Vietnamese language

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Vietnamese
Ti?ng Vi?t
Pronunciation [ti?? v??t] (Northern)
[ti?? j?k] (Southern)
Native to Vietnam
Ethnicity Kinh/Gin people
Native speakers
75 million (2007)[1]
Language family
Austroasiatic
Vietic
VietMuong
Vietnamese
Writing system
Latin (Vietnamese alphabet)
Vietnamese Braille
Ch? nm
Official status
Official language in
Vietnam[2]
Recognised minority language in
Czech Republic[3]
Language codes
ISO 639-1 vi
ISO 639-2 vie
ISO 639-3 vie
Linguasphere 46-EBA
{{{mapalt}}}
Natively Vietnamese-speaking (non-minority) areas of Vietnam and China[4]
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, yo
u may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.
This article contains Vietnamese text. Without proper rendering support,
you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of ch? nm, ch? Hn and
ch? qu?c ng?.
This article contains Ch? nm text. Without proper rendering support, you
may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Ch? nm.
Percentage of Vietnamese people, by province[5]
<20%
20%-40%
40%-60%
60%-80%
80%-95%
>95%
Vietnamese (ti?ng Vi?t) is the national, official language of Vietnam. It is the
native language of Vietnamese people (Kinh), and of about three million Vietnam
ese residing elsewhere. It also is spoken as a first or second language by many
ethnic minorities of Vietnam.
It is part of the Austroasiatic language family of which it has, by far, the mos
t speakers (several times that of the other Austroasiatic languages combined).[c
itation needed] Vietnamese vocabulary has borrowings from Chinese, and it former
ly used a modified set of Chinese characters called ch? nm given vernacular pronu
nciation. The Vietnamese alphabet (qu?c ng?) in use today is a Latin alphabet wi
th additional diacritics for tones, and certain letters.
Contents [hide]
1 Geographic distribution
2 Linguistic classification
3 Lexicon
4 Phonology
4.1 Vowels
4.2 Consonants
4.3 Tones
5 Language variation
5.1 Tones
6 Grammar
7 Writing systems
7.1 Computer support
8 History
8.1 Proto-VietMuong
8.2 Origin of the tones
8.3 Middle Vietnamese
9 Word play
10 Examples
11 See also
12 Notes
13 Bibliography
13.1 General
13.2 Sound system
13.3 Pragmatics and language variation
13.4 Historical and comparative
13.5 Orthography
13.6 Pedagogical
14 External links
Geographic distribution[edit]
As the national language, Vietnamese is spoken throughout Vietnam by ethnic Viet
namese and by Vietnam's many minorities. A few thousand native speakers live jus
t across the border in China. It also is spoken in overseas Vietnamese communiti
es, most notably in the United States, where it has more than one million speake
rs and is the seventh most-spoken language (it is third in Texas, fourth in Arka
nsas and Louisiana, and fifth in California).[6] It is the sixth most-spoken lan
guage in Australia.[7]
Linguistic classification[edit]
Vietnamese was identified more than 150 years ago[8] as part of the MonKhmer bran
ch of the Austroasiatic language family (a family that also includes Khmer, spok
en in Cambodia, as well as various tribal and regional languages, such as the Mu
nda and Khasi languages spoken in eastern India, and others in southern China).
Later, Mu?ng was found to be more closely related to Vietnamese than other MonKhm
er languages, and a Vi?t-Mu?ng sub-grouping was established, also including Thav
ung, Ch?t, Hung, etc.[9] The term Vietic was proposed by Hayes (1992),[10] who p
roposed to redefine Vi?tMu?ng as referring to a sub-branch of Vietic containing o
nly Vietnamese and Mu?ng. The term Vietic is used, among others, by Grard Difflot
h, with a slightly different proposal on subclassification, within which the ter
m Vi?t-Mu?ng refers to a lower sub-grouping (within an eastern Vietic branch) co
nsisting of Vietnamese dialects, Mu?ng dialects, and Ngu?n (of Qu?ng Bnh Province
).[11]
Lexicon[edit]
The words in orange belong to the Vietnamese native lexical stock while the ones
in green belong to the Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary.
Like other east Asian countries, as a result of close ties with China for thousa
nds of years, much of the Vietnamese lexicon relating to science and politics is
derived from Chinese see Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary. Some 30% to 60% of the lex
ical stock has naturalized word borrowings from China, although many compound wo
rds are composed of native Vietnamese words combined with naturalized word borro
wings (i.e., having Vietnamese pronunciation) .[citation needed] One can usually
distinguish between a native Vietnamese word and a Chinese borrowing if its mea
ning does not change when the tone is shifted[examples needed]. As a result of F
rench occupation, Vietnamese has since had many words borrowed from the French l
anguage, for example c ph (from French caf). Nowadays, many new words are being add
ed to the language's lexicon due to heavy Western cultural influence; these are
usually borrowed from English, for example TV (though usually seen in the writte
n form as tivi). Sometimes these borrowings are calques literally translated int
o Vietnamese (for example, software is calqued into ph?n m?m, which literally me
ans "soft part").
Phonology[edit]
Main article: Vietnamese phonology
Vowels[edit]
Like other southeast Asian languages, Vietnamese has a comparatively large numbe
r of vowels. Below is a vowel diagram of Hanoi Vietnamese.
Front Central Back
High i [i] u [?] u [u]
Upper Mid [e] o [??] [o]
Lower Mid e [?] [?] o [?]
Low a [a] / a [a?]
Front, central, and low vowels (i, , e, u, , o, a, a) are unrounded, whereas the b
ack vowels (u, , o) are rounded. The vowels [?] and a [a] are pronounced very sho
rt, much shorter than the other vowels. Thus, o and are basically pronounced the
same except that o [??] is of normal length while [?] is short the same applies
to the vowels long a [a?] and short a [a].[12]
In addition to single vowels (or monophthongs), Vietnamese has diphthongs[13] an
d triphthongs. The diphthongs consist of a main vowel component followed by a sh
orter semivowel offglide to a high front position [??], a high back position [??
], or a central position [??].[14]
Vowel nucleus Diphthong with front offglide Diphthong with back offglide
Diphthong with centering offglide Triphthong with front offglide Triphtho
ng with back offglide
i iu [i??] ia~i~y [i??] iu [i????]
u [e??]
e eo [???]
u ui [???] uu [???] ua~uo [???] uoi [?????] uou [???
??]
y [???] u [???]
o oi [????]
a ay [a??] au [a??]
a ai [a???] ao [a???]
u ui [u??] ua~u [u??] ui [u????]
i [o??]
o oi [???]
The centering diphthongs are formed with only the three high vowels (i, u, u) as
the main vowel. They are generally spelled as ia, ua, ua when they end a word a
nd are spelled i, uo, u, respectively, when they are followed by a consonant. Ther
e are also restrictions on the high offglides: the high front offglide cannot oc
cur after a front vowel (i, , e) nucleus and the high back offglide cannot occur
after a back vowel (u, , o) nucleus.[15]
The correspondence between the orthography and pronunciation is complicated. For
example, the offglide [??] is usually written as i; however, it may also be rep
resented with y. In addition, in the diphthongs [a??] and [a???] the letters y a
nd i also indicate the pronunciation of the main vowel: ay = a + [??], ai = a +
[??]. Thus, tay "hand" is [ta??] while tai "ear" is [ta???]. Similarly, u and o
indicate different pronunciations of the main vowel: au = a + [??], ao = a + [??
]. Thus, thau "brass" is [t?a??] while thao "raw silk" is [t?a???].
The four triphthongs are formed by adding front and back offglides to the center
ing 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.
From the front and back offglides [??], [??], many phonological descriptions ana
lyze these as consonant glides /j/, /w/. Thus, a word such as du "where", phoneti
cally [????], would be analyzed phonemically as /??w/.
Consonants[edit]
The consonants that occur in Vietnamese are listed below in the Vietnamese ortho
graphy with the phonetic pronunciation to the right.
Labial Alveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m [m] n [n] nh [?] ng/ngh [?]
Stop voiceless p [p] t [t] tr [??~?] ch [c~t?] c/k/q [k
]
voiced b [?] d [?]
aspirated th [t?] kh [x~k?]
Fricative voiceless ph [f] x [s] s [?] h [h]
voiced v [v] d [z~j] r [?~?] gi [z~j] g/gh [?]
Approximant u/o [w] l [l] y/i [j]
Some consonant sounds are written with only one letter (like "p"), other consona
nt sounds are written with a two-letter digraph (like "ph"), and others are writ
ten with more than one letter or digraph (the velar stop is written variously as
"c", "k", or "q").
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 v
ariation section for further elaboration.
The analysis of syllable-final orthographic ch and nh in Hanoi Vietnamese has ha
d different analyses. One analysis has final ch, nh as being phonemes /c/, /?/ c
ontrasting with syllable-final t, c /t/, /k/ and n, ng /n/, /?/ and identifies f
inal 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 /?/ that occur
before upper front vowels i /i/ and /e/. (See Vietnamese phonology: Analysis of
final ch, nh for further details.)
Tones[edit]
Pitch contours and duration of the six Northern Vietnamese tones as spoken by a
male speaker (not from Hanoi). Fundamental frequency is plotted over time. From
Nguy?n & Edmondson (1998).
Vietnamese vowels are all pronounced with an inherent tone.[16] (More formally,
diacritics indicate the tone of the entire word, centered on the main vowel or g
roup of vowels, whereas accents qualify the vowel(s).) Tones differ in:
length (duration)
pitch contour (i.e. pitch melody)
pitch height
phonation
Tone is indicated by diacritics written above or below the vowel (most of the to
ne diacritics appear above the vowel; however, the n?ng tone dot diacritic goes
below the vowel).[17] The six tones in the northern varieties (including Hanoi),
with their self-referential Vietnamese names, are:
Name Description Diacritic Example Sample vowel
ngang 'level' mid level (no mark) ma 'ghost' About this sound
a (helpinfo)
huy?n 'hanging' low falling (often breathy) ` (grave accent)
m 'but' About this sound (helpinfo)
s?c 'sharp' high rising (acute accent) m 'cheek, mother (southern)'
About this sound (helpinfo)
h?i 'asking' mid dipping-rising ? (hook) m? 'tomb, grave'
About this sound ? (helpinfo)
ng 'tumbling' high breaking-rising (tilde) m 'horse (Sino-Vietnamese),
' About this sound (helpinfo)
n?ng 'heavy' low falling constricted (short length) ? (dot below) m? 'ric
e seedling' About this sound ? (helpinfo)
Other dialects of Vietnamese have fewer tones (typically only five). See the lan
guage variation section for a brief survey of tonal differences among dialects.
In Vietnamese poetry, tones are classed into two groups:
Tone group Tones within tone group
b?ng "level, flat" ngang and huy?n
tr?c "oblique, sharp" s?c, h?i, ng, and n?ng
Words with tones belonging to a particular tone group must occur in certain posi
tions with the poetic verse.
Vietnamese Catholics practice a distinctive style of prayer recitation called d?
c kinh, in which each tone is assigned a specific note or sequence of notes.
Language variation[edit]
There are various mutually intelligible regional varieties (or dialects), the ma
in five being:[18]
Dialect region Localities Names under French colonization
Northern Vietnamese Hanoi, Haiphong, Red River Delta Tonkinese
North-central (or Area IV) Vietnamese Thanh Ho, Ngh? An, H Tinh Annamese
Mid-Central Vietnamese Qu?ng Bnh, Qu?ng Tr?, Hu?, Th?a Thin Annamese
South-Central Vietnamese (or Area V) N?ng, Qu?ng Nam, Qu?ng Ngi, Ph Yn Annamese
Southern Vietnamese Nha Trang, B R?aVung Tu, Saigon, Mekong Delta (Mi?n Ty)
Cochinchinese
Listen to this audio clip of Vietnamese (info)
Icon of loudspeaker
The first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights spoken by Nghiem
Mai Phuong, native speaker of a northern variety. (audio help)
Listen to this audio clip of Vietnamese
Icon of loudspeaker
Ho Chi Minh reading his Declaration of Independence. Ho Chi Minh is from Ngh? An
Province, speaking a northern-central variety. (audio help)
Vietnamese has traditionally been divided into three dialect regions: North, Cen
tral, and South. However, Michel Ferlus and Nguy?n Ti C?n offer evidence for cons
idering a North-Central region separate from Central. The term Haut-Annam refers
to dialects spoken from northern Ngh? An Province to southern (former) Th?a Thin
Province that preserve archaic features (like consonant clusters and undiphthon
gized 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 grammatica
l words) and grammar.[19] The North-central and Central regional varieties, whic
h have a significant amount of vocabulary differences, are generally less mutual
ly intelligible to Northern and Southern speakers. There is less internal variat
ion 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, regi
onal variation has been neutralized to a certain extent, while more mountainous
regions preserve more variation. As for sociolinguistic attitudes, the North-cen
tral varieties are often felt to be "peculiar" or "difficult to understand" by s
peakers of other dialects.
The large movements of people between North and South beginning in the mid-20th
century and continuing to this day have resulted in a sizeable number of Souther
n residents speaking in the Northern accent/dialect and, to a greater extent, No
rthern residents speaking in the Southern accent/dialect. Following the Geneva A
ccords of 1954 that called for the temporary division of the country, about a mi
llion northerners (mainly from Hanoi, Haiphong and the surrounding Red River Del
ta areas) moved south (mainly to Saigon and heavily to Bin Ha and Vung Tu, and the
surrounding areas) as part of Operation Passage to Freedom. About 3% (~30,000) o
f that number of people made the move in the reverse direction.
Following the reunification of Vietnam in 197576, Northern and North-Central spea
kers from the densely populated Red River Delta and the traditionally poorer pro
vinces of Ngh? An, H Tinh and Qu?ng Bnh have continued to move South to look for b
etter economic opportunities, beginning with the Hanoi government's "New Economi
c Zones program" which lasted from 197585.[20] The first half of the program (197
580), resulted in 1.3 million people sent to the New Economic Zones (NEZs), major
ity of which were relocated in the southern half of the country in previously un
inhabited areas, of which 550,000 were Northerners.[20] The second half (198185)
saw almost 1 million Northerners relocated to the NEZs.[20] As well, government
and military personnel, many from Northern and north-central Vietnam, are posted
to various locations throughout the country, often away from their home regions
. More recently, the growth of the free market system has resulted in business p
eople and tourists traveling to distant parts of Vietnam. These movements have r
esulted in some small blending of the dialects, but more significantly, have mad
e the Northern dialect more easily understood in the South and vice versa. Most
Southerners, when singing modern/popular Vietnamese songs, do so in the Northern
accent. This is true in Vietnam as well as in the overseas Vietnamese communiti
es.
Regional variation in grammatical words[21]
Northern Central Southern English gloss
ny ni, n n?y "this"
th? ny ri v?y "thus, this way"
?y n?, t d "that"
th?, th? ?y r?a, r?a t v?y d "thus, so, that way"
kia t d "that yonder"
ka t? d "that yonder (far away)"
du m du "where"
no m? no "which"
sao, th? no rang sao "how, why"
ti tui tui "I, me (polite)"
tao tau tao "I, me (arrogant, familiar)"
chng ti b?n tui t?i tui "we, us (but not you, polite)"
chng tao choa, b?n choa t?i tao "we, us (but not you, arrogant, familiar)"
my mi m?y "you (thou) (arrogant, familiar)"
chng my by, b?n by t?i m?y "you guys, y'all (arrogant, familiar)"
n h?n n "he/him, she/her, it (arrogant, familiar)"
chng n b?n h?n t?i n "they/them (arrogant, familiar)"
ng ?y ng n? ?ng "he/him, that gentleman, sir"
b ?y b n? b? "she/her, that lady, madam"
c ?y d n? c? "she/her, that unmarried young lady"
ch? ?y ch? n? ch? "she/her, that young lady"
anh ?y anh n? ?nh "he/him, that young man (of equal status)"
The syllable-initial ch and tr digraphs are pronounced distinctly in North-centr
al, Central, and Southern varieties, but are merged in Northern varieties (i.e.
they are both pronounced the same way). The North-central varieties preserve thr
ee distinct pronunciations for d, gi, and r whereas the North has a three-way me
rger and the Central and South have a merger of d and gi while keeping r distinc
t. 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 an
d Southern varieties.
Regional consonant correspondences
Syllable position Orthography Northern North-central Central
Southern
syllable-initial x [s] [s]
s [?] [?, s]
ch [c] [c]
tr [t?] [t?, c]
r [z] [?, ?]
d [z] [j]
gi [?]
v[22] [v]
syllable-final c [k] [k] [k]
t [t]
t
after e [k, t]
t
after [t]
t
after i
ch [k]
ng [?] [?]
n [n]
n
after i, [n]
nh [?]
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 nam by itself and in compound
numerals like nam muoi "fifty" but appears as lam in mu?i lam "fifteen". (See Vi
etnamese syntax: Cardinal numerals.) In some northern varieties, this numeral ap
pears with an initial nh instead of l: hai muoi nham "twenty-five" vs. mainstrea
m hai muoi lam.[23]
The consonant clusters that were originally present in Middle Vietnamese (of the
17th century) have been lost in almost all modern Vietnamese varieties (but ret
ained in other closely related Vietic languages). However, some speech communiti
es have preserved some of these archaic clusters: "sky" is bl?i with a cluster i
n H?o Nho (Yn M prefecture, Ninh Bnh Province) but tr?i in Southern Vietnamese and
gi?i in Hanoi Vietnamese (initial single consonants /??/, /z/, respectively).
Tones[edit]
Generally, the Northern varieties have six tones while those in other regions ha
ve five tones. The h?i and ng tones are distinct in North and some North-central
varieties (although often with different pitch contours) but have merged in Cent
ral, Southern, and some North-central varieties (also with different pitch conto
urs). Some North-central varieties (such as H Tinh Vietnamese) have a merger of t
he ng and n?ng tones while keeping the h?i tone distinct. Still other North-centr
al varieties have a three-way merger of h?i, ng, and n?ng resulting in a four-ton
e system. In addition, there are several phonetic differences (mostly in pitch c
ontour and phonation type) in the tones among dialects.
Regional tone correspondences
Tone Northern North-central Central Southern
Vinh Thanh
Chuong H Tinh
ngang ? 33 ?? 35 ?? 35 ?? 35, ??? 353 ?? 35 ? 33
huy?n ??? 21? ? 33 ? 33 ? 33 ? 33 ?? 21
s?c ?? 35 ? 11 ? 11, ??? 13? ??? 13? ??? 13? ?? 35
h?i ???? 31?3 ?? 31 ?? 31 ???? 31?? ??? 312 ??? 214
ng ??? 3?5 ??? 13? ?? 22?
n?ng ???? 21?? ? 22 ?? 22? ?? 22? ??? 212
The table above shows the pitch contour of each tone using Chao tone number nota
tion (where 1 = lowest pitch, 5 = highest pitch); glottalization (creaky, stiff,
harsh) is indicated with the <??> symbol; breathy voice with <??>; glottal stop
with <?>; sub-dialectal variants are separated with commas. (See also the tone
section below.)
Grammar[edit]
Main articles: Vietnamese syntax and Vietnamese morphology
Vietnamese, like many languages in Southeast Asia, is an analytic (or isolating)
language. Vietnamese does not use morphological marking of case, gender, number
or tense (and, as a result, has no finite/nonfinite distinction).[24] Also like
other languages in the region, Vietnamese syntax conforms to subjectverbobject wo
rd order, is head-initial (displaying modified-modifier ordering), and has a nou
n classifier system. Additionally, it is pro-drop, wh-in-situ, and allows verb s
erialization.
Some Vietnamese sentences with English word glosses and translations are provide
d below.
Mai l sinh vin.
Mai be student
"Mai is a student." (College student)
Gip r?t cao.
Giap very tall
"Giap is very tall."
Ngu?i d l anh c?a n.
person that be brother he
"That person is his brother."
Con ch ny ch?ng bao gi? s?a c?.
classifier dog this not ever bark at.all
"This dog never barks at all."
N ch? an com Vi?t Nam thi.
he only eat rice.colloquial Vietnam only
"He only eats Vietnamese rice."
Ci th?ng ch?ng em n ch?ng ra g.
focus classifier husband I (as wife) he not turn.out
what
"That husband of mine, he is good for nothing."
Ti thch con ng?a den.
I (generic) like classifier horse black
"I like the black horse."
Ti thch ci con ng?a den.
I (generic) like focus classifier horse black
"I like any black horses."
Writing systems[edit]
Main articles: History of writing in Vietnam, Vietnamese alphabet and Vietnamese
braille
Up to the late 19th century, two writing systems based on Chinese characters wer
e used in Vietnam.[25] All formal writing, including government business, schola
rship and formal literature, was done in Literary Chinese (ch? nho ??? "scholar'
s characters"). Folk literature in Vietnamese was recorded using the Ch? Nm scrip
t, in which many Chinese characters were borrowed and many more modified and inv
ented to represent native Vietnamese words. Created in the 13th century or earli
er, the Nm writing reached its zenith in the 18th century when many Vietnamese wr
iters and poets composed their works in Nm, most notably Nguy?n Du and H? Xun Huon
g (dubbed "the Queen of Nm poetry"). However it was only used for official purpos
es during the brief H? and Ty Son dynasties.
A Vietnamese Catholic Nguyen Truong To sent petitions to the Court which suggest
ed a Chinese character-based syllabary which would be used for Vietnamese sounds
; however, his petition failed. The French colonial administration sought to eli
minate the Chinese writing system, Confucianism, and other Chinese influences fr
om Vietnam by getting rid of Nm.[26]
A romanization of Vietnamese was codified in the 17th century by the French Jesu
it missionary Alexandre de Rhodes (15911660), based on works of earlier Portugues
e missionaries Gaspar do Amaral and Antnio Barbosa. This Vietnamese alphabet (qu?
c ng? or "national script", literally "national language") was gradually expande
d from its initial domain in Christian writing to become more popular among the
general public. However, the Romanized script did not come to predominate until
the beginning of the 20th century, when education became widespread and a simple
r writing system was found more expedient for teaching and communication with th
e general population. Under French colonial rule, French superseded Chinese in a
dministration. Vietnamese written with the alphabet became required for all publ
ic documents in 1910 by issue of a decree by the French Rsident Suprieur of the pr
otectorate of Tonkin. By the middle of the 20th century virtually all writing wa
s done in qu?c ng?, which became the official script on independence. Ch? nho wa
s still in use on early North Vietnamese and late French Indochinese banknotes i
ssued after World War II[27] but fell out of official use shortly thereafter. On
ly a few scholars and some extremely elderly people are able to read ch? nm today
. In China, members of the Jing minority still write in Ch? Nm.
Changes in the script were made by French scholars and administrators and by con
ferences held after independence during 19541974. The script now reflects a so-ca
lled Middle Vietnamese dialect that has vowels and final consonants most similar
to northern dialects and initial consonants most similar to southern dialects (
Nguy?n 1996). This Middle Vietnamese is presumably close to the Hanoi variety as
spoken sometime after 1600 but before the present. (This is not unlike how Engl
ish orthography is based on the Chancery Standard of late Middle English, with m
any spellings retained even after significant phonetic change.)
Computer support[edit]
The Unicode character set contains all Vietnamese characters and the Vietnamese
currency symbol. On systems that do not support Unicode, many 8-bit Vietnamese c
ode pages are available such as VISCII or CP1258. Where ASCII must be used, Viet
namese letters are often typed using the VIQR convention, though this is largely
unnecessary with the increasing ubiquity of Unicode. There are many software to
ols that help type true Vietnamese text on US keyboards, such as WinVNKey and Un
ikey on Windows, or MacVNKey on Macintosh.
History[edit]
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 disap
peared from the language. However, Vietnamese appears to have been heavily influ
enced by its location in the Southeast Asian sprachbund, with the result that it
has acquired or converged toward characteristics such as isolating morphology a
nd tonogenesis. These characteristics have become part of many of the geneticall
y unrelated languages of Southeast Asia; for example, Thai (one of the TaiKadai l
anguages), Tsat (a member of the Malayo-Polynesian group within Austronesian), a
nd Vietnamese each developed tones as a phonemic feature.
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 o
f the Vietnamese language and people into what is now central and southern Vietn
am (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), characte
ristic tonal variations have emerged.
Vietnamese was primarily influenced by Chinese, which came to predominate politi
cally in the 2nd century BC. After Vietnam achieved independence in the 10th cen
tury, the ruling class adopted Literary Chinese as the medium of government, sch
olarship and literature. With the dominance of Chinese came radical importation
of Chinese vocabulary and grammatical influence. Much of the Vietnamese lexicon
in all realms consists of Sino-Vietnamese words.
When France invaded Vietnam in the late 19th century, French gradually replaced
Chinese as the official language in education and government. Vietnamese adopted
many French terms, such as d?m (dame, from madame), ga (train station, from gar
e), so mi (shirt, from chemise), and bp b (doll, from poupe). In addition, many Sin
o-Vietnamese terms were devised for Western ideas imported through the French.
Henri Maspero described six periods of the Vietnamese language:[28]
Pre-Vietnamese, also known as Proto-VietMuong or Proto-Vietnamuong, the ancestor
of Vietnamese and the related Muong language.
Proto-Vietnamese, the oldest reconstructable version of Vietnamese, dated to jus
t before the entry of massive amounts of Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary into the lan
guage, c. 7th to 9th century AD? At this state, the language had three tones.
Archaic Vietnamese, the state of the language upon adoption of the Sino-Vietname
se vocabulary, c. 10th century AD.
Ancient Vietnamese, the language represented by chu nom characters (c. 15th cent
ury) and the ChineseVietnamese glossary Hua-yi Yi-yu (c. 16th century). By this p
oint a tone split had happened in the language, leading to six tones but a loss
of contrastive voicing among consonants.
Middle Vietnamese, the language of the VietnamesePortugueseLatin dictionary of the
Jesuit missionary Alexandre de Rhodes (c. 17th century).
Modern Vietnamese, from the 19th century.
Proto-VietMuong[edit]
The following diagram shows the phonology of Proto-VietMuong (the nearest ancesto
r of Vietnamese and the closely related Muong language), along with the outcomes
in the modern language:[29][30][31]
Labial Interdental Dental/Alveolar Palatoalveolar Retroflex Palatal
Velar Glottal
Stop/
Affricate voiceless *p > b *t > d *t? > x 1
*c > ch *k > k/c/q *? > #
voiced *b > b *d > d *? > ch *g > k/c/q
aspirated *p? > ph *t? > th
*k? > kh
voiced glottalized *? > m *? > n *? > nh 1
Nasal *m > m *n > n *? > nh *? > ng/ngh
Fricative voiceless *s > t *? > th
*h > h
voiced 2 *() > v 3 *() > d *(?) > r 4 *(?) > g
i *(?) > g/gh
Approximant *w > v *l > l *r > r *j > d
^1 According to Ferlus, */t?/ and */?/ are not accepted by all researchers. Ferl
us 1992[29] had an additional phoneme */d?/, and had the preglottalized consonan
t */?j/ in place of the implosive consonant */?/. Note that the latter two sound
s are not all that different, both being voiced palatals and glottalic.
^2 The fricatives indicated above in parentheses developed as allophones of stop
consonants occurring between vowels (i.e. when a minor syllable occurred). Thes
e fricatives were not present in Proto-VietMuong, as indicated by their absence i
n Muong, but were evidently present in the later Proto-Vietnamese stage. Subsequ
ent loss of the minor-syllable prefixes phonemicized the fricatives. Ferlus 1992
[29] proposes that originally there were both voiced and voiceless fricatives, c
orresponding to original voiced or voiceless stops, but Ferlus 2009[30] appears
to have abandoned that hypothesis, suggesting that stops were softened and voice
d at approximately the same time, according to the following pattern:
*p, *b > //
*t, *d > //
*k, *g > /?/
*s, *? > /?/
*c, *?, *t? > /?/
^3 In Middle Vietnamese, the outcome of these sounds was written with a hooked b
(?), representing a // that was still distinct from v (then pronounced /w/). See
above.
^4 It is unclear what this sound was. According to Ferlus 1992,[29] in the Archa
ic Vietnamese period (c. 10th century AD, when Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary was bo
rrowed) it was *?, distinct at that time from *r.
The following initial clusters occurred, with outcomes indicated:
*pr, *br, *tr, *dr, *kr, *gr > /k?r/ > /ks/ > s
*pl, *bl > MV bl > Northern gi, Southern tr
*kl, *gl > MV tl > tr
ml > MV ml > mnh > nh
*kj > gi
Note also that a large number of words were borrowed from Middle Chinese, formin
g part of the Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary. These caused the original introduction
of the retroflex sounds /?/ and /?/ (modern s, tr) into the language.
Origin of the tones[edit]
Proto-VietMuong had no tones to speak of. The tones later developed in some of th
e daughter languages from distinctions in the initial and final consonants. Viet
namese tones developed as follows:
Register Initial consonant Smooth ending Glottal ending Fricativ
e ending
High (first) register Voiceless A1 ngang "level" B1 s?c "sharp"
C1 h?i "asking"
Low (second) register Voiced A2 huy?n "hanging" B2 n?ng "heavy" C2 ng "tu
mbling"
Glottal-ending syllables ended with a glottal stop /?/, while fricative-ending s
yllables ended with /s/ or /h/. Both types of syllables could co-occur with a re
sonant (e.g. /m/ or /n/).
At some point, a tone split occurred, as in many other Southeast Asian languages
. Essentially, an allophonic distinction developed in the tones, whereby the ton
es in syllables with voiced initials were pronounced differently from those with
voiceless initials. (Approximately speaking, the voiced allotones were pronounc
ed with additional breathy voice or creaky voice and with lowered pitch. The qua
lity 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, the plain-voiced stops became voiceless and the allot
ones became new phonemic tones. Note that the implosive stops were unaffected, a
nd 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-VietMuong had sesquisyllabic words with an initial minor sy
llable (in addition to, and independent of, initial clusters in the main syllabl
e). When a minor syllable occurred, the main syllable's initial consonant was in
tervocalic and as a result suffered lenition, becoming a voiced fricative. The m
inor 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 the voicing of the main-syllable stop in Proto-VietMuong that produced th
e fricative. For similar reasons, words beginning with /l/ and /?/ occur in both
registers. (Thompson 1976[31] 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.)
Middle Vietnamese[edit]
The writing system used for Vietnamese is based closely on the system developed
by Alexandre de Rhodes for his VietnamesePortugueseLatin dictionary, published in
1651. It reflects the pronunciation of the Vietnamese of Hanoi at that time, a s
tage commonly termed Middle Vietnamese (ti?ng Vi?t trung d?i). 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 id
entical between Middle Vietnamese and modern Hanoi pronunciation. On the other h
and, the Middle Vietnamese pronunciation of the initial consonant differs greatl
y from all modern dialects, and in fact is significantly closer to the modern Sa
igon dialect than the modern Hanoi dialect.
The following diagram shows the orthography and pronunciation of Middle Vietname
se:
Labial Dental/Alveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar Glottal
Stop voiceless p [p]1 t [t] tr [?] ch [c] c/k [k]
aspirated ph [p?] th [t?] kh [k?]
voiced glottalized b [?] d [?]
Fricative voiceless s [?] x [?] h [h]
voiced ? []2 d [] gi [?] g/gh [?]
Nasal m [m] n [n] nh [?] ng/ngh [?]
Approximant v/u/o [w] l [l] r [?] y/i/e [j]3
^1 [p] occurs only at the end of a syllable.
^2 This symbol has been proposed for inclusion in Unicode as "Latin small letter
B with flourish".[32] It has a rounded hook that starts halfway up the left sid
e (where the top of the curved part of the b meets the vertical, straight part)
and curves about 180 degrees counterclockwise, ending below the bottom-left corn
er.
^3 [j] does not occur at the beginning of a syllable, but can occur at the end o
f a syllable, where it is notated i or y (with the difference between the two of
ten indicating differences in the quality or length of the preceding vowel), and
after // and //, where it is notated e. This e, and the /j/ it notated, have disa
ppeared from the modern language.
Note that b [?] and p [p] never contrast in any position, suggesting that they a
re allophones; likewise for gi [?] and y/i/e [j].
The language also has three clusters at the beginning of syllables, which have s
ince disappeared:
tl /tl/ > modern tr
bl /?l/ > modern gi (Northern), tr (Southern)
ml /ml/ > mnh /m?/ > modern nh
Most of the unusual correspondences between spelling and modern pronunciation ar
e explained by Middle Vietnamese. Note in particular:
de Rhodes' system has two different b letters, a regular b and a "hooked" b in w
hich the upper section of the curved part of the b extends leftward past the ver
tical bar and curls down again in a semicircle. This apparently represented a vo
iced bilabial fricative //. Within a century or so, both // and /w/ had merged as
/v/, spelled as v.
de Rhodes' system has a second medial glide /j/ that is written e and appears in
some words with initial d and hooked b. These later disappear.
d /?/ was (and still is) alveolar, whereas d // was dental. The choice of symbols
was based on the dental rather than alveolar nature of /d/ and its allophone []
in Spanish and other Romance languages. The inconsistency with the symbols assig
ned to /?/ vs. // was based on the lack of any such place distinction between the
two, with the result that the stop consonant /?/ appeared more "normal" than th
e fricative //. In both cases, the implosive nature of the stops does not appear
to have had any role in the choice of symbol.
x was alveolopalatal /?/ rather than dental /s/, as in the modern language. In 1
7th-century Portuguese, the common language of the Jesuits, s was an apicoalveol
ar sibilant /s?/ (as still in much of Spain and some parts of Portugal), while x
was a palatoalveolar /?/. The similarity of apicoalveolar /s?/ to the Vietnames
e retroflex /?/ led to the assignment of s and x as above.
De Rhodes' orthography also made use of an apex diacritic to indicate a final la
bial-velar nasal /??m/, an allophone of /?/ that is peculiar to the Hanoi dialec
t to the present day. This diacritic is often mistaken for a tilde in modern rep
roductions of early Vietnamese writing.
Word play[edit]
A language game known as ni li is used by Vietnamese speakers.[citation needed] Ni
li 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 ni li pair prese
rves the original sequence of tones. Some examples:
Original phrase Phrase after ni li transformation Structural change
di d?m "(child) wet their pants" ? d?m di (nonsense words) word order and
one switch
ch?a hoang "pregnancy out of wedlock" ? ho?ng chua "scared yet?"
word order and tone switch
b?y ti "all the king's subjects" ? b?i ty "French waiter" initial consonan
t, rime, and tone switch
b m?t "secrets" ? b?t m "revealing secrets" initial consonant and ri
me switch
The resulting transformed phrase often has a different meaning but sometimes may
just be a nonsensical word pair. Ni li can be used to obscure the original meanin
g and thus soften the discussion of a socially sensitive issue, as with d?m di an
d ho?ng chua (above) or, when implied (and not overtly spoken), to deliver a hid
den subtextual message, as with b?i ty.[33] Naturally, ni li can be used for a humo
rous effect.[34]
Another word game somewhat reminiscent of pig latin is played by children. Here
a nonsense syllable (chosen by the child) is prefixed onto a target word's sylla
bles, 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 ph? "beef or chicken noodle soup" ? la ph? ? lo ph?
la an "to eat" ? la an ? lan a
la hon c?nh "situation" ? la hon la c?nh ? loan h lanh c?
chim hon c?nh "situation" ? chim hon chim c?nh ? choan hm
chanh k?m
This language game is often used as a "secret" or "coded" language useful for ob
scuring messages from adult comprehension.
Examples[edit]
See "The Tale of Kieu" for an extract of the first six lines of Truy?n Ki?u, an
epic narrative poem by the celebrated poet Nguy?n Du, ??), which is often consid
ered the most significant work of Vietnamese literature. It was originally writt
en in Nm (titled o?n Tru?ng Tn Thanh ????) and is widely taught in Vietnam today.
See also[edit]
Portal icon Vietnam portal
Portal icon Language portal
Austroasiatic languages
Ch? nho
Ch? nm
Sino-Tibetan languages
Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary
Vietic languages
Vietnamese alphabet
Vietnamese literature
Vietnamese morphology
Vietnamese phonology
Vietnamese pronouns
Vietnamese studies
Vietnamese syntax
Notes[edit]
Jump up ^ Nationalencyklopedin "Vrldens 100 strsta sprk 2007" The World's 100 Large
st Languages in 2007
Jump up ^ "CIA World Factbook". CIA. Retrieved 12 April 2012.
Jump up ^ http://zpravy.idnes.cz/vietnamci-oficialni-narodnostni-mensinou-fiq-/d
omaci.aspx?c=A130703_133019_domaci_jj
Jump up ^ From Ethnologue (2009, 2013)
Jump up ^ "The 2009 Vietnam Population and Housing Census: Completed Results". G
eneral Statistics Office of Vietnam: Central Population and Housing Census Steer
ing Committee. June 2010. Retrieved 26 November 2013.
Jump up ^ "Detailed List of Languages Spoken at Home for the Population 5 Years
and Over by State: 2000" (PDF). 2000 United States Census. United States Census
Bureau. 2003. Retrieved April 11, 2006.
Jump up ^ CIA World factbook
Jump up ^ "MonKhmer languages: The Vietic branch". SEAlang Projects. Retrieved No
vember 8, 2006.
Jump up ^ Ferlus, Michel. 1996. Langues et peuples viet-muong. Mon-Khmer Studies
26. 728.
Jump up ^ Hayes, La Vaughn H. 1992. Vietic and Vi?t-Mu?ng: a new subgrouping in
Mon-Khmer. Mon-Khmer Studies 21. 211228.
Jump up ^ Diffloth, Grard. 1992. Vietnamese as a Mon-Khmer language. Papers from
the First Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society, 125128. Temp
e, Arizona: Program for Southeast Asian Studies.
Jump up ^ There are different descriptions of Hanoi vowels. Another common descr
iption is that of Thompson (1965):
Front Central Back
unrounded rounded
High i [i] u [?] u [u]
Upper Mid [e] o [?] [o]
Lower Mid e [?] [?] o [?]
Low a [a] a [?]
This description distinguishes four degrees of vowel height and a rounding contr
ast (rounded vs. unrounded) between back vowels. The relative shortness of a and
would then be a secondary feature. Thompson describes the vowel a [?] as being
slightly higher (upper low) than a [a].
Jump up ^ In Vietnamese, diphthongs are m di.
Jump up ^ The diphthongs and triphthongs as described by Thompson can be compare
d with the description above:
Thompson's diphthongs
Vowel nucleus Front offglide Back offglide Centering offglide
i iu [i??] ia~i [i??]
u [e??]
e eo [???]
u ui [???] uu [???] ua~uo [???]
y [???] u [???]
o oi [???]
a ay [???] au [???]
a ai [a??] ao [a??]
u ui [u??] ua~u [u??]
i [o??]
o oi [???]
Thompson's triphthongs
Centering diphthong Front offglide Back offglide
ia ~ i iu [i????]
ua ~ uo uoi [?????] uou [?????]
ua ~ u ui [u????]
Jump up ^ The lack of diphthong consisting of a o + back offglide (i.e., [????])
is an apparent gap.
Jump up ^ Called thanh di?u in Vietnamese
Jump up ^ Note that the name of each tone has the corresponding tonal diacritic
on the vowel.
Jump up ^ Sources on Vietnamese variation include: Alves (forthcoming), Alves &
Nguy?n (2007), Emeneau (1947), Hong (1989), Honda (2006), Nguy?n, .-H. (1995), Pha
m (2005), Thompson (1991[1965]), Vu (1982), Vuong (1981).
Jump up ^ Some differences in grammatical words are noted in Vietnamese grammar:
Demonstratives, Vietnamese grammar: Pronouns.
^ Jump up to: a b c Desbarats, Jacqueline. "Repression in the Socialist Republic
of Vietnam: Executions and Population Relocation". Indochina report ; no. 11. E
xecutive Publications, Singapore 1987. Retrieved 28 November 2013.
Jump up ^ Table data from Hong (1989).
Jump up ^ In southern dialects, v is reported to have a spelling pronunciation (
i.e., the spelling influences pronunciation) of [vj] or [bj] among educated spea
kers. However, educated speakers revert to usual [j] in more relaxed speech. Les
s educated speakers have [j] more consistently throughout their speech. See: Tho
mpson (1959), Thompson (1965: 85, 89, 93, 97-98).
Jump up ^ Gregerson (1981) notes that this variation was present in de Rhodes's
time in some initial consonant clusters: ml? ~ mnh? "reason" (cf. modern Vietnam
ese l? "reason").
Jump up ^ Comparison note: As such its grammar relies on word order and sentence
structure rather than morphology (in which word changes through inflection). Wh
ereas European languages tend to use morphology to express tense, Vietnamese use
s grammatical particles or syntactic constructions.
Jump up ^ DeFrancis, John (1977). Colonialism and language policy in Viet Nam. M
outon. ISBN 978-90-279-7643-7.
Jump up ^ David G. Marr (1984). Vietnamese Tradition on Trial, 19201945. Universi
ty of California Press. p. 145. ISBN 0-520-05081-9. Retrieved 2010-11-28.
Jump up ^ [1][2]
Jump up ^ Nguy?n, nh-Ho (2009), "Vietnamese", in Comrie, Bernard, The World's Major
Languages (2nd ed.), Routledge, pp. 677692, ISBN 978-0-415-35339-7.
^ Jump up to: a b c d Ferlus, Michael (1992), "Histoire abrge de l'volution des con
sonnes initiales du Vietnamien et du Sino-Vietnamien", MonKhmer Studies 20: 111125
.
^ Jump up to: a b Ferlus, Michael (2009), "A layer of Dongsonian vocabulary in V
ietnamese", Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society 1: 95109.
^ Jump up to: a b Thompson, Laurence C., "Proto-VietMuong Phonology", Oceanic Lin
guistics Special Publications, Austroasiatic Studies Part II (University of Hawa
i'i Press) 13: 11131203, JSTOR 20019198.
Jump up ^ Everson, Michael (2012-02-08). "Proposal for the addition of five Lati
n characters to the UCS" (PDF). Universal Character Set. JTC1/SC2/WG2. Retrieved
2012-02-11.
Jump up ^ Nguy?n .-H. (1997: 29) gives the following context: "... a collaborator
under the French administration was presented with a congratulatory panel featu
ring the two Chinese characters qu?n th?n. This Sino-Vietnamese expression could
be defined as b?y ti meaning 'all the king's subjects'. But those two syllables,
when undergoing commutation of rhyme and tone, would generate b?i ty meaning 'se
rvant in a French household'.
Jump up ^ See www.users.bigpond.com/doanviettrung/noilai.html, Language Log's it
re.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001788.html, and tphcm.blogspot.com/2
005/01/ni-li.html for more examples.
Bibliography[edit]
General[edit]
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Emeneau, M. B. (1947). "Homonyms and puns in Annamese". Language, 23 (3), 239-24
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Hashimoto, Mantaro. (1978). The current state of Sino-Vietnamese studies. Journa
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Nguy?n, nh-Ho. (1995). NTC's VietnameseEnglish dictionary (updated ed.). NTC languag
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U? ban Khoa h?c X h?i Vi?t Nam. (1983). Ng?-php ti?ng Vi?t [Vietnamese grammar]. H
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Sound system[edit]
Brunelle, Marc. (2009) "Tone perception in Northern and Southern Vietnamese". Jo
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Brunelle, Marc. (2009) "Northern and Southern Vietnamese Tone Coarticulation: A
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Nguy?n, Van L?i; & Edmondson, Jerold A. (1998). "Tones and voice quality in mode
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Pragmatics and language variation[edit]
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n [Some notes on special qualities of the rhyme in local Qu?ng Nam speech in H?i
An]. In M?t S? V?n ? Ngn Ng? H?c Vi?t Nam [Some linguistics issues in Vietnam] (p
p. 311320). H N?i: Nh Xu?t B?n ?i H?c v Trung H?c Chuyn Nghi?p.
Historical and comparative[edit]
Alves, Mark. (1999). "What's so Chinese about Vietnamese?", in Papers from the N
inth Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society. University of Ca
lifornia, Berkeley. PDF at the Wayback Machine (archived June 26, 2008)
Cooke, Joseph R. (1968). Pronominal reference in Thai, Burmese, and Vietnamese.
University of California publications in linguistics (No. 52). Berkeley: Univers
ity of California Press.
Gregerson, Kenneth J. (1969). A study of Middle Vietnamese phonology. Bulletin d
e la Socit des Etudes Indochinoises, 44, 135-193. (Reprinted in 1981).
Nguy?n, nh-Ho. (1986). Alexandre de Rhodes' dictionary. Papers in Linguistics, 19,
1-18.
Shorto, Harry L. edited by Sidwell, Paul, Cooper, Doug and Bauer, Christian (200
6). A MonKhmer comparative dictionary. Canberra: Australian National University.
Pacific Linguistics. ISBN
Thompson, Laurence E. (1967). The history of Vietnamese finals. Language, 43 (1)
, 362-371.
Orthography[edit]
Haudricourt, Andr-Georges (1949). "Origine des particularits de l'alphabet vietnam
ien". Dn Vi?t-Nam 3: 6168.
English translation: Michaud, Alexis; Haudricourt, Andr-Georges (2010). "The orig
in of the peculiarities of the Vietnamese alphabet". Mon-Khmer Studies 39: 89104.
Nguy?n, nh-Ho. (1955). Qu?c-ng?: The modern writing system in Vietnam. Washington,
D. C.: Author.
Nguy?n, nh-Ho. (1990). Graphemic borrowing from Chinese: The case of ch? nm, Vietnam
's demotic script. Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia
Sinica, 61, 383432.
Nguy?n, nh-Ho. (1996). Vietnamese. In P. T. Daniels, & W. Bright (Eds.), The world'
s writing systems, (pp. 691699). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19
-507993-7.
Pedagogical[edit]
Nguyen, Bich Thuan. (1997). Contemporary Vietnamese: An intermediate text. South
east Asian language series. Northern Illinois University, Center for Southeast A
sian 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);
Nguy?n, nh-Ho. (1967). Read Vietnamese: A graded course in written Vietnamese. Rutl
and, Vermont: C.E. Tuttle.
Lm, L-duc; Emeneau, M. B.; & Steinen, Diether von den. (1944). An Annamese reader.
Berkeley: University of California, Berkeley.
Nguy?n, ang Lim. (1970). Vietnamese pronunciation. PALI language texts: Southeast
Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
External links[edit]
Vietnamese edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: Vietnamese
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Vietnamese language.
Online Lessons
Online Vietnamese lessons from Northern Illinois University
USA Foreign Service Institute Vietnamese basic course
Vocabulary
Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Vietnamese.
Vietnamese Vocabulary List (from the World Loanword Database)
Swadesh list of Vietnamese basic vocabulary words (from Wiktionary's Swadesh-lis
t appendix)
Nm look-up from the Vietnamese Nm Preservation Foundation
Lexicon of Vietnamese words borrowed from French by Jubinell
List of Japanese-Vietnamese Kanjis by Jubinell
Language tools
The Vietnamese keyboard its layout is compared with US, UK, Canada, France, and
Germany's keyboards.
The Free Vietnamese Dictionary Project
[hide] v t e
Austroasiatic languages
Bahnaric
North
Jeh Halang Kayong Romam Kaco Takua Monom Todrah Sedang Rengao Hr Duan Katua
West
Lavi Jru' Laven Su' Juk Nyaheun Sapuan Oi Cheng Brao
Central
Alak Kasseng Taliang Tampuan Bahnar Chrau Koho Stieng Mnong
East
Cua
Katuic
Katu Phuong Bru Kuy Pacoh TaOi
Vietic
Vietnamese Mu?ng Ngu?n Cuoi Thavung Ch?t Arem Maleng Kri
Khmuic
Khmu Mlabri Phai Mal Ksingmul Odu Phray Phong Khao Lua
Palaungic
Danau Palaung Riang Hu U Kiorr Kon Keu Mok Tai Loi Lamet Con Kuan? Blang Lawa Wa
(Waic) Bit Kemie Khng Bumang
Khasian
Khasi Pnar War Amwi Bhoi Lyngngam
Pakanic
Mang Bolyu Bugan
Khmer
Khmer Northern Khmer Western Khmer
Pearic
Pear Suoi Saoch Chong Samre Somray
Monic
Mon Nyah Kur
Aslian
Jahaic
Chewong Batek Jahai Minriq Mintil Kintaq Kensiu Mos Wila'
Senoic
Semai Temiar Lanoh Sabm Semnam
Jah Hut
Jah Hut
Semelaic
Temoq Semelai Semaq Beri Mah Meri
Nicobaric
Car Chaura Teressa Central Nicobarese Nancowry Camorta Katchal Southern Nicobare
se
Shompen
Shompen
Munda
Korku Santali Turi Mundari Asuri Koda Ho Birhor Agariya Bijori Koraku Kharia Jua
ng Gta Bondo Gutob Gorum Sora Juray Lodhi
Categories: Languages with ISO 639-2 codeLanguages with ISO 639-1 codeIsolating
languagesLanguages of VietnamSubjectverbobject languagesVietic languagesVietnamese
language
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