3.1 Official status

Vietnamese is the official language of Vietnam.

3.2 Dialects

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

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 more markedly different than the others. The hỏi and ngã tones are more distinct in the northern than in the southern dialect.

4 Sounds

4.1 Vowels

4.1.1 Monophthongs

The vowel chart below is a composite of the phonetic descriptions of Nguyễn (1997), Thompson (1965), and Han (1966). (See the endnotes for their respective descriptions.) ¹ This is a vowel description of Hanoi Vietnamese (i.e., other regions of Viet Nam may have a different inventory).

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		ɯ    u
Close-Mid	e		o
Mid		əː
Open-Mid	ɛ	ɜ	ɔ
Open		ɐː/ɐ

All vowels are unrounded except for three back vowels: /u/, /o/, and /ɔ/. /ɜ/ and /ɐ/ are pronounced very short, shorter than the other vowels. Short /ɐ/ and long /ɐː/ are different phonemic vowels. (The [ː] symbol indicates length.) There seems to be a question of whether /əː/ and /ɜ/ differ in quality and length or in length only. The description above takes the stance that there is also difference in quality (following Thompson (1965)).

The correspondence between the orthography and pronunciation is rather complicated, where a single letter represents two different monophthongs or both a monophthong and a diphthong, or where the same monophthong is represented by more than one letter:

Orthography	Phonetic value(s)		Orthography	Phonetic value(s)
a	/ɐː/, /ɐ/, /ɜ/		o	/ɔ/, /ɐw/, /w/
ă	/ɐ/		ô	/o/, /ɜw/, /ɜ/
â	/ɜ/		ơ	/əː/, /ɜ/
e	/ɛ/		u	/u/, /w/
ê	/e/, /ɜ/		ư	/ɯ/
i	/i/, /j/		y	/i/, /j/

Words that appear to start with a vowel actually start with a glottal stop [ʔ]. This is not represented in the orthography.

4.1.2 Diphthongs & Triphthongs

In addition to monophthongs, Vietnamese has many diphthongs and triphthongs. Most of these consist of a vowel followed by /j/ or /w/. Below is a chart (Nguyễn 1997) listing the diphthongs & triphthongs of the Hanoi dialect along with the corresponding orthographic symbol(s).

/ɜ/ Diphthong	Orthography		/j/ Di-/Triphthong	Orthography		/w/ Di-/Triphthong	Orthography
/iɜ/	ia, ya, iê, yê		/əːj/	ơi		/iw/	iu (ưu)
/ɯɜ/	ưa, ươ		/ɜj/	ây, ê		/ew/	êu
/uɜ/	ua, uô		/ɐːj/	ai		/ɛw/	eo
			/ɐj/	ay, a		/əːw/	ơu
			/ɯj/	ưi		/ɜw/	âu, ô
			/uj/	ui		/ɐːw/	ao
			/oj/	ôi		/ɐw/	au, o
			/ɔj/	oi		/ɯw/	ưu
			/ɯɜj/	ươi		/iɜw/	iêu, yêu (ươu)
			/uɜj/	uôi		/ɯɜw/	ươu

/j/ never follows front vowels (/i/, /e/, /ɛ/). /w/ never follows rounded vowels (/u/, /o/, /ɔ/).

Thompson (1965) says that in Hanoi words spelled with "ưu" and "ươu" are pronounced as /iw/ and /iɜw/, respectively, whereas other dialects in the Tonkin delta pronounce them as /ɯw/ and /ɯɜw/. Hanoi speakers that pronounce these words with /ɯw/ and /ɯɜw/ are using a spelling pronunciation. In Hanoi the diphthongs, /iɜ/, /ɯɜ/, /uɜ/, may be pronounced as /ie/, /ɯəː/, and /uo/ (as the spelling suggests), but before /k/ and /ŋ/ they are always pronounced /iɜ/, /ɯɜ/, /uɜ/.

4.2 Consonants

Hanoi consonants:

	Bilabial	Labio-Velar	Labiodental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
STOPS
Voiceless, unaspirated	p			t	c	k	ʔ
Voiceless, aspirated				tʰ
Voiced, implosive	ɓ			ɗ
FRICATIVES
Voiceless			f	s		x	h
Voiced			v	z		ɣ
APPROXIMANT
Central		w			j
Lateral				l

	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

* /t^h/ is an unvoiced, aspirated alveolar stop

5 Grammar

6 Vocabulary

As a result of a thousand years of Chinese domination, much of Vietnamese vocabulary relating to science and politics are derived from Chinese. However, it still retains a basic vocabulary more closely resembling other languages in its language family.

7 Writing system

Presently, the written language uses the Vietnamese alphabet (quốc ngữ or "national script"), based on the Latin alphabet. Originally a Romanization of Vietnamese, 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.

Prior 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 ch 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). 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.

Like English and many other languages on earth, Vietnamese, originally a monosyllabic language , as demonstrated by its rich tonal system and syllabic diphthongs and triphthongs meant to differentiate one-syllable words, has long become a polysyllabic language, as clearly evidenced with the presence of more than half of its multi-syllabic and compound words in its overall bountiful vocabulary stock.

8 Computer support

Unicode contains all characters that are necessary to write Vietnamese. There are also a number of codepages designed for representing Vietnamese texts, such as VISCII or CP1258.

Where ASCII must be used, Vietnamese is often typed using the VIQR convention.

9 Examples

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

Tram nam trong cõi người ta,

Chữ tài chữ mệnh khéo là ghét nhau.

Trải qua một cuộc bể dâu,

Những diều trông thấy mà dau dớn lòng.

Lạ gì bỉ sắc tư phong,

Trời xanh quen thói má hồng dánh ghen.

The 224 first verses (in Vietnamese) (to see the next verses: click on câu 225 - 416 etc.)

9.1 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.

10 External links

• [vi]
• [vi]
• [vi]
• Wikisource in Vietnamese [vi]
• VDict: Vietnamese online dictionaries
• Ethnologue report for Vietnamese
• 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
• Vietnamese & other related languages

11 Endnotes

1. Here are three linguists' different phonetic descriptions of Vietnamese vowels. Which one is correct? I don't know. You will have to make your own observations. One thing to keep in mind is that Thompson and Han are not native speakers of Vietnamese, but Nguyễn is a native speaker.

Thompson's (1965) vowels. Thompson says that the vowels [ʌ] (orthographic "â") and [ɐ] (orthographic "ă") are shorter than all of the other vowels, which I have tried to show by adding the half length mark [ˑ] to the other vowels. The vowels below are only the basic vowel phonemes. Thompson gives a very detailed description of each vowel's various allophonic realizations. (Note: one of the external links above has an incorrect vowel chart on this page http://www.de-han.org/vietnam/chuliau/lunsoat/sound/3.htm. The author of this page is following Thompson. Thompson describes one vowel as a "relatively low back unrounded vowel" which is realized as either "lower mid back" or "lower mid back, strongly centralized". The web page author incorrectly lists this vowel as lower low back unrounded /ɑ/.)

	Front	Central	Back
High	iˑ		ɯˑ    uˑ
Upper-Mid	eˑ		ɤˑ    oˑ
Lower-Mid	ɛˑ		ʌ      ɔˑ
Upper-Low		ɐ
Lower-Low	aˑ

Han's (1966) vowels. Han uses acoustic analysis, including spectrograms and format measuring & plotting, to describe the vowels. She states that the primary difference between orthographic "ơ" & "â" and "a" & "ă" is a difference of length (a ratio of 2:1). "ơ" = /ɜː/, "â"= /ɜ/; "a" = /ɐː/, "ă"= /ɐ/. Her format plots also seem show that /ɜː/ may be slightly higher than /ɜ/ in some contexts (but this would be secondary to the main difference of length).

	Front	Central	Back
High	i	ɨ	u
Upper-Mid	e		o
Lower-Mid	ɛ	ɜː/ɜ	ɔ
Low		ɐː/ɐ

Nguyễn's (1997) vowels. I suspect Nguyễn may be simplifying his description & making it more symmetrical (which is good phonology). He says that this is not a "complete grammar" but it is a "descriptive introduction".

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		ɯ    u
Mid	e	əː/ə	o
Low	a	ɐː/ɐ	ɒ

12 Sources

• Han, Mieko S. (1966). Vietnamese vowels. Studies in the phonology of Asian languages IV. Los Angeles: Acoustic Phonetics Research Laboratory, University of Southern California.
• Nguyễn, Ðình-Hoà. (1997). Vietnamese: Tiếng Việt không son phấn. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. BooksEnthsiast.com.
• Thompson, Laurence E. (1965). A Vietnamese grammar. Seattle: University of Washington Press. (Reprinted as A Vietnamese reference grammar. (1991). Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. BooksEnthsiast.com.).

Austroasiatic languages Tonal languages *

minnan:Oat-lâm-gí

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