoire, Finland, France, Germany, Laos, Martinique, the Netherlands, New Caledonia, Norway, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, Denmark, Sweden, Senegal, Thailand, the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan, Korea and Vanuatu. Ethnologue Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics a Christian For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Australia topics. The Kingdom of Cambodia ( formerly known as Kampuchea (, transliterated: Preăh Réachéanachâkr Kâmpŭchea) is a country in South East Country to "Dominion of Canada" or "Canadian Federation" or anything else please read the Talk Page China ( Wade-Giles ( Mandarin) Chung¹kuo² is a cultural region, an ancient Civilization, and depending on perspective a National Côte d'Ivoire (ˌkoʊt divˈwɑː(r ' in English, kot diˈvwaʀ in French) or Ivory Coast, officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a Finland, officially the Republic of Finland ( is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of northern Europe. This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. Laos (ˈlɑːoʊs or /ˈlaʊs/ officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a Landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma Martinique is an Island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, having a land area of 1128 km² The Netherlands ( Dutch:, ˈnedərlɑnt is the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which consists of the Netherlands the Netherlands For the former North American fur-trading district see New Caledonia (Canada, and for the Scottish colony in Panama see Darien scheme. Norway ( Norwegian: Norge ( Bokmål) or Noreg ( Nynorsk) officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Constitutional The Philippines ( Filipino: Pilipinas, officially known as the Republic of the Philippines (fil ''Republika ng Pilipinas'' RP Poland (Polska officially the Republic of Poland Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending The Kingdom of Denmark ( ˈd̥ænmɑɡ̊ (archaic ˈd̥anmɑːɡ̊ commonly known as Denmark, is a country in the Scandinavian region of northern Europe "Sverige" redirects here For other uses see Sweden (disambiguation and Sverige (disambiguation. Senegal (le Sénégal officially the Republic of Senegal, is a country south of the Sénégal River in western Africa. The Kingdom of Thailand (ˈtaɪlænd ราชอาณาจักรไทย, râːtɕʰa-ʔaːnaːtɕɑ̀k-tʰɑj The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located The United States of America —commonly referred to as the For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Japan topics. Korea is a geographic area composed of two sovereign countries a civilization and a former state situated on the Korean Peninsula in East Asia. Vanuatu, officially the Republic of Vanuatu ( French: République de Vanuatu, Bislama: Ripablik blong Vanuatu) is an Island

Genealogical classification

Vietnamese was identified more than 150 years ago^[4] to be part of the Mon-Khmer branch of the Austroasiatic language family (a family that also includes Khmer, spoken in Cambodia, as well as various tribal and regional languages, such as the Munda languages spoken in eastern India, and others in southern China). The Mon-Khmer languages are the autochthonous Language family of Southeast Asia. The Austro-Asiatic languages are a large Language family of Southeast Asia, and also scattered throughout India and Bangladesh. Khmer (ភាសាខ្មែរ or Cambodian, is the language of the Khmer people and the official language of Cambodia. The Kingdom of Cambodia ( formerly known as Kampuchea (, transliterated: Preăh Réachéanachâkr Kâmpŭchea) is a country in South East A regional language is a Language spoken in an area of a Nation state, whether it be a small area a federal State or Province, or The Munda languages are a Language family spoken by about nine million people in central and eastern India and Bangladesh. India, officially the Republic of India (भारत गणराज्य inc-Latn Bhārat Gaṇarājya; see also other Indian languages) is a country China ( Wade-Giles ( Mandarin) Chung¹kuo² is a cultural region, an ancient Civilization, and depending on perspective a National Later, Mường was found to be more closely related to Vietnamese than other Mon-Khmer languages, and a Việt-Mường sub-grouping was established. The Muong language is spoken by the Muong people of Vietnam. It is closely related to Vietnamese, and it is generally considered to be of the Austroasiatic As data on more Mon-Khmer languages was acquired, other minority languages (such as Thavưng, Chứt languages, Hung, etc. ) were found to share Việt-Mường characteristics, and the Việt-Mường term was renamed to Vietic. The Vietic languages are a branch of the Austroasiatic Language family. The older term Việt-Mường now refers to a lower sub-grouping (within an eastern Vietic branch) consisting of Vietnamese dialects, Mường dialects, and Nguồn (of Quảng Bình Province). Nguồn (also Năm Nguyên) is a Vietic language spoken by the Nguồn people in the Trường Sơn mountains in Vietnam 's For the district in Ha Giang Province, see Quang Binh (district. ^[5]

Language policy

While spoken by the Vietnamese people for millennia, written Vietnamese did not become the official administrative language of Vietnam until the 20th century. Many countries have a language policy designed to favour or discourage the use of a particular Language or set of languages For most of its history, the entity now known as Vietnam used written classical Chinese for governing purposes, while written Vietnamese in the form of Chữ nôm was used for poetry and literature. Chữ Nôm ( IPA: /cɨ3ˀ5 nom33/ chữ Nôm in Unicode: 字[[wikt 喃|喃]]/ 𡨸 喃/ 𡦂 喃 chữ Nôm in Unicode It was also used for administrative purposes during the brief Ho and Tay Son Dynasties. The Hồ Dynasty ( Vietnamese: Nhà Hồ; Hán Việt: Hồ Triều) in Vietnam was a short-lived seven-year reign of two emperors The name of Tây Sơn ( 西[[wikt 山|山]] is used in many ways referring back to the period of Peasant rebellions and decentralized dynasties established between During French colonialism, French superseded Chinese in administration. It was not until independence from France that Vietnamese was used officially. It is the language of instruction in schools and universities and is the language for official business.

History

It seems likely that in the distant past Vietnamese shared more characteristics common to other languages in the Austroasiatic family, such as an inflectional morphology and a richer set of consonant clusters, which have subsequently disappeared from the language. Morphology is the field of Linguistics that studies the internal structure of words In Linguistics, a consonant cluster (or consonant blend) is a group of Consonants which have no intervening Vowel. However, Vietnamese appears to have been heavily influenced by its location in the Southeast Asian sprachbund, with the result that it has acquired or converged toward characteristics such as isolating morphology and tonogenesis. East Asian languages describe two notional groupings of languages in East and Southeast Asia: Languages which have been greatly influenced by Tone is the use of pitch in Language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is to distinguish or inflect words These characteristics, which may or may not have been part of proto-Austroasiatic, nonetheless have become part of many of the phylogenetically unrelated languages of Southeast Asia; for example, Thai (one of the Tai-Kadai languages), Tsat (a member of the Malayo-Polynesian group within Austronesian), and Vietnamese each developed tones as a phonemic feature, although their respective ancestral languages were not originally tonal. Thai (th ภาษาไทย, transcription: phasa thai, transliteration:; pʰāːsǎːtʰāj is the national and The Tai-Kadai languages, also known as Kadai, Kradai, or Kra-Dai languages and in China as Zhuang-Dong languages are a tonal Tsat (also known as Utsat Utset Huihui Hui or Hainan Cham is a language spoken on Hainan Island in China by the Utsuls Tsat is a member of the The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 351 million speakers A tonal language is a language that uses tone to distinguish words The Vietnamese language has strong similarities with Cantonese with regard to the specific intonations and unreleased plosive consonant endings.

The ancestor of the Vietnamese language was originally based in the area of the Red River in what is now northern Vietnam, and during the subsequent expansion of the Vietnamese language and people into what is now central and southern Vietnam (through conquest of the ancient nation of Champa and the Khmer people of the Mekong Delta in the vicinity of present-day Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), characteristic tonal variations have emerged. There are also other rivers named Red River. The Red River, also known as the Hong - Red Song Cai, Song Ca The kingdom of Champa ( Chăm Pa in Vietnamese or Chiêm Thành in Hán Việt records was an Indianized kingdom and controlled what The Khmer people are the predominant Ethnic group in Cambodia, accounting for approximately 90% of the 14 The Mekong is one of the world’s major Rivers It is the 11th-longest river in the world and 7th longest in Asia

Vietnamese was linguistically influenced primarily by Chinese, which came to predominate politically in the 2nd century B. C. E. With the rise of Chinese political dominance came radical importation of Chinese vocabulary and grammatical influence. As Chinese was, for a prolonged period, the only medium of literature and government, as well as the primary written language of the ruling class in Vietnam, much of the Vietnamese lexicon in all realms consists of Hán Việt (Sino-Vietnamese) words. Sino-Vietnamese ( Hán Việt; 漢越) are the elements in the Vietnamese language derived from Chinese. In fact, as the vernacular language of Vietnam gradually grew in prestige toward the beginning of the second millennium, the Vietnamese language was written using Chinese characters (using both the original Chinese characters, called Hán tự, as well as a system of newly created and modified characters called Chữ nôm) adapted to write Vietnamese, in a similar pattern as used in Japan (kanji), Korea (hanja), and other countries in the Sinosphere. A Chinese character, also known as a Han character ( is a Logogram used in writing Chinese (hanzi Japanese ( Hán tự ( {{IPA|/han˦˥ tɯ˨/}}; 漢[[wikt 字|字]] meaning " Chinese character " or chữ Nho ( {{IPA|/tɕɯ˧˨˧ ɲɔ/}} Chữ Nôm ( IPA: /cɨ3ˀ5 nom33/ chữ Nôm in Unicode: 字[[wikt 喃|喃]]/ 𡨸 喃/ 𡦂 喃 chữ Nôm in Unicode are the Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with Hiragana (ひらがな 平仮名 Katakana Hanja is the Korean name for Chinese characters. More specifically it refers to those Chinese characters borrowed from Chinese and incorporated Sinosphere, also known as Chinese world, Chinese cultural sphere or Chinese-character cultural sphere ( a term coined by linguist James Matisoff The Nôm writing reached its zenith in the 18th century when many Vietnamese writers and poets composed their works in Chữ Nôm, most notably Nguyễn Du and Hồ Xuân Hương (dubbed "the Queen of Nôm poetry"). Nguyễn Du (1765&ndash1820 Pennames Tố Như and Thanh Hiên) is a celebrated Vietnamese poet who wrote in ''Chữ Nôm'', the Hồ Xuân Hương (1772-1822 ( Hán Tự: 胡[[wikt 春|春]] 香) was a Vietnamese poet born at the end of the Lê Dynasty who grew

As contact with the West grew, the Quốc Ngữ system of Romanized writing was developed in the 17th century by Portuguese and other Europeans involved in proselytizing and trade in Vietnam. The Vietnamese alphabet has the following 29 letters in collating order Description The Vietnamese alphabet called Chữ Quốc Ngữ Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic (República Portuguesa is a country on the Iberian Peninsula. Proselytism is the practice of attempting to convert people to another opinion and particularly another religion When France invaded Vietnam in the late 19th century, French gradually replaced Chinese as the official language in education and government. This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people 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). In addition, many Sino-Vietnamese terms were devised for Western ideas imported through the French. However, the Romanized script did not come to predominate until the beginning of the 20th century, when education became widespread and a simpler writing system was found more expedient for teaching and communication with the general population.

Language variation

There are various mutually intelligible regional varieties (or dialects), the main four being:^[6]

Dialect region	Localities	Names under French colonization
Northern Vietnamese	Hanoi, Haiphong, and various provincial forms	Tonkinese
North-central (or Area IV) Vietnamese	Nghệ An (Vinh, Thanh Chương), Thanh Hoá, Quảng Bình, Hà Tĩnh	High Annamese
Central Vietnamese	Huế, Quang Nam	High Annamese
Southern Vietnamese	Saigon, Mekong (Far West)	Cochinchinese

Listen to this audio clip of Vietnamese · (info)

The first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights spoken by Nghiem Mai Phuong, native speaker of a northern variety. A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος dialektos) is a variety of a Language that is characteristic of a particular group of Hanoi ( Vietnamese: Hà Nội Hán Tự: 河[[wikt 内|内]], estimated population 3398889 (2007, is the Capital of Vietnam Tonkin (Đông Kinh in Vietnamese) also spelled Tongkin, Tonquin or Tongking, is the northernmost part of Vietnam, south of Nghệ An ( Hán Tự: 乂[[wikt 安|安]] is the largest province in the North Central Coast of Vietnam. Vinh is a city in Vietnam. It is located in the northern half of the country and is the capital of Nghệ An Province. Thanh Chuong (Thanh Chương is a district (''huyện'' of Nghe An Province in the North Central Coastal region of Vietnam. For the district in Ha Giang Province, see Quang Binh (district. Ha Tinh (in Vietnamese Hà Tĩnh; Hán Tự: 河[[wikt 靜|靜]] is a province on the north central coast of Vietnam ( 化 in Chữ Nôm) is the capital city of Thừa Thiên - Huế province, Vietnam. Quang Nam ( Quảng Nam;) is a province on the South Central Coast of Vietnam. The Mekong is one of the world’s major Rivers It is the 11th-longest river in the world and 7th longest in Asia Cochin China is also a type of domestic fowl. Cochinchina, from Cochin-China (see note below (known locally as Nam (audio help)

Listen to this audio clip of Vietnamese

Ho Chi Minh reading his Declaration of Independence. For the city named after him see Ho Chi Minh City. Hồ Chí Minh (name Ho Chi Minh is from Nghe An Province, speaking a northern-central variety. Nghệ An ( Hán Tự: 乂[[wikt 安|安]] is the largest province in the North Central Coast of Vietnam. (audio help)

Vietnamese has traditionally been divided into three dialect regions: North, Central, and South. However, Michel Fergus and Nguyễn Tài Cẩn offer evidence for considering a North-central region separate from Central. The term Haut-Annam refers to dialects spoken from northern Nghệ An Province to southern (former) Thừa Thiên Province that preserve archaic features (like consonant clusters and undiphthongized vowels) that have been lost in other modern dialects.

These dialect regions differ mostly in their sound systems (see below), but also in vocabulary (including basic vocabulary, non-basic vocabulary, and grammatical words) and grammar. ^[7] The North-central and Central regional varieties, which have a significant amount of vocabulary differences, are generally less mutually intelligible to Northern and Southern speakers. In Linguistics, mutual intelligibility is recognized as a relationship between Languages in which speakers of different but related languages can readily understand There is less internal variation within the Southern region than the other regions due to its relatively late settlement by Vietnamese speakers (in around the end of the 15th century). The North-central region is particularly conservative. Along the coastal areas, regional variation has been neutralized to a certain extent while more mountainous regions preserve more variation. As for sociolinguistic attitudes, the North-central varieties are often felt to be "peculiar" or "difficult to understand" by speakers of other dialects. Sociolinguistics is the study of the effect of any and all aspects of Society, including cultural norms expectations and context on the way Language is used

It should be noted that the large movements of people between North and South beginning in the mid-20th century and continuing to this day have resulted in a significant number of Southern residents speaking in the Northern accent/dialect and to a lesser extent, Northern residents speaking in the Southern accent/dialect. Following the Geneva Accords of 1954 that called for the "temporary" division of the country, almost a million Northern speakers (mainly from Hanoi and the surrounding Red River Delta areas) moved South (mainly to Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City, and the surrounding areas. ) About a third of that number of people made the move in the reverse direction.

Following the reunification of Vietnam in 1975-76, Northern and North-Central speakers from the densely populated Red River Delta and the traditionally poorer provinces of Nghe An, Ha Tinh and Quang Binh have continued to move South to look for better economic opportunities. Additionally, government and military personnel are posted to various locations throughout the country, often away from their home regions. More recently, the growth of the free market system have resulted in business people and tourists traveling to distant parts of Vietnam. These movements have resulted in some small blending of the dialects but more significantly, have made the Northern dialect more easily understood in the South and vise-versa. It is also interesting to note that most Southerners, when singing modern/popular Vietnamese songs, would do so in the Northern accent. This is true in Vietnam as well as in the overseas Vietnamese communities.

Regional variation in grammatical words^[8]

Northern	Central	Southern	English gloss
này	ni	nầy	"this"
thế này	ri	vầy	"thus, this way"
ấy	nớ	đó	"that"
thế, thế ấy	rứa	vậy	"thus, so, that way"
kia	tê	đó	"that yonder"
kìa	tề	đó	"that yonder (far away)"
đâu	mô	đâu	"where"
nào	mô	nào	"which"
sao, thế nào	răng	sao	"how"
tôi	tui	tui	"I, me (polite)"
tao	tau	tao, qua	"I, me (arrogant, familiar)"
chúng tôi	bầy tui	tụi tui	"we, us (but not you, polite)"
chúng tao	bầy choa	tụi tao	"we, us (but not you, arrogant, familiar)"
mày	mi	mầy	"you (arrogant, familiar)"
chúng mày	bây, bọn bây	tụi mầy	"you guys, y'all (arrogant, familiar)"
nó	hắn, nghỉ	nó	"he/him, she/her, it (arrogant, familiar)"
chúng nó	bọn hắn	tụi nó	"they/them (arrogant, familiar)"
ông ấy	ôông nớ	ổng	"he/him, that gentleman, sir"
bà ấy	mệ, nớ, bà nớ	bả	"she/her, that lady, madam"
cô ấy	o nớ	cổ	"she/her, that unmarried young lady"
chị ấy	ả nớ	chỉ	"she/her, that young lady"
anh ấy	eng nớ	ảnh	"he/him, that young man (of equal status)"

The syllable-initial ch and tr digraphs are pronounced distinctly in North-central, Central, and Southern varieties, but are merged in Northern varieties (i. A syllable ( Greek:) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds e. they are both pronounced the same way). The North-central varieties preserve three distinct pronunciations for d, gi, and r whereas the North has a three-way merger and the Central and South have a merger of d and gi while keeping r distinct. At the end of syllables, palatals ch and nh have merged with alveolars t and n, which, in turn, have also partially merged with velars c and ng in Central and Southern varieties.

Regional consonant correspondences

Syllable position	Orthography[9]	Northern	North-central	Central	Southern
syllable-initial	x	[s]	[s]	[s]	[s]
	s		[ʂ]	[ʂ]	[ʂ]
	ch	[ʨ]	[ʨ]	[ʨ]	[ʨ]
	tr		[ʈʂ]	[ʈʂ]	[ʈʂ]
	r	[z]	[ɹ]	[ɹ]	[ɹ]
	d		[ɟ]	[j]	[j]
	gi		[z]
	v [10]	[v]	[v]
syllable-final	c	[k]	[k]	[k]	[k]
	t	[t]	[t]
	t after e			[k, t]
	t after ê			[t]	[k, t]
	t after i				[t]
	ch	[c]	[c]
	ng	[ŋ]	[ŋ]	[ŋ]	[ŋ]
	n	[n]	[n]
	n after i, ê			[n]	[n]
	nh	[ɲ]	[ɲ]

In addition to the regional variation described above, there is also a merger of l and n in certain rural varieties:

l, n variation

Orthography	"Mainstream" varieties	Rural varieties
n	[n]	[n]
l	[l]

Variation between l and n can be found even in mainstream Vietnamese in certain words. For example, the numeral "five" appears as năm by itself and in compound numerals like năm mươi "fifty" but appears as lăm in mười lăm "fifteen". (See Vietnamese syntax: Cardinal numerals. Vietnamese, like many languages in Southeast Asia is an analytic (or isolating language ) In some northern varieties, this numeral appears with an initial nh instead of l: hai mươi nhăm "twenty-five" vs. mainstream hai mươi lăm. ^[11]

The consonant clusters that were originally present in Middle Vietnamese (of the 17th century) have been lost in almost all modern Vietnamese varieties (but retained in other closely related Vietic languages). The Vietic languages are a branch of the Austroasiatic Language family. However, some speech communities have preserved some of these archaic clusters: "sky" is blời with a cluster in Hảo Nho (Yên Mô prefecture, Ninh Binh Province) but trời in Southern Vietnamese and giời in Hanoi Vietnamese (initial single consonants /ʈ^ʂ, z/, respectively). Ninh Bình ( Vietnamese: Ninh Bình Han Tu: 寧[[wikt 平|平]] is a province of Vietnam, in the Red River Delta region

Generally, the Northern varieties have six tones while those in other regions have five tones. The hỏi and ngã tones are distinct in North and some North-central varieties (although often with different pitch contours) but have merged in Central, Southern, and some North-central varieties (also with different pitch contours). In Linguistics, Speech synthesis, and Music, the pitch contour of a sound is a function or curve that tracks the perceived pitch of the sound Some North-central varieties (such as Hà Tĩnh Vietnamese) have a merger of the ngã and nặng tones while keeping the hỏi tone distinct. Still other North-central varieties have a three-way merger of hỏi, ngã, and nặng resulting in a four-tone system. In addition, there are several phonetic differences (mostly in pitch contour and phonation type) in the tones among dialects. Phonation has slightly different meanings depending on the subfield of Phonetics.

Regional tone correspondences

Tone	Northern	North-central			Central	Southern
		Vinh	Thanh Chương	Hà Tĩnh
ngang	33	35	35	35, 353	35	33
huyền	2̤1̤	33	33	33	33	21
sắc	35	11	11, 1̰3̰	1̰3	1̰3̰	35
hỏi	31̰3̰	31	31	31̰ʔ	312	214
ngã	3ʔ5	1̰3̰		22̰
nặng	21̰ʔ	22	2̰2̰		2̰2̰	212

The table above shows the pitch contour of each tone using Chao tone number notation (where 1 = lowest pitch, 5 = highest pitch); glottalization (creaky, stiff, harsh) is indicated with the < ˷ > symbol; breathy voice with < ̤ >; glottal stop with < ʔ >; sub-dialectal variants are separated with commas. Tone is the use of pitch in Language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is to distinguish or inflect words Glottalization is the complete or partial closure of the Glottis during the articulation of another sound Vocal fry registerIn Linguistics, creaky voice (sometimes called laryngealisation, pulse phonation or vocal fry or glottal fry) The term stiff voice describes the pronunciation of consonants with a glottal opening narrower and the vocal cords stiffer than what occurs in Modal voice. Harsh voice, also called ventricular voice or (in some high-tone registers pressed voice, is the production of speech sounds (typically Vowels Breathy voice (also called murmured voice, soughing, or susurration) is a Phonation in which the Vocal cords vibrate as they do in This article is about the sound in spoken language For the letter see Glottal stop (letter. (See also the tone section below. Vietnamese ( tiếng Việt, or less commonly Việt ngữ) formerly known under French colonization as Annamese ( see Annam) )

Vocabulary

As a result of a thousand years of Chinese domination, much of the Vietnamese lexicon relating to science and politics are derived from Chinese. In Linguistics, the lexicon (from Greek Λεξικόν of a language is its Vocabulary, including its words and expressions As much as 70% of the vocabulary has Chinese roots, although many compound words are Sino-Vietnamese, composed of native Vietnamese words combined with the Chinese borrowings. Sino-Vietnamese ( Hán Việt; 漢越) are the elements in the Vietnamese language derived from Chinese. One can usually distinguish between a native Vietnamese word and a Chinese borrowing if it can be reduplicated or its meaning doesn't change when the tone is shifted. As a result of French colonization, Vietnamese also has words borrowed from the French language, for example cà phê (from French café). French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people Ca phe sua da or cafe sua da (cà phê sữa đá is a unique Vietnamese Coffee Recipe. Recently many words are borrowed from English, for example TV (pronounced tivi), phông for font. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States Sometimes these borrowings are calques literally translated into Vietnamese (phần mềm for software, lit. In Linguistics, a calque (kælk or loan translation is a Word or Phrase borrowed from another Language by Literal, word-for-word soft part).

Pragmatics and ethnography of communication

• pragmatics
• politeness (see Sophana (2004, 2005))
• sociolinguistics
• speech acts
• ethnography of communication

Word play

A language game known as nói lái is used by Vietnamese speakers and is often considered clever. Pragmatics is the study of the ability of Natural language speakers to communicate more than that which is explicitly stated Politeness is best expressed as the practical application of good Manners or Etiquette. Sociolinguistics is the study of the effect of any and all aspects of Society, including cultural norms expectations and context on the way Language is used Speech act is a technical term in Linguistics and the Philosophy of language. The Ethnography of communication (EOC is a method of Discourse analysis in Linguistics, which draws on the anthropological field of Ethnography A language game (also called secret language or ludling) is a system of manipulating spoken words to render them incomprehensible to the untrained ear Nói lái involves switching the tones in a pair of words and also the order of the two words or the first consonant and rime of each word; the resulting nói lái pair preserves the original sequence of tones. In the study of Phonology in Linguistics, the rime or rhyme of a Syllable consists of a nucleus and an optional coda Some examples:

Original phrase		Phrase after nói lái transformation	Structural change
đái dầm "(child) wet their pants"	→	dấm đài (nonsense words)	word order and tone switch
chửa hoang "pregnancy out of wedlock"	→	hoảng chưa "aren't you scared?"	word order and tone switch
bầy tôi "all the king's subjects"	→	bồi tây "servant in French household"	initial consonant, rime, and tone switch
bí mật "secrets"	→	bật mí "revealing secrets"	initial consonant and rime switch

The resulting transformed phrase often has a different meaning but sometimes may just be a nonsensical word pair. Nói lái can be used to obscure the original meaning and thus soften the discussion of a socially sensitive issue, as with dấm đài and hoảng chưa (above) or, when implied (and not overtly spoken), to deliver a hidden subtextual message, as with bồi tây^[12]. Naturally, nói lái can be used for a humorous effect. ^[13]

Another word game somewhat reminiscent of pig latin is played by children. Pig Latin is an English Language game in which the initial consonant sound of an English word is placed at the end and an ay is Affixed (Ex Here a nonsense syllable (chosen by the child) is prefixed onto a target word's syllables, then their initial consonants and rimes are switched with the tone of the original word remaining on the new switched rime.

Nonsense syllable	Target word		Intermediate form with prefixed syllable		Resulting "secret" word
la	phở "beef or chicken noodle soup"	→	la phở	→	lơ phả
la	ăn "to eat"	→	la ăn	→	lăn a
la	hoàn cảnh "environment"	→	la hoàn la cảnh	→	loan hà lanh cả
chim	hoàn cảnh "environment"	→	chim hoàn chim cảnh	→	choan hìm chanh kỉm

This language game is often used as a "secret" or "coded" language useful for obscuring messages from adult comprehension.

Sounds

Main article: Vietnamese phonology

Vowels

Like other southeast Asian languages, Vietnamese has a comparatively large number of vowels. This article is a technical description the sound system of the Vietnamese language, including Phonetics and Phonology. In Phonetics, a vowel is a Sound in spoken Language, such as English ah! or oh!, pronounced with an open Vocal tract Below is a vowel chart of Hanoi Vietnamese.

	Front	Central	Back
High	i [i]	ư [ɨ]	u [u]
Upper Mid	ê [e]	â [ə] / ơ [əː]	ô [o]
Lower Mid	e [ɛ]		o [ɔ]
Low	ă [a] / a [aː]

Front, central, and low vowels (i, ê, e, ư, â, ơ, ă, a) are unrounded, whereas the back vowels (u, ô, o) are rounded. A front vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far forward A central vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between A back vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as A close vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in many spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as A close-mid vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds The open-mid vowels make a class of Vowel sounds used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned An open vowel is a Vowel sound of a type used in most spoken Languages The defining characteristic of an open vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far as In Phonetics, vowel roundedness refers to the amount of rounding in the Lips during the articulation of a Vowel. The vowels â [ə] and ă [a] are pronounced very short, much shorter than the other vowels. Thus, ơ and â are basically pronounced the same except that ơ [əː]^[14] is long while â [ə] is short — the same applies to the low vowels long a [aː] and short ă [a]. ^[15]

In addition to single vowels (or monophthongs), Vietnamese has diphthongs^[16] and triphthongs. A monophthong ( Greek μονόφθογγος "monophthongos" = single note) is a "pure" Vowel sound one whose articulation at In Phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (from Greek grc δίφθογγος "diphthongos" literally "with two sounds" or "with In Phonetics, a triphthong (from Greek τρίφθογγος, "triphthongos" literally "with three sounds" or "with three The diphthongs consist of a main vowel component followed by a shorter semivowel offglide to a high front position [ɪ], a high back position [ʊ], or a central position [ə]. Semivowels — also known as glides or non-syllabic vowels —are Vowels that form Diphthongs with full syllabic vowels ^[17]

Vowel nucleus	Diphthong with front offglide	Diphthong with back offglide	Diphthong with centering offglide	Triphthong with front offglide	Triphthong with back offglide
i	–	iu~yu [iʊ̯]	ia~iê~yê~ya [iə̯]	–	iêu [iə̯ʊ̯]
ê	–	êu [eʊ̯]	–	–	–
e	–	eo [ɛʊ̯]	–	–	–
ư	ưi [ɨɪ̯]	ưu [ɨʊ̯]	ưa~ươ [ɨə̯]	ươi [ɨə̯ɪ̯]	ươu [ɨə̯ʊ̯]
â	ây [əɪ̯]	âu [əʊ̯]	–	–	–
ơ	ơi [əːɪ̯]	–	–	–	–
ă	ay [aɪ̯]	au [aʊ̯]	–	–	–
a	ai [aːɪ̯]	ao [aːʊ̯]	–	–	–
u	ui [uɪ̯]	–	ua~uô [uə̯]	uôi [uə̯ɪ̯]	–
ô	ôi [oɪ̯]	–	–	–	–
o	oi [ɔɪ̯]	–	–	–	–

The centering diphthongs are formed with only the three high vowels (i, ư, u) as the main vowel. 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. There are also restrictions on the high offglides: the high front offglide cannot occur after a front vowel (i, ê, e) nucleus and the high back offglide cannot occur after a back vowel (u, ô, o) nucleus^[18].

The correspondence between the orthography and pronunciation is complicated. For example, the offglide [ɪ̯] is usually written as i however, it may also be represented with y. In addition, in the diphthongs [aɪ̯] and [aːɪ̯] the letters y and i also indicate the pronunciation of the main vowel: ay = ă + [ɪ̯], ai = a + [ɪ̯]. Thus, tay "hand" is [taɪ̯] while tai "ear" is [taːɪ̯]. Similarly, u and o indicate different pronunciations of the main vowel: au = ă + [ʊ̯], ao = a + [ʊ̯]. Thus, thau "brass" is [taʊ̯] while thao "raw silk" is [taːʊ̯].

The four triphthongs are formed by adding front and back offglides to the centering diphthongs. Similarly to the restrictions involving diphthongs, a triphthong with front nucleus cannot have a front offglide (after the centering glide) and a triphthong with a back nucleus cannot have a back offglide.

With regards to the front and back offglides [ɪ̯, ʊ̯], many phonological descriptions analyze these as consonant glides /j, w/. Thus, a word such as đâu "where", phonetically [ɗəʊ̯], would be phonemicized as /ɗəw/.

Tones

Pitch contours and duration of the six Northern Vietnamese tones (but not Hanoi) as uttered by a male speaker. Fundamental frequency is plotted over time. The fundamental tone, often referred to simply as the fundamental and abbreviated fo, is the lowest frequency in a harmonic series. From Nguyễn & Edmondson (1998).

Vietnamese vowels are all pronounced with an inherent tone^[19]. Tone is the use of pitch in Language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is to distinguish or inflect words Tones differ in:

• pitch height
• length (duration)
• pitch contour (i. In Linguistics, Speech synthesis, and Music, the pitch contour of a sound is a function or curve that tracks the perceived pitch of the sound e. pitch melody)
• phonation

Tone is indicated by diacritics written above or below the vowel (most of the tone diacritics appear above the vowel; however, the nặng tone dot diacritic goes below the vowel). Phonation has slightly different meanings depending on the subfield of Phonetics. ^[20] The six tones in the northern varieties (including Hanoi) are:

Other dialects of Vietnamese have fewer tones (typically only five). Pitch The grave accent was first used in the polytonic orthography of Ancient Greek, where it occurred only on the last syllable of a word in cases where the History An early precursor of the acute accent was the apex, used in Latin inscriptions to mark long vowels. See also Horn (diacritic Ɓ ɓ Ƈ ƈ Ɗ ɗ Ɠ ɠ The tilde (~ (/ˈtɪldə/ is a Grapheme with several uses The name of the character comes from Spanish, from the Latin titulus Overdot See also Anusvara Language scripts or transcription schemes that use the dot above a letter as a diacritical mark In Arabic romanization See the language variation section above for a brief survey of tonal differences among dialects.

In Vietnamese poetry, tones are classed into two groups:

Words with tones belonging to particular tone group must occur in certain positions with the poetic verse.

Consonants

The consonants that occur in Vietnamese are listed below in the Vietnamese orthography with the phonetic pronunciation to the right. The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific Writing system to write the language

		Labial	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	voiceless	p [p]	t [t]	tr [ʈʂ~ʈ]	ch [c~tɕ]	c/k [k]
	aspirated		th [tʰ]
	voiced	b [ɓ]	đ [ɗ]		d [ɟ]
Fricative	voiceless	ph [f]	x [s]	s [ʂ]		kh [x]	h [h]
	voiced	v [v]	gi [z]	r [ʐ~ɹ]		g/gh [ɣ]
Nasal		m [m]	n [n]		nh [ɲ]	ng/ngh [ŋ]
Approximant		u/o [w]	l [l]		y/i [j]

Some consonant sounds are written with only one letter (like "p"), other consonant sounds are written with a two-letter 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"). Labials are consonants articulated either with both lips ( bilabial articulation or with the lower lip and the upper teeth ( labiodental articulation Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior Alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets In Phonetics, retroflex consonants are Consonant sounds used in some Languages (They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants Palatal consonants are Consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the Hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth Glottal consonants are Consonants articulated with the Glottis. The voiceless bilabial plosive is a type of Consonantal sound used in many spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet Fricatives are Consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together The voiceless labiodental fricative is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet A nasal consonant (also called nasal stop or nasal continuant) is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth allowing air to escape freely through the The bilabial nasal is a type of Consonantal sound used in almost all spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this The alveolar nasal is a type of Consonantal sound used in numerous spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents The palatal nasal is a type of Consonant, used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this The velar nasal is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents Approximants are speech sounds ( Phonemes) that could be regarded as intermediate between Vowels and typical Consonants In the articulation of approximants A digraph, bigraph, or digram is a pair of characters used to write one Phoneme (distinct sound or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond

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 above for further elaboration.

The analysis of syllable-final orthographic ch and nh in Hanoi 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 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 before upper front vowels i /i/ and ê /e/. In Phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar speech sounds ( Phones that belong to the same Phoneme. (See Vietnamese phonology: Analysis of final ch, nh for further details. This article is a technical description the sound system of the Vietnamese language, including Phonetics and Phonology. )

Grammar

Main articles: Vietnamese syntax and Vietnamese morphology

Vietnamese, like many languages in Southeast Asia, is an analytic (or isolating) language. Vietnamese, like many languages in Southeast Asia is an analytic (or isolating language Vietnamese, like many languages in Southeast Asia is an analytic (or isolating language In morphological typology (in linguistics an isolating language (also analytic language) is any Language in which words are composed of Vietnamese does not use morphological marking of case, gender, number, and tense (and, as a result, has no finite/nonfinite distinction). Morphology is the field of Linguistics that studies the internal structure of words In Grammar, the case of a Noun or Pronoun indicates its Grammatical function in a greater Phrase or Clause; such as the In Linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called Noun classes are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words every noun must belong In linguistics grammatical number is a Grammatical category of nouns pronouns and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one" Grammatical tense is a temporal linguistic quality expressing the time at during or over which a state or action denoted by a verb occurs A finite verb is a Verb that is inflected for person and for tense according to the rules and categories of the languages in which it occurs In Linguistics, a non-finite verb (or a verbal) is a Verb form that is not limited by a subject and more generally is not fully inflected by ^[21]

Also like other languages in the region, Vietnamese syntax conforms to Subject Verb Object word order, is head-initial (displaying modified-modifier ordering), and has a noun classifier system. In Linguistic typology, subject-verb-object ( SVO) is a sentence structure where the subject comes first the Verb second and the object In Linguistics, word order typology refers to the study of the different ways in which languages arrange the constituents of their sentences relative to each other and the systematic The Head directionality parameter is a proposed parameter that classifies Word order. In Grammar, a modifier (or qualifier) is a word or Sentence element that limits or qualifies another word a phrase or a clause A classifier, in Linguistics, is a Word or Morpheme used in some languages to classify a Noun according to its meaning Additionally, it is pro-drop, wh-in-situ, and allows verb serialization. A pro-drop language (from "pronoun-dropping" is a Language in which certain classes of Pronouns may be omitted when they are in some sense pragmatically Wh-movement (or wh-fronting or wh-extraction) is a syntactic phenomenon found in many languages around the world in which Interrogative words The serial verb construction is a syntactic phenomenon common to many African and Asian languages

Some Vietnamese sentences with English word glosses and translations are provided below. This article is about the literary term For other uses see Gloss (disambiguation.

Mai	là	sinh viên.
Mai	is	student
"Mai is a student. "

Giáp	rất	cao.
Giap	very	tall
"Giap is very tall. "

Người	đó	là	anh	nó.
person	that	is	brother	he
"That person is his brother. "

Con	chó	này	chẳng	bao giờ	sủa	cả.
classifier	dog	this	not	ever	bark	at. all
"This dog never barks at all. "

Nó	chỉ	ăn	cơm	Việt Nam	thôi.
he	only	eat	food	Vietnam	only
"He only eats Vietnamese food. "

Cái	thằng	chồng	em	nó	chẳng	ra	gì.
focus	classifier	husband	I	he	not	turn. out	what
"That husband of mine, he is good for nothing. "

Tôi	thích	cái	con	ngựa	đen.
I	like	focus	classifier	horse	black
"It is the black horse that I like. "

Writing system

Main article: Vietnamese alphabet

Currently, the written language uses the Vietnamese alphabet (quốc ngữ or "national script", literally "national language"), based on the Latin alphabet. The Vietnamese alphabet has the following 29 letters in collating order Description The Vietnamese alphabet called Chữ Quốc Ngữ The Vietnamese alphabet has the following 29 letters in collating order Description The Vietnamese alphabet called Chữ Quốc Ngữ Originally a Romanization of Vietnamese, it was codified in the 17th century by a French Jesuit missionary named Alexandre de Rhodes (1591–1660), based on works of earlier Portuguese missionaries (Gaspar de Amaral and António de Barbosa). In Linguistics, romanization (or latinization, also spelled romanisation or latinisation) is the representation of a Word or The Society of Jesus ( Latin: Societas Iesu, SJ and SI or SJ, SI) is a Catholic religious order A missionary is a member of a Religion who works to convert those who do not share the missionary's faith someone who proselytizes. Father Alexander de Rhodes (A-Lịch-Sơn Đắc-Lộ ( 15 March 1591 - 5 November 1660) was a French Jesuit Missionary who Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic (República Portuguesa is a country on the Iberian Peninsula. The use of the script was gradually extended from its initial domain in Christian writing to become more popular among the general public.

Under French colonial rule, the script became official and required for all public documents in 1910 by issue of a decree by the French Résident Supérieur of the protectorate of Tonkin. By the end of first half 20th century virtually all writings were done in quốc ngữ.

Changes in the script were made by French scholars and administrators and by conferences held after independence during 1954–1974. The script now reflects a so-called Middle Vietnamese dialect that has vowels and final consonants most similar to northern dialects and initial consonants most similar to southern dialects (Nguyễn 1996). This Middle Vietnamese is presumably close to the Hanoi variety as spoken sometime after 1600 but before the present.

Before French rule, the first two Vietnamese writing systems were based on Chinese script:

• the standard Chinese character set called chữ nho (scholar's characters, 字儒): used to write Literary Chinese
• a complicated variant form known as chữ nôm (southern/vernacular characters, 字喃) with characters not found in the Chinese character set; this system was better adapted to the unique phonetic aspects of Vietnamese which differed from Chinese

The authentic Chinese writing, chữ nho, was in more common usage, whereas chữ nôm was used by members of the educated elite (one needs to be able to read chữ nho in order to read chữ nôm). This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. A Chinese character, also known as a Han character ( is a Logogram used in writing Chinese (hanzi Japanese ( Hán tự ( {{IPA|/han˦˥ tɯ˨/}}; 漢[[wikt 字|字]] meaning " Chinese character " or chữ Nho ( {{IPA|/tɕɯ˧˨˧ ɲɔ/}} Classical Chinese or Literary Chinese is a traditional style of Written Chinese based on the Grammar and Vocabulary of ancient Chinese Chữ Nôm ( IPA: /cɨ3ˀ5 nom33/ chữ Nôm in Unicode: 字[[wikt 喃|喃]]/ 𡨸 喃/ 𡦂 喃 chữ Nôm in Unicode Both scripts have fallen out of common usage in modern Vietnam, and chữ nôm is nearly extinct. Vietnam (ˌviːɛtˈnɑːm Việt Nam) officially

Computer support

The Unicode character set contains all Vietnamese characters and the Vietnamese currency symbol. In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's On systems that do not support Unicode, many 8-bit Vietnamese code pages are available such as VISCII or CP1258. Code page is the traditional IBM term used to map a specific set of characters to numerical Code point values. The Vietnamese Standard Code for Information Interchange ( VISCII) is a Character set comprising the Vietnamese alphabet, Punctuation, and other Windows-1258 is a Codepage used in Microsoft Windows to represent Vietnamese texts Where ASCII must be used, Vietnamese letters are often typed using the VIQR convention, though this is largely unnecessary nowadays, with the increasing ubiquity of Unicode. American Standard Code for Information Interchange ( ASCII) Vietnamese Quoted-Readable, usually abbreviated VIQR and also known as Vietnet, is a convention for writing Vietnamese using ASCII characters There are many software tools that help type true Vietnamese text on US keyboards such as WinVNKey, Unikey on Windows, or MacVNKey on Macintosh.

Examples

The following text is an extract of the first six lines of Truyện Kiều, an epic narrative poem by the celebrated poet Nguyễn Du, 阮攸), which is often considered the most significant work of Vietnamese literature. The Tale of Kiều is an epic Poem in Vietnamese written by the 18th century writer Nguyễn Du (1766–1820 widely regarded Nguyễn Du (1765&ndash1820 Pennames Tố Như and Thanh Hiên) is a celebrated Vietnamese poet who wrote in ''Chữ Nôm'', the Vietnamese literature is Literature, both oral and written created largely by Vietnamese-speaking people although Francophone Vietnamese and English-speaking Vietnamese It was originally written in Nôm (titled Đoạn Trường Tân Thanh 斷腸新聲), and is widely taught in Vietnam today. Chữ Nôm ( IPA: /cɨ3ˀ5 nom33/ chữ Nôm in Unicode: 字[[wikt 喃|喃]]/ 𡨸 喃/ 𡦂 喃 chữ Nôm in Unicode

Trăm năm trong cõi người ta,

Chữ tài chữ mệnh khéo là ghét nhau.

Trải qua một cuộc bể dâu,

Những điều trông thấy mà đau đớn lòng.

Lạ gì bỉ sắc tư phong,

Trời xanh quen thói má hồng đánh ghen.

Original Chữ Nôm version

These are the images for those who don't have the required fonts.

𤾓𢆥𥪝𡎝𠊛嗟
𡦂才𡦂命窖羅恄饒
𣦆戈沒局𣷭橷
仍調𥉩𧡊罵忉疸𢚸
邏之彼嗇私豐
𡗶青慣退𦟐紅打慳

English translation

Hundreds of years of human existence,
Prodigy and fate intertwined in conflicts,
Mulberry fields turned into open sea,
Enough's been seen to melt the heart.
Little wonder that beauty begets misery,
For Blue Heaven's jealous of exquisite glamour!

See also

• Vietnamese alphabet
• Chữ nôm
• Chữ nho
• Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary
• Vietnamese phonology
• Vietnamese morphology
• Vietnamese syntax
• Vietic languages
• Vietnamese literature

Notes

Bibliography

General

• Dương, Quảng-Hàm. (1941). Việt-nam văn-học sử-yếu [Outline history of Vietnamese literature]. Saigon: Bộ Quốc gia Giáo dục.
• Emeneau, M. B. (1947). Homonyms and puns in Annamese. Language, 23 (3), 239-244.
• Emeneau, M. B. (1951). Studies in Vietnamese (Annamese) grammar. University of California publications in linguistics (Vol. 8). Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Hashimoto, Mantaro. (1978). The current state of Sino-Vietnamese studies. Journal of Chinese Linguistics, 6, 1-26.
• Nguyễn, Đình-Hoà. (1995). NTC's Vietnamese-English dictionary (updated ed. ). NTC language dictionaries. Lincolnwood, IL: NTC Pub. Press. ISBN ; ISBN
• Nguyễn, Đình-Hoà. (1997). Vietnamese: Tiếng Việt không son phấn. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
• Rhodes, Alexandre de. (1991). Từ điển Annam-Lusitan-Latinh [original: Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum]. (L. Thanh, X. V. Hoàng, & Q. C. Đỗ, Trans. ). Hanoi: Khoa học Xã hội. (Original work published 1651).
• Thompson, Laurence E. (1991). A Vietnamese reference grammar. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. (Original work published 1965). (Online version: www.sealang.net/archives/mks/THOMPSONLaurenceC.htm. )
• Uỷ ban Khoa học Xã hội Việt Nam. (1983). Ngữ-pháp tiếng Việt [Vietnamese grammar]. Hanoi: Khoa học Xã hội.

Sound system

• Michaud, Alexis. (2004). Final consonants and glottalization: New perspectives from Hanoi Vietnamese. Phonetica 61) pp. 119-146. Preprint version
• Nguyễn, Văn Lợi; & Edmondson, Jerold A. (1998). Tones and voice quality in modern northern Vietnamese: Instrumental case studies. Mon-Khmer Studies, 28, 1-18. (Online version: www.sealang.net/archives/mks/NGUYNVnLoi.htm).
• Thompson, Laurence E. (1959). Saigon phonemics. Language, 35 (3), 454-476.

Pragmatics/Language variation

• Alves, Mark J. (forthcoming). A look at North-Central Vietnamese. In Papers from the Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society. Arizona State University Press. Pre-publication electronic version: http://www.geocities.com/malves98/Alves_Vietnamese_Northcentral.pdf.
• Alves, Mark J. ; & Nguyễn, Duy Hương. (2007). Notes on Thanh-Chương Vietnamese in Nghệ-An province. In M. Alves, M. Sidwell, & D. Gil (Eds. ), SEALS VIII: Papers from the 8th annual meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society 1998 (pp. 1-9). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies. Electronic version: http://pacling.anu.edu.au/catalogue/SEALSVIII_final.pdf.
• Hoàng, Thị Châu. (1989). Tiếng Việt trên các miền đất nước: Phương ngữ học [Vietnamese in different areas of the country: Dialectology]. Hà Nội: Khoa học xã hội.
• Honda, Koichi. (2006). F0 and phonation types in Nghe Tinh Vietnamese tones. In P. Warren & C. I. Watson (Eds. ), Proceedings of the 11th Australasian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology (pp. 454-459). Auckland, New Zealand: University of Auckland. Electronic version: http://www.assta.org/sst/2006/sst2006-119.pdf.
• Luong, Hy Van. (1987). Plural markers and personal pronouns in Vietnamese person reference: An analysis of pragmatic ambiguity and negative models. Anthropological Linguistics, 29 (1), 49-70.
• Pham, Andrea Hoa. (2005). Vietnamese tonal system in Nghi Loc: A preliminary report. In C. Frigeni, M. Hirayama, & S. Mackenzie (Eds. ), Toronto working papers in linguistics: Special issue on similarity in phonology (Vol. 24, pp. 183-459). Auckland, New Zealand: University of Auckland. Electronic version: http://r1.chass.utoronto.ca/twpl/pdfs/twpl24/Pham_TWPL24.pdf.
• Sophana, Srichampa. (2004). Politeness strategies in Hanoi Vietnamese speech. Mon-Khmer Studies, 34, 137-157. (Online version: www.sealang.net/archives/mks/SOPHANASrichampa.htm).
• Sophana, Srichampa. (2005). Comparison of greetings in the Vietnamese dialects of Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh City. Mon-Khmer Studies, 35, 83-99. (Online version: www.sealang.net/archives/mks/SOPHANASrichampa.htm).
• Vũ, Thang Phương. (1982). Phonetic properties of Vietnamese tones across dialects. In D. Bradley (Ed. ), Papers in Southeast Asian linguistics: Tonation (Vol. 8, pp. 55-75). Sydney: Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University.
• Vương, Hữu Lễ. (1981). Vái nhận xét về đặc diểm của vần trong thổ âm Quảng Nam ở Hội An [Some notes on special qualities of the rhyme in local Quang Nam speech in Hoi An]. In Một Số Vấn Ðề Ngôn Ngữ Học Việt Nam [Some linguistics issues in Vietnam] (pp. 311-320). Hà Nội: Nhà Xuất Bản Ðại Học và Trung Học Chuyên Nghiệp.

Historical/Comparative

• Alves, Mark. (1999). "What's so Chinese about Vietnamese?", in Papers from the Ninth Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society. University of California, Berkeley. PDF
• Cooke, Joseph R. (1968). Pronominal reference in Thai, Burmese, and Vietnamese. University of California publications in linguistics (No. 52). Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Gregerson, Kenneth J. (1969). A study of Middle Vietnamese phonology. Bulletin de la Société des Etudes Indochinoises, 44, 135-193. (Reprinted in 1981).
• Nguyễn, Đình-Hoà. (1986). Alexandre de Rhodes' dictionary. Papers in Linguistics, 19, 1-18.
• Shorto, Harry L. edited by Sidwell, Paul, Cooper, Doug and Bauer, Christian (2006). A Mon-Khmer comparative dictionary. Canberra: Australian National University. Pacific Linguistics. ISBN
• Thompson, Laurence E. (1967). The history of Vietnamese finals. Language, 43 (1), 362-371.

Orthography

• Haudricourt, André-Georges. (1949). Origine des particularités de l'alphabet vietnamien. Dân Việt-Nam, 3, 61-68.
• Nguyễn, Đình-Hoà. (1955). Quốc-ngữ: The modern writing system in Vietnam. Washington, D. C. : Author.
• Nguyễn, Đình-Hoà. (1990). Graphemic borrowing from Chinese: The case of chữ nôm, Vietnam's demotic script. Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, 61, 383-432.
• Nguyễn, Đình-Hoà. (1996). Vietnamese. In P. T. Daniels, & W. Bright (Eds. ), The world's writing systems, (pp. 691-699). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN .

Pedagogical

• Nguyen, Bich Thuan. (1997). Contemporary Vietnamese: An intermediate text. Southeast Asian language series. Northern Illinois University, Center for Southeast Asian Studies.
• Healy, Dana. (2004). Teach yourself Vietnamese. Teach yourself. Chicago: McGraw-Hill. ISBN
• Hoang, Thinh; Nguyen, Xuan Thu; Trinh, Quynh-Tram; (2000). Vietnamese phrasebook, (3rd ed. ). Hawthorn, Vic. : Lonely Planet. ISBN
• Moore, John. (1994). Colloquial Vietnamese: A complete language course. London: Routledge. ISBN ; ISBN (w/ CD); ISBN (w/ cassettes);
• Nguyễn, Đình-Hoà. (1967). Read Vietnamese: A graded course in written Vietnamese. Rutland, VT: C. E. Tuttle.
• Lâm, Lý-duc; Emeneau, M. B. ; & Steinen, Diether von den. (1944). An Annamese reader. Berkeley: University of California, Berkeley.
• Nguyễn, Đang Liêm. (1970). Vietnamese pronunciation. PALI language texts: Southeast Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN -X

External links

• Vietnamese Online Grammar Project
• Sound System in Vietnamese
• Translating Vietnamese poetry
• Versification of Vietnamese Riddles

Dictionaries

• VDict: Vietnamese online dictionaries
• The Free Vietnamese Dictionary Project
• Nom look-up
• Lexicon of Vietnamese words borrowed from French by Jubinell
• OVDP: Open Vietnamese Dictionaries Project

Software resources

• A Comprehensive Unicode Browser Test Page for Vietnamese / Quốc Ngữ.
• A Comprehensive Unicode Font Test Page for Vietnamese / Quốc Ngữ.
• Online Keyboard for Vietnamese

Vietnamese pedagogy

• Omniglot
• Online Vietnamese Reading Program (ASU)
• Online Vietnamese Pronunciation and Spelling Practice (ASU)
• 20 lessons
• The right place of the Vietnamese accent a simple rule for learners, on where to put the tonal accent

Other resources

• Ethnologue report for Vietnamese
• Wiktionary in Vietnamese
• Wikibooks in Vietnamese
• Wikisource in Vietnamese