Vietnamese (Vietnamese "Tiếng Việt"), a tonal language, is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 87% of Vietnam's population, in addition to about two million Vietnamese emigrants, including a significant number of Vietnamese-Americans. Although it contains many vocabulary borrowings from Chinese and was originally written using Chinese characters, it is considered by linguists to be one of the Austroasiatic languages, of which it has the most speakers (the second language being the Khmer language).

Table of contents

1 Written language 2 Dialects 3 Phonology 3.1 Consonants 3.2 Vowels 4 Example Text 4.3 English translation 5 External links

Written language

Presently, the written language uses a Roman character set called quốc ngữ (national language). It was introduced in the 17th century by a French Jesuit missionary named Alexandre de Rhodes (1591-1660), based on works of earlier Portuguese missionaries. With the occupation of the French in the 19th century, it became popular and by the late 20th century virtually all writings were done in quốc ngữ.

Previous to French occupation, the first two Vietnamese writing systems were based on Chinese script:

• the standard ideographic 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 unfound in actual Chinese: better adapted to the unique 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). Both scripts have fallen out of common usage in modern Vietnam, and chữ nôm is near-extinct.

The six tones in Vietnamese are:

ASCII Symbol	ASCII Name	Unicode Name	Description	Sample Unicode Vowel (e)
	Ngang	Ngang	no tone (flat)	e
/	Sa('c	Sắc	rising	é
`	Huye^`n	Huyền	falling	è
?	Ho?i	Hỏi	dipping	ẻ
~	Nga~	Ngã	dipping (but not as low)	ẽ
.	Na(.ng	Nặng	low, glottal	ẹ

Tone markers are written above the vowel they affect, with the exception of Nặng, where the dot goes below the vowel. For example, the common family name Nguyễn begins with SAMPA /N/ (this sound is difficult for native English speakers to place at the beginning of a word), and is followed by something approximated by the English word "win". The ~ indicates a dipping tone; start somewhat low, go down in pitch, then rise to the end of the word.

Vietnamese is a monosyllabic language, although many compound words are present. Diphthongs and triphthongs are very common.

Dialects

There are various mutually intelligible dialects (as intelligible as the dialects of English found in the United States), the main three being:

{| border=1 ! Modern name !! Locality name !! Old name |------------------------------------------------ | Northern Vietnamese || Hanoi dialect|| Tonkinese |------------------------------------------------ | Central Vietnamese || Hué dialect || High Annamese |------------------------------------------------ | Southern Vietnamese ||Saigon dialect|| Cochinchinese |}

These dialects differ slightly in tone, although the Hué dialect is somewhat more different than others. The current standard pronunciation and spellings are based on the dialect of an educated Hanoi speaker.

Phonology

Consonants need to be SAMPA-ized; adapted from pgdudda's website

Consonants

 

	Bilabial	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stops	p/b	t/d, [th]*	t	[ty]	k
Fricatives	f/v	s/z	s/z	Z	x/[Y]	h
Nasals	m	n		ñ	N
Liquids		l

* /th/ is an unvoiced, aspirated alveolar stop

Vowels

Rounding is contrastive for non-low back vowels.

i		M, u
e		7, o
E	6	O
a		A

Example Text

This text is from the first six lines of Kim Vân Kiều, an epic poem by the celebrated poet Nguyễn Du (1765-1820). It was originally written in Nôm (titled 金雲翹), and is widely taught in Vietnam today.

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.

English translation

Four score and two tens, within that short span of human life,
Talent and Destiny are poised in bitter conflict.
Oceans turn to mulberry fields: a desolate scene!
More gifts, less chance, such is the law of Nature
And the blue sky is known to be jealous of rosy cheeks.

External links

• British Museum Exhibit: Exhibit of classical Vietnamese, including Kim Van Kieu.
• Introduction to Vietnamese: Introduction to Vietnamese for Mandarin speakers.
• Nom Foundation: An organization dedicated to the preservation of the Nom writing.
  • Nom look-up
• Vietnamese Writing System: An overview of the Vietnamese writing system.
• 20 lessons