Vietnamese language explained

Vietnamese
Nativename:Vietnamese: Tiếng Việt
Pronunciation:pronounced as /vi/ (Hà Nội)
pronounced as /vi/ (Huế)
pronounced as /vi/ ~ pronounced as /vi/ (Hồ Chí Minh City)
States:
Speakers: million (2019)

Vietnamese (Tiếng Việt) is an Austroasiatic language spoken primarily in Vietnam where it is the national and official language. Vietnamese is spoken natively by around 85 million people,[1] It is the native language of the Vietnamese (Kinh) people, as well as a second or first language for other ethnic groups in Vietnam, and still used by Vietnamese diaspora in the world. It belongs to the Vietic branch and is closest to the Mường language.

Like many languages in Southeast Asia and East Asia, Vietnamese is highly analytic and is tonal. It has head-initial directionality, with subject–verb–object order and modifiers following the words they modify. It also uses noun classifiers. Its vocabulary has had significant influence from Middle Chinese and loanwords from French.[3] Although it is often mistakenly thought as being an monosyllabic language, Vietnamese words typically consist of from one to many as ten morphemes or syllables; the majority of Vietnamese vocabulary are disyllabic and trisyllabic words.[4]

Vietnamese is written using the Vietnamese alphabet (Vietnamese: chữ Quốc ngữ). The alphabet is based on the Latin script and was officially adopted in the early 20th century during French rule of Vietnam. It uses digraphs and diacritics to mark tones and some phonemes. Vietnamese was historically written using Vietnamese: [[chữ Nôm]], a logographic script using Chinese characters (Vietnamese: [[chữ Hán]]) to represent Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary and some native Vietnamese words, together with many locally invented characters to represent other words.[5] [6]

Classification

Early linguistic work in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (Logan 1852, Forbes 1881, Müller 1888, Kuhn 1889, Schmidt 1905, Przyluski 1924, and Benedict 1942)[7] classified Vietnamese as belonging to the Mon–Khmer branch of the Austroasiatic language family (which also includes the Khmer language spoken in Cambodia, as well as various smaller and/or regional languages, such as the Munda and Khasi languages spoken in eastern India, and others in Laos, southern China and parts of Thailand). Later, Mường was found to be more closely related to Vietnamese than other Mon–Khmer languages, and a Viet–Muong subgrouping was established, also including Thavung, Chut, Cuoi, etc.[8] The term "Vietic" was proposed by Hayes (1992),[9] who proposed to redefine Viet–Muong as referring to a subbranch of Vietic containing only Vietnamese and Mường. The term "Vietic" is used, among others, by Gérard Diffloth, with a slightly different proposal on subclassification, within which the term "Viet–Muong" refers to a lower subgrouping (within an eastern Vietic branch) consisting of Vietnamese dialects, Mường dialects, and Nguồn (of Quảng Bình Province).[10]

History

Austroasiatic is believed to have dispersed around 2000 BC.The arrival of the agricultural Phùng Nguyên culture in the Red River Delta at that time may correspond to the Vietic branch.

This ancestral Vietic was typologically very different from later Vietnamese.It was polysyllabic, or rather sesquisyllabic, with roots consisting of a reduced syllable followed by a full syllable, and featured many consonant clusters.Both of these features are found elsewhere in Austroasiatic and in modern conservative Vietic languages south of the Red River area.The language was non-tonal, but featured glottal stop and voiceless fricative codas.

Borrowed vocabulary indicates early contact with speakers of Tai languages in the last millennium BC, which is consistent with genetic evidence from Dong Son culture sites.Extensive contact with Chinese began from the Han dynasty (2nd century BC).At this time, Vietic groups began to expand south from the Red River Delta and into the adjacent uplands, possibly to escape Chinese encroachment.The oldest layer of loans from Chinese into northern Vietic (which would become the Viet–Muong subbranch) date from this period.

The northern Vietic varieties thus became part of the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area, in which languages from genetically unrelated families converged toward characteristics such as isolating morphology and similar syllable structure. Many languages in this area, including Viet–Muong, underwent a process of tonogenesis, in which distinctions formerly expressed by final consonants became phonemic tonal distinctions when those consonants disappeared. These characteristics have become part of many of the genetically unrelated languages of Southeast Asia; for example, Tsat (a member of the Malayo-Polynesian group within Austronesian), and Vietnamese each developed tones as a phonemic feature.

After the split from Muong around the end of the first millennium AD, the following stages of Vietnamese are commonly identified:

Ancient (or Old) Vietnamese
  • (to) Sources include the Ming glossary (Chinese: 安南國譯語, c. 15th century) from the Huayi yiyu series, and a Buddhist sutra recorded in an early form of chu Nom, variously dated to the 12th and 15th centuries. Compared with Proto-Viet–Muong, the language had lost the voicing distinction on stop initials, giving rise to a tone split, and implosive initials had become nasals. Most of the minor syllables of Proto-Viet–Muong were still present.
    Middle Vietnamese
  • (16th to 19th centuries) The language found in Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum (1651) of the Jesuit missionary Alexandre de Rhodes. Another famous dictionary of this period was written by Pierre Pigneau de Behaine in 1773 and published by Jean-Louis Taberd in 1838.
    Modern Vietnamese
  • (from the 19th century)

    After expelling the Chinese at the beginning of the 10th century, the Ngô dynasty adopted Classical Chinese as the formal medium of government, scholarship and literature. With the dominance of Chinese came wholesale importation of Chinese vocabulary. The resulting Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary makes up about a third of the Vietnamese lexicon in all realms, and may account for as much as 60% of the vocabulary used in formal texts.

    Vietic languages were confined to the northern third of modern Vietnam until the "southward advance" (Nam tiến) from the late 15th century.The conquest of the ancient nation of Champa and the conquest of the Mekong Delta led to an expansion of the Vietnamese people and language, with distinctive local variations emerging.

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

    Proto–Viet–Muong

    The following diagram shows the phonology of Proto–Viet–Muong (the nearest ancestor of Vietnamese and the closely related Mường language), along with the outcomes in the modern language:[11] [12] [13] [14]

    LabialDental/AlveolarPalatalVelarGlottal
    Nasal
    • pronounced as /m/ > m
    • pronounced as /n/ > n
    • pronounced as /ɲ/ > nh
    • pronounced as /ŋ/ > ng/ngh
    Stoptenuis
    • pronounced as /p/ > b
    • pronounced as /t/ > đ
    • pronounced as /c/ > ch
    • pronounced as /k/ > k/c/q
    • pronounced as /ʔ/ > #
    voiced
    • pronounced as /b/ > b
    • pronounced as /d/ > đ
    • pronounced as /ɟ/ > ch
    • pronounced as /ɡ/ > k/c/q
    aspirated
    • pronounced as /pʰ/ > ph
    • pronounced as /tʰ/ > th
    • pronounced as /kʰ/ > kh
    implosive
    • pronounced as /ɓ/ > m
    • pronounced as /ɗ/ > n
    • pronounced as /ʄ/ > nh
    Affricate
    • pronounced as /tʃ/ > x
    Fricativevoiceless
    • pronounced as /s/ > t
    • pronounced as /h/ > h
    voiced
    • pronounced as /(β)/ > v
    • pronounced as /(ð)/ > d
    • pronounced as /(r̝)/ > r
    • pronounced as /(ʝ)/ > gi
    • pronounced as /(ɣ)/ > g/gh
    Approximant
    • pronounced as /w/ > v
    • pronounced as /l/ > l
    • pronounced as /r/ > r
    • pronounced as /j/ > d

    According to Ferlus, *pronounced as //tʃ// and *pronounced as //ʄ// are not accepted by all researchers. Ferlus 1992[11] also had additional phonemes *pronounced as //dʒ// and *pronounced as //ɕ//.

    The fricatives indicated above in parentheses developed as allophones of stop consonants occurring between vowels (i.e. when a minor syllable occurred). These fricatives were not present in Proto-Viet–Muong, as indicated by their absence in Mường, but were evidently present in the later Proto-Vietnamese stage. Subsequent loss of the minor-syllable prefixes phonemicized the fricatives. Ferlus 1992[11] proposes that originally there were both voiced and voiceless fricatives, corresponding to original voiced or voiceless stops, but Ferlus 2009[12] appears to have abandoned that hypothesis, suggesting that stops were softened and voiced at approximately the same time, according to the following pattern:

    In Middle Vietnamese, the outcome of these sounds was written with a hooked b (ꞗ), representing a pronounced as //β// that was still distinct from v (then pronounced pronounced as //w//). See below.

    It is unclear what this sound was. According to Ferlus 1992,[11] in the Archaic Vietnamese period (c. 10th century AD, when Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary was borrowed) it was *pronounced as /r̝/, distinct at that time from *pronounced as /r/.

    The following initial clusters occurred, with outcomes indicated:

    A large number of words were borrowed from Middle Chinese, forming part of the Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary. These caused the original introduction of the retroflex sounds pronounced as //ʂ// and pronounced as //ʈ// (modern s, tr) into the language.

    Origin of tones

    Proto-Viet–Muong had no tones to speak of. The tones later developed in some of the daughter languages from distinctions in the initial and final consonants. Vietnamese tones developed as follows:[15]

    RegisterInitial consonantSmooth endingGlottal endingFricative ending
    High (first) registerVoicelessA1 ngang "level"B1 sắc "sharp"C1 hỏi "asking"
    Low (second) registerVoicedA2 huyền "deep"B2 nặng "heavy"C2 ngã "tumbling"

    Glottal-ending syllables ended with a glottal stop pronounced as //ʔ//, while fricative-ending syllables ended with pronounced as //s// or pronounced as //h//. Both types of syllables could co-occur with a resonant (e.g. pronounced as //m// or pronounced as //n//).

    At some point, a tone split occurred, as in many other mainland Southeast Asian languages. Essentially, an allophonic distinction developed in the tones, whereby the tones in syllables with voiced initials were pronounced differently from those with voiceless initials. (Approximately speaking, the voiced allotones were pronounced with additional breathy voice or creaky voice and with lowered pitch. The quality difference predominates in today's northern varieties, e.g. in Hanoi, while in the southern varieties the pitch difference predominates, as in Ho Chi Minh City.) Subsequent to this, the plain-voiced stops became voiceless and the allotones became new phonemic tones. The implosive stops were unaffected, and in fact developed tonally as if they were unvoiced. (This behavior is common to all East Asian languages with implosive stops.)

    As noted above, Proto-Viet–Muong had sesquisyllabic words with an initial minor syllable (in addition to, and independent of, initial clusters in the main syllable). When a minor syllable occurred, the main syllable's initial consonant was intervocalic and as a result suffered lenition, becoming a voiced fricative. The minor syllables were eventually lost, but not until the tone split had occurred. As a result, words in modern Vietnamese with voiced fricatives occur in all six tones, and the tonal register reflects the voicing of the minor-syllable prefix and not the voicing of the main-syllable stop in Proto-Viet–Muong that produced the fricative. For similar reasons, words beginning with pronounced as //l// and pronounced as //ŋ// occur in both registers. (Thompson 1976[14] reconstructed voiceless resonants to account for outcomes where resonants occur with a first-register tone, but this is no longer considered necessary, at least by Ferlus.)

    Old Vietnamese

    Old Vietnamese phonology
    LabialAlveolarPalatalVelarGlottal
    Nasalm (pronounced as /ink/)n (pronounced as /ink/)nh (pronounced as /ink/)ng/ngh (pronounced as /ink/)
    Stoptenuisb/v (pronounced as /[p b]/)d/đ (pronounced as /[t d]/)ch/gi (pronounced as /ink/)c/k/q (pronounced as /[k ɡ]/)
    1. (pronounced as /ink/)
    aspiratedph (pronounced as /ink/)th (pronounced as /ink/)t/r (pronounced as /ink/)kh (pronounced as /ink/)h (pronounced as /ink/)
    Implosive stopm (pronounced as /ink/)n (pronounced as /ink/)nh (pronounced as /ink/)
    Fricativevoicedv (pronounced as /ink/)d (pronounced as /ink/)
    Affricatex (pronounced as /ink/)
    Liquidr pronounced as /[r]/l pronounced as /[l]/

    Old Vietnamese/Ancient Vietnamese was a Vietic language which was separated from Viet–Muong around the 9th century, and evolved into Middle Vietnamese by 16th century. The sources for the reconstruction of Old Vietnamese are Nom texts, such as the 12th-century/1486 Buddhist scripture Phật thuyết Đại báo phụ mẫu ân trọng kinh ("Sūtra explained by the Buddha on the Great Repayment of the Heavy Debt to Parents"), old inscriptions, and a late 13th-century (possibly 1293) Annan Jishi glossary by Chinese diplomat Chen Fu (c. 1259 – 1309). Old Vietnamese used Chinese characters phonetically where each word, monosyllabic in Modern Vietnamese, is written with two Chinese characters or in a composite character made of two different characters. This conveys the transformation of the Vietnamese lexicon from sesquisyllabic to fully monosyllabic under the pressure of Chinese linguistic influence, characterized by linguistic phenomena such as the reduction of minor syllables; loss of affixal morphology drifting towards analytical grammar; simplification of major syllable segments, and the change of suprasegment instruments.

    For example, the modern Vietnamese word "trời" (heaven) was read as *plời in Old/Ancient Vietnamese and as blời in Middle Vietnamese.

    Middle Vietnamese

    The writing system used for Vietnamese is based closely on the system developed by Alexandre de Rhodes for his 1651 Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum. It reflects the pronunciation of the Vietnamese of Hanoi at that time, a stage commonly termed Middle Vietnamese (Vietnamese: tiếng Việt trung đại). The pronunciation of the "rime" of the syllable, i.e. all parts other than the initial consonant (optional pronounced as //w// glide, vowel nucleus, tone and final consonant), appears nearly identical between Middle Vietnamese and modern Hanoi pronunciation. On the other hand, the Middle Vietnamese pronunciation of the initial consonant differs greatly from all modern dialects, and in fact is significantly closer to the modern Saigon dialect than the modern Hanoi dialect.

    The following diagram shows the orthography and pronunciation of Middle Vietnamese:

    LabialDental/
    Alveolar
    RetroflexPalatalVelarGlottal
    Nasalm pronounced as /[m]/n pronounced as /[n]/nh pronounced as /[ɲ]/ng/ngh pronounced as /[ŋ]/
    Stoptenuisp pronounced as /[p]/t pronounced as /[t]/tr pronounced as /[ʈ]/ch pronounced as /[c]/c/k pronounced as /[k]/
    aspiratedph pronounced as /[pʰ]/th pronounced as /[tʰ]/kh pronounced as /[kʰ]/
    implosiveb pronounced as /[ɓ]/đ pronounced as /[ɗ]/
    Fricativevoicelesss/ſ pronounced as /[ʂ]/x pronounced as /[ɕ]/h pronounced as /[h]/
    voiced pronounced as /[β]/d pronounced as /[ð]/gi pronounced as /[ʝ]/g/gh pronounced as /[ɣ]/
    Approximantv/u/o pronounced as /[w]/l pronounced as /[l]/y/i/ĕ pronounced as /[j]/
    Rhoticr pronounced as /[r]/

    pronounced as /[p]/ occurs only at the end of a syllable.
    This letter, (ꞗ), is no longer used.
    pronounced as /[j]/ does not occur at the beginning of a syllable, but can occur at the end of a syllable, where it is notated i or y (with the difference between the two often indicating differences in the quality or length of the preceding vowel), and after pronounced as //ð// and pronounced as //β//, where it is notated ĕ. This ĕ, and the pronounced as //j// it notated, have disappeared from the modern language.

    Note that b pronounced as /[ɓ]/ and p pronounced as /[p]/ never contrast in any position, suggesting that they are allophones.

    The language also has three clusters at the beginning of syllables, which have since disappeared:

    Most of the unusual correspondences between spelling and modern pronunciation are explained by Middle Vietnamese. Note in particular:

    De Rhodes's orthography also made use of an apex diacritic, as in o᷄ and u᷄, to indicate a final labial-velar nasal pronounced as //ŋ͡m//, an allophone of pronounced as //ŋ// that is peculiar to the Hanoi dialect to the present day. This diacritic is often mistaken for a tilde in modern reproductions of early Vietnamese writing.

    Geographic distribution

    As a result of emigration, Vietnamese speakers are also found in other parts of Southeast Asia, East Asia, North America, Europe, and Australia. Vietnamese has also been officially recognized as a minority language in the Czech Republic.

    As the national language, Vietnamese is the lingua franca in Vietnam. It is also spoken by the Jing people traditionally residing on three islands (now joined to the mainland) off Dongxing in southern Guangxi Province, China.[16] A large number of Vietnamese speakers also reside in neighboring countries of Cambodia and Laos.

    In the United States, Vietnamese is the sixth most spoken language, with over 1.5 million speakers, who are concentrated in a handful of states. It is the third-most spoken language in Texas and Washington; fourth-most in Georgia, Louisiana, and Virginia; and fifth-most in Arkansas and California. Vietnamese is the third most spoken language in Australia other than English, after Mandarin and Arabic.[17] In France, it is the most spoken Asian language and the eighth most spoken immigrant language at home.[18]

    Official status

    Vietnamese is the sole official and national language of Vietnam. It is the first language of the majority of the Vietnamese population, as well as a first or second language for the country's ethnic minority groups.[19]

    In the Czech Republic, Vietnamese has been recognized as one of 14 minority languages, on the basis of communities that have resided in the country either traditionally or on a long-term basis. This status grants the Vietnamese community in the country a representative on the Government Council for Nationalities, an advisory body of the Czech Government for matters of policy towards national minorities and their members. It also grants the community the right to use Vietnamese with public authorities and in courts anywhere in the country.[20] [21]

    As a foreign language

    Vietnamese is taught in schools and institutions outside of Vietnam, a large part contributed by its diaspora. In countries with Vietnamese-speaking communities Vietnamese language education largely serves as a role to link descendants of Vietnamese immigrants to their ancestral culture. In neighboring countries and vicinities near Vietnam such as Southern China, Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand, Vietnamese as a foreign language is largely due to trade, as well as recovery and growth of the Vietnamese economy.[22] [23]

    Since the 1980s, Vietnamese language schools (Vietnamese: trường Việt ngữ/ trường ngôn ngữ Tiếng Việt) have been established for youth in many Vietnamese-speaking communities around the world such as in the United States, Germany and France.[24] [25] [26] [27]

    Phonology

    See main article: Vietnamese phonology.

    Vowels

    Vietnamese has a large number of vowels. Below is a vowel diagram of Vietnamese from Hanoi (including centering diphthongs):

     FrontCentralBack
    Centeringia/iê pronounced as /[iə̯]/ưa/ươ pronounced as /[ɨə̯]/ua/uô pronounced as /[uə̯]/
    Closei/y pronounced as /[i]/ư pronounced as /[ɨ]/u pronounced as /[u]/
    Close-mid/
    Mid
    ê pronounced as /[e]/ơ pronounced as /[əː]/
    â pronounced as /[ə]/
    ô pronounced as /[o]/
    Open-mid/
    Open
    e pronounced as /[ɛ]/a pronounced as /[aː]/
    ă pronounced as /[a]/
    o pronounced as /[ɔ]/

    Front and central vowels (i, ê, e, ư, â, ơ, ă, a) are unrounded, whereas the back vowels (u, ô, o) are rounded. The vowels â pronounced as /[ə]/ and ă pronounced as /[a]/ are pronounced very short, much shorter than the other vowels. Thus, ơ and â are basically pronounced the same except that ơ pronounced as /[əː]/ is of normal length while â pronounced as /[ə]/ is short – the same applies to the vowels long a pronounced as /[aː]/ and short ă pronounced as /[a]/.[28]

    The centering diphthongs are formed with only the three high vowels (i, ư, u). They are generally spelled as ia, ưa, ua when they end a word and are spelled iê, ươ, uô, respectively, when they are followed by a consonant.

    In addition to single vowels (or monophthongs) and centering diphthongs, Vietnamese has closing diphthongs and triphthongs. The closing diphthongs and triphthongs consist of a main vowel component followed by a shorter semivowel offglide pronounced as //j// or pronounced as //w//.[29] There are restrictions on the high offglides: pronounced as //j// cannot occur after a front vowel (i, ê, e) nucleus and pronounced as //w// cannot occur after a back vowel (u, ô, o) nucleus.

     pronounced as //w// offglidepronounced as //j// offglide
    FrontCentralBack
    Centeringiêu pronounced as /[iə̯w]/ươu pronounced as /[ɨə̯w]/ươi pronounced as /[ɨə̯j]/uôi pronounced as /[uə̯j]/
    Closeiu pronounced as /[iw]/ưu pronounced as /[ɨw]/ưi pronounced as /[ɨj]/ui pronounced as /[uj]/
    Close-mid/
    Mid
    êu pronounced as /[ew]/
    âupronounced as /[əw]/
    ơi pronounced as /[əːj]/
    ây pronounced as /[əj]/
    ôi pronounced as /[oj]/
    Open-mid/
    Open
    eo pronounced as /[ɛw]/ao pronounced as /[aːw]/
    au pronounced as /[aw]/
    ai pronounced as /[aːj]/
    ay pronounced as /[aj]/
    oi pronounced as /[ɔj]/

    The correspondence between the orthography and pronunciation is complicated. For example, the offglide pronounced as //j// is usually written as i; however, it may also be represented with y. In addition, in the diphthongs pronounced as /[āj]/ and pronounced as /[āːj]/ the letters y and i also indicate the pronunciation of the main vowel: ay = ă + pronounced as //j//, ai = a + pronounced as //j//. Thus, tay "hand" is pronounced as /[tāj]/ while tai "ear" is pronounced as /[tāːj]/. Similarly, u and o indicate different pronunciations of the main vowel: au = ă + pronounced as //w//, ao = a + pronounced as //w//. Thus,

    thau "brass" is pronounced as /[tʰāw]/ while thao "raw silk" is pronounced as /[tʰāːw]/.

    Consonants

    The consonants that occur in Vietnamese are listed below in the Vietnamese orthography with the phonetic pronunciation to the right.

    LabialDental/
    Alveolar
    RetroflexPalatalVelarGlottal
    Nasalm pronounced as /[m]/n pronounced as /[n]/nh pronounced as /[ɲ]/ng/ngh pronounced as /[ŋ]/
    Stoptenuisp pronounced as /[p]/t pronounced as /[t]/tr pronounced as /[ʈ]/ch pronounced as /[c]/c/k/q pronounced as /[k]/
    aspiratedth pronounced as /[tʰ]/
    implosiveb pronounced as /link/đ pronounced as /link/
    Fricativevoicelessph pronounced as /[f]/x pronounced as /[s]/s pronounced as /[ʂ~s]/kh pronounced as /[x~kʰ]/h pronounced as /[h]/
    voicedv pronounced as /[v]/d/gi pronounced as /[z~j]/g/gh pronounced as /[ɣ]/
    Approximantl pronounced as /[l]/y/i pronounced as /[j]/u/o pronounced as /[w]/
    Rhoticr pronounced as /[r]/

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

    Not all dialects of Vietnamese have the same consonant in a given word (although all dialects use the same spelling in the written language). See the language variation section for further elaboration.

    Syllable-final orthographic ch and nh in Vietnamese has had different analyses. One analysis has final ch, nh as being phonemes pronounced as //c/, /ɲ// contrasting with syllable-final t, c pronounced as //t/, /k// and n, ng pronounced as //n/, /ŋ// and identifies final ch with the syllable-initial ch pronounced as //c//. The other analysis has final ch and nh as predictable allophonic variants of the velar phonemes pronounced as //k// and pronounced as //ŋ// that occur after the upper front vowels i pronounced as //i// and ê pronounced as //e//; although they also occur after a, but in such cases are believed to have resulted from an earlier e pronounced as //ɛ// which diphthongized to ai (cf. ach from aic, anh from aing). (See Vietnamese phonology: Analysis of final ch, nh for further details.)

    Tones

    Each Vietnamese syllable is pronounced with one of six inherent tones, centered on the main vowel or group of vowels. Tones differ in:

    Tone is indicated by diacritics written above or below the vowel (most of the tone diacritics appear above the vowel; except the

    nặng tone dot diacritic goes below the vowel). The six tones in the northern varieties (including Hanoi), with their self-referential Vietnamese names, are:
    Name and meaningDescriptionContourDiacriticExampleSample vowelUnicode
    ngang   'level'mid level˧(no mark)ma  'ghost'
    huyền   'deep'low falling (often breathy)˨˩pronounced as /◌̀/ (grave accent)  'but'U+0340 or U+0300
    sắc   'sharp'high rising˧˥pronounced as /◌́/ (acute accent)  'cheek, mother (southern)'U+0341 or U+0301
    hỏi   'questioning'mid dipping-rising˧˩˧pronounced as /◌̉/ (hook above)mả  'tomb, grave'U+0309
    ngã   'tumbling'creaky high breaking-rising˧ˀ˦˥pronounced as /◌̃/ (tilde)  'horse (Sino-Vietnamese), code'U+0342 or U+0303
    nặng   'heavy'creaky low falling constricted (short length)˨˩ˀpronounced as /◌̣/ (dot below)mạ  'rice seedling'U+0323

    Other dialects of Vietnamese may have fewer tones (typically only five).

    In Vietnamese poetry, tones are classed into two groups: (tone pattern)

    Tone groupTones within tone group
    bằng "level, flat"ngang and huyền
    trắc "oblique, sharp"sắc, hỏi, ngã, and nặng

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

    Vietnamese Catholics practice a distinctive style of prayer recitation called Vietnamese: [[đọc kinh]], in which each tone is assigned a specific note or sequence of notes.

    Old tonal classification

    Before Vietnamese switched from a Chinese-based script to a Latin-based script, Vietnamese had used the traditional Chinese system of classifying tones. Using this system, Vietnamese has 8 tones, but modern linguists only count 6 phonemic tones.

    Vietnamese tones were classified into two main groups, bằng (平; 'level tones') and trắc (仄; 'sharp tones'). Tones such as ngang belong to the bằng group, while other tones such as ngã belong to the trắc group. Then, these tones were further divided in several other categorizes: bình (平; 'even'), thượng (上; 'rising'), khứ (去; 'departing'), and nhập (入; 'entering').

    Sắc and nặng are counted twice in the system, once in khứ (去; 'departing') and again in nhập (入; 'entering'). The reason for the extra two tones is that syllables ending in the stops /p/, /t/, /c/ and /k/ are treated as having entering tones, but phonetically they are exactly the same.

    The tones in the old classification were called Âm bình 陰平 (ngang), Dương bình 陽平 (huyền), Âm thượng 陰上 (hỏi), Dương thượng 陽上 (ngã), Âm khứ 陰去 (sắc; for words that do not end in /p/, /t/, /c/ and /k/), Dương khứ 陽去 (nặng; for words that do not end in /p/, /t/, /c/ and /k/), Âm nhập 陰入 (sắc; for words that do end in /p/, /t/, /c/ and /k/), and Dương nhập 陽入 (nặng; for words that do end in /p/, /t/, /c/ and /k/).

    Traditional tone category!Traditional tone name!Modern tone name!Example
    bằng'level'bình'even'Âm bình 陰平ngangma 'ghost'
    Dương bình 陽平huyềnmà 'but'
    trắc'sharp'thượng'rising'Âm thượng 陰上hỏirể 'son-in-law; groom'
    Dương thượng 陽上ngãrễ 'root'
    khứ'departing'Âm khứ 陰去sắclá 'leaf'
    Dương khứ 陽去nặnglạ 'strange'
    nhập'entering'Âm nhập 陰入sắcmắt 'eye'
    Dương nhập 陽入nặngmặt 'face'

    Grammar

    See main article: Vietnamese grammar and Vietnamese morphology.

    Vietnamese, like Thai and many languages in Southeast Asia, is an analytic language. Vietnamese does not use morphological marking of case, gender, number or tense (and, as a result, has no finite/nonfinite distinction). 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. Additionally, it is pro-drop, wh-in-situ, and allows verb serialization.

    Some Vietnamese sentences with English word glosses and translations are provided below.

    Lexicon

    Austroasiatic origins

    Many early studies hypothesized Vietnamese language-origins to have been either Tai, Sino-Tibetan, or Austroasiatic. Austroasiatic origins are so far the most tenable to date, with some of the oldest words in Vietnamese being Austroasiatic in origin.[15] [31]

    Chinese contact

    Although Vietnamese roots are classified as Austroasiatic, Vietic, and Viet-Muong, language contact with Chinese heavily influenced the Vietnamese language, causing it to diverge from Viet-Muong around the 10th to 11th century and become the Vietnamese we know today. For instance, the Vietnamese word quản lý, meaning "management" (noun) or "manage" (verb), likely descended from the same word as guǎnlǐ (Chinese: 管理) in Chinese (also kanri (Japanese: 管理, Japanese: かんり) in Japanese and gwanli (Korean: 관리 Korean: 管理) in Korean). Instances of Chinese contact include the historical Nam Việt (aka Nanyue) as well as other periods of influence. Besides English and French, which have made some contributions to the Vietnamese language, Japanese loanwords into Vietnamese are also a more recently studied phenomenon.

    Modern linguists describe modern Vietnamese having lost many Proto-Austroasiatic phonological and morphological features that original Vietnamese had.[32] The Chinese influence on Vietnamese corresponds to various periods when Vietnam was under Chinese rule and subsequent influence after Vietnam became independent. Early linguists thought that this meant the Vietnamese lexicon had only two influxes of Chinese words, one stemming from the period under actual Chinese rule and a second from afterwards. These words are grouped together as Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary.

    However, according to linguist John Phan, “Annamese Middle Chinese” was already used and spoken in the Red River Valley by the 1st century CE, and its vocabulary significantly fused with the co-existing Proto-Viet-Muong language, the immediate ancestor of Vietnamese. He lists three major classes of Sino-Vietnamese borrowings:[33] [34] [35] Early Sino-Vietnamese (Han dynasty ca. 1st century CE and Jin dynasty ca. 4th century CE), Late Sino-Vietnamese (Tang dynasty), and Recent Sino-Vietnamese (Ming dynasty and afterwards)

    French era

    Vietnam became a French protectorate/colonial territory in 1883 (until the Geneva Accords of 1954), which resulted in significant influence from French into the Indochina region (Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam). Examples include:

    "Cà phê" in Vietnamese was derived from the French café (coffee). Yogurt in Vietnamese is "sữa chua" (lit. "sour milk"), but it is also calqued from French (yaourt) into Vietnamese (da ua - /j/a ua). "Phô mai" (cheese) is from the French fromage. Musical note was borrowed into Vietnamese as "nốt" or "nốt nhạc", from the French note de musique. The Vietnamese term for steering wheel is "vô lăng", a partial derivation from the French volant directionnel. A necktie (cravate in French) is rendered into Vietnamese as "cà vạt".

    In addition, modern Vietnamese pronunciations of French names correspond directly to the original French pronunciations ("Pa-ri" for Paris, "Mác-xây" for Marseille, "Boóc-đô" for Bordeaux, etc.), whereas pronunciations of other foreign names (Chinese excluded) are generally derived from English.

    English

    Some English words were incorporated into Vietnamese as loan words - such as "TV", borrowed as "tivi" or just TV, but still officially called truyền hình. Some other borrowings are calques, translated into Vietnamese. For example, 'software' is translated into "phần mềm" (literally meaning "soft part"). Some scientific terms, such as "biological cell", were derived from chữ Hán. For example, the word tế bào is Vietnamese: 細胞 in chữ Hán, whilst other scientific names such as "acetylcholine" are unaltered. Words like "peptide" may be seen as peptit.

    Japanese

    Japanese loanwords are a more recently studied phenomenon, with a paper by Nguyễn & Lê (2020) classifying three waves of Japanese influence - with the first two waves being the principal influxes and the third wave coming from the Vietnamese who studied Japanese.[36] The first wave consisted of Kanji words created by Japanese to represent Western concepts that were not readily available in Chinese or Japanese, where by the end of the 19th century they were imported to other Asian languages.[37] This first influx is called Sino-Vietnamese words of Japanese origins. For example, the Vietnamese term for "association club", câu lạc bộ, which was borrowed from Chinese (Chinese: 俱乐部, pinyin: jùlèbù, jyutping: keoi1 lok6 bou6), and then in turn from Japanese (kanji: Japanese: 倶楽部, katakana: Japanese: クラブ, rōmaji: kurabu) which came from the English "club", resulting in indirect borrowing from Japanese.

    The second wave was during the brief Japanese occupation of Vietnam from 1940 until 1945. However, Japanese cultural influence in Vietnam started significantly from the 1980s. This newer second wave of Japanese-origin loanwords is distinctive from the Sino-Vietnamese words of Japanese origin in that they were borrowed directly from Japanese. This vocabulary includes words representative of Japanese culture, such as kimono, sumo, samurai, and bonsai from modified Hepburn romanisation. These loanwords are coined as "new Japanese loanwords". A significant number of new Japanese loanwords were also of Chinese origin. Sometimes the same concept can be described using both Sino-Vietnamese words of Japanese origin (first wave) and new Japanese loanwords (second wave). For example, judo can be referred to as both judo and nhu đạo, the Vietnamese reading of 柔道.

    Modern Chinese influence

    Some words, such as lạp xưởng from 臘腸 (Chinese sausage), primarily keep to the Cantonese pronunciations, having been brought over by southern Chinese migrants, whereas in Hán-Việt, which has been described as being close to Middle Chinese pronunciation, it is actually pronounced lạp trường. However, the Cantonese term is the better-known name for Chinese sausage in Vietnam. Meanwhile, any new terms calqued from Chinese would be based on the Mandarin pronunciation. Additionally, in the southern provinces of Vietnam, the term xí ngầu can be used to refer to dice, which may have derived from a Cantonese or Teochew idiom, "xập xí, xập ngầu" (十四, 十五, Sino-Vietnamese: thập tứ, thập ngũ), literally "fourteen, fifteen" to mean 'uncertain'.

    Pure Vietnamese words

    Basic vocabulary in Vietnamese has Proto-Vietic origins. Vietnamese shares a large amount of vocabulary with the Mường languages, a close relative of the Vietnamese language.

    Basic lexemes in Vietnamese, Mường, May and Munda!English!Vietnamese!Mường!May!Comparative!Proto-Vietic
    zerokhôngkhôngkħǒŋN/A, from Middle Chinese 空 /kʰuŋ/
    onemộtmốch, môchmucmɨy (Sora)
    • moːc
    twohaihalhaːlbar (Santali)
    • haːr
    threebapapape (Santali)
    • pa
    fourbốnpổn
    • poːnʔ
    fivenămđằm, đăm
    • ɗam
    sixsáukhảu
    • p-ruːʔ
    sevenbảypáy
    • pəs
    eighttámthảm
    • saːmʔ
    ninechínchỉncin
    • ciːnʔ
    tenmườimườl
    • maːl
    rainmưamưakumagama (Mundari)
    • k-ma
    windgióxỏkuzohɔjɔ (Mundari)
    • k-jɔːʔ ~ *kʰjɔːʔ
    youmàytamiamen (Sora)
    • miː

    Other compound words, such as nước non (chữ Nôm: 渃, "country/nation", lit. "water and mountains"), appear to be of purely Vietnamese origin and used to be inscribed in chữ Nôm characters (compounded, self-coined Chinese characters) but are now written in the Vietnamese alphabet.

    Slang

    Vietnamese slang (tiếng lóng) has changed over time. Vietnamese slang consists of pure Vietnamese words as well as words borrowed from other languages such as Mandarin or Indo-European languages.[38] It is estimated that Vietnamese slang originating from Mandarin accounts for a tiny proportion (4.6% of surveyed data in newspapers). On the other hand, slang originating from Indo-European languages accounts for a more significant proportion (12%) and is much more common in today's usage. Slang borrowed from these languages can be either transliteral or vernacular. Some examples:

    !Word!IPA!Description
    Expronounced as //ɛk̚/, /ejk̚//a word borrowed from English used to describe an ex-lover, usually pronounced similarly to ếch ("frog"). This is an example of vernacular slang.
    pronounced as //ʂoː//a word derived from the English word "show" which has the same meaning, usually paired with the word chạy ("to run") to make the phrase chạy sô, which translates in English to "running shows", but its everyday use has the same connotation as "having to do a lot of tasks within a short amount of time". This is an example of transliteral slang.
    With the rise of the Internet, new slang is generated and popularized through social media. This more modern slang is commonly used in the younger generation's teenspeak in Vietnam. This recent slang is mostly pure Vietnamese, and almost all the words are homonyms or some form of wordplay. Some slang words may include profanity swear words (derogatory) or just a play on words.

    Some examples with newer and older slang that originate from northern, central, or southern Vietnamese dialects include:

    !Word!IPA!Description
    vãipronounced as //vǎːj//"Vãi" (predominately from northern Vietnamese) is a profanity word that can be a noun or a verb depending on the context. It refers to a female Buddhist temple-goer in its noun form and to "spilling something over" in its verb form. In slang terms, it is commonly used to emphasize an adjective or a verb - for example, ngon vãi ("very delicious"), sợ vãi ("very scary").[39] Similar uses to theexpletive bloody.
    trẻ trâupronounced as //ʈɛ̌ːʈəw//A noun whose literal translation is "buffalo kid". It is usually used to describe younger children or people who behave like a child, like putting on airs and acting foolishly to attract other people's attention (with negative actions, words, and thoughts).[40]
    gấupronounced as //ɣə̆́w//A noun meaning "bear". It is also commonly used to refer to someone's lover.[41]
    pronounced as //ɣàː//A noun meaning "chicken". It is also commonly used to refer to someone's lack of ability to complete or compete in a task.
    cá sấupronounced as //káːʂə́w//A noun meaning "crocodile". It is also commonly used to refer to someone's lack of beauty. The word sấu can be pronounced similarly to xấu (ugly).
    thả thínhpronounced as //tʰǎːtʰíŋ̟//A verb used to describe the action of dropping roasted bran as bait for fish. Nowadays it is also used to describe the act of dropping hints to another person one is attracted to.
    nha (and other variants)pronounced as //ɲaː//Similar to other particles (nhé, nghe, nhỉ, nhá), it can be used to end sentences. "Rửa chén, nhỉ" can mean "Wash the dishes... yeah?" [42]
    dô (South) and dzô or zô (North)pronounced as //zo:/, /jow//Eye dialect of the word vô, meaning "in". Slogans when drinking at parties. Usually people in the south of Vietnam will pronounce it as "dô", but people in the north pronounce it as "dzô". The letter "z", which is not usually present in the Vietnamese alphabet, can be used for emphasis or for slang terms.[43]
    lu bu, lu xu bupronounced as //lu: bu://,pronounced as //lu: su: bu://"Lu bu" (from southern Vietnamese) meaning busy. "Lu xu bu" meaning so busy at a particular task or activity that the person cannot do much else - e.g., quá lu bu (so busy).[44]
    Whilst older slang has been used by previous generations, the prevalence of modern slang used by young people in Vietnam (as teenspeak) has made conversations more difficult for older generations to understand. This has become subject for debate. Some believe that incorporating teenspeak or internet slang in daily conversation among teenagers will affect the formality and cadence of their general speech.[45] Others argue that it is not slang that is the problem, but rather the lack of communication techniques for the instant internet messaging era. They believe slang should not be dismissed, but instead, youth should be adequately informed to recognise when to use it and when it is inappropriate.

    Writing systems

    See main article: History of writing in Vietnam and Vietnamese Braille.

    After ending a millennium of Chinese rule in 939, the Vietnamese state adopted Literary Chinese (called Vietnamese: văn ngôn or Vietnamese: Hán văn in Vietnamese) for official purposes.[46] Up to the late 19th century (except for two brief interludes), all formal writing, including government business, scholarship and formal literature, was done in Literary Chinese, written with Chinese characters (Vietnamese: [[chữ Hán]]). Although the writing system is now mostly in chữ Quốc ngữ (Latin script), Chinese script known as chữ Hán in Vietnamese as well as chữ Nôm (together, Hán-Nôm) is still present in such activities such as Vietnamese calligraphy.

    Chữ Nôm

    See main article: Chữ Nôm. From around the 13th century, Vietnamese scholars used their knowledge of the Chinese script to develop the Vietnamese: chữ Nôm script to record folk literature in Vietnamese. The script used Chinese characters to represent both borrowed Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary and native words with similar pronunciation or meaning. In addition, thousands of new compound characters were created to write Vietnamese words using a variety of methods, including phono-semantic compounds.For example, in the opening lines of the classic poem The Tale of Kiều,

    The oldest example of an early form of the Vietnamese: Nôm is found in a list of names in the Tháp Miếu Temple Inscription, dating from early 13th century AD.[47] [48] Vietnamese: Nôm writing reached its zenith in the 18th century when many Vietnamese writers and poets composed their works in Vietnamese: Nôm, most notably Nguyễn Du and Hồ Xuân Hương (dubbed "the Queen of Nôm poetry"). However, it was only used for official purposes during the brief Hồ and Tây Sơn dynasties (1400–1406 and 1778–1802 respectively).

    A Vietnamese Catholic, Nguyễn Trường Tộ, unsuccessfully petitioned the Court suggesting the adoption of a script for Vietnamese based on Chinese characters.

    Vietnamese alphabet

    See main article: Vietnamese alphabet. A romanisation of Vietnamese was codified in the 17th century by the Avignonese Jesuit missionary Alexandre de Rhodes (1591–1660), based on works of earlier Portuguese missionaries, particularly Francisco de Pina, Gaspar do Amaral and Antonio Barbosa.[49] [50] It reflects a "Middle Vietnamese" dialect close to the Hanoi variety as spoken in the 17th century. Its vowels and final consonants correspond most closely to northern dialects while its initial consonants are most similar to southern dialects. (This is not unlike how English orthography is based on the Chancery Standard of Late Middle English, with many spellings retained even after the Great Vowel Shift.)

    The Vietnamese alphabet contains 29 letters, supplementing the Latin alphabet with an additional consonant letter (đ) and 6 additional vowel letters (ă, â/ê/ô, ơ, ư) formed with diacritics. The Latin letters f, j, w and z are not used.[51] [52] The script also represents additional phonemes using ten digraphs (ch, gh, gi, kh, ng, nh, ph, qu, th, and tr) and a single trigraph (ngh).Further diacritics are used to indicate the tone of each syllable:

    DiacriticVietnamese name and meaning
    (no mark)Vietnamese: ngang 'level'
    pronounced as /◌̀/ (grave accent)Vietnamese: huyền 'deep'
    pronounced as /◌́/ (acute accent)Vietnamese: sắc 'sharp'
    pronounced as /◌̉/ (hook above)Vietnamese: hỏi 'questioning'
    pronounced as /◌̃/ (tilde)Vietnamese: ngã 'tumbling'
    pronounced as /◌̣/ (dot below)Vietnamese: nặng 'heavy'

    Thus, it is possible for diacritics to be stacked e.g. ể, combining letter with diacritic, ê, with diacritic for tone, ẻ, to make ể.

    Despite the missionaries' creation of the alphabetic script, Vietnamese: chữ Nôm remained the dominant script in Vietnamese Catholic literature for more than 200 years.[53] Starting from the late 19th century, the Vietnamese alphabet (Vietnamese: chữ Quốc ngữ or 'national language script') gradually expanded from its initial usage in Christian writing to become more popular among the general public.

    The romanised script became predominant over the course of the early 20th century, when education became widespread and a simpler writing system was found to be more expedient for teaching and communication with the general population. The French colonial administration sought to eliminate Chinese writing, Confucianism, and other Chinese influences from Vietnam. French superseded Literary Chinese in administration. Vietnamese written with the alphabet became required for all public documents in 1910 by issue of a decree by the French Résident Supérieur of the protectorate of Tonkin. In turn, Vietnamese reformists and nationalists themselves encouraged and popularized the use of Vietnamese: chữ Quốc ngữ. By the middle of the 20th century, most writing was done in Vietnamese: chữ Quốc ngữ, which became the official script on independence.

    Nevertheless, Vietnamese: chữ Hán was still in use during the French colonial period and as late as World War II was still featured on banknotes,[54] [55] but fell out of official and mainstream use shortly thereafter. The education reform by North Vietnam in 1950 eliminated the use of Vietnamese: chữ Hán and Vietnamese: chữ Nôm.[56] Today, only a few scholars and some extremely elderly people are able to read Vietnamese: chữ Nôm or use it in Vietnamese calligraphy. Priests of the Jing minority in China (descendants of 16th-century migrants from Vietnam) use songbooks and scriptures written in Vietnamese: chữ Nôm in their ceremonies.[57]

    Computer support

    See main article: Vietnamese language and computers.

    The Unicode character set contains all Vietnamese characters and the Vietnamese currency symbol. On systems that do not support Unicode, many 8-bit Vietnamese code pages are available such as Vietnamese Standard Code for Information Interchange (VSCII) or Windows-1258. Where ASCII must be used, Vietnamese letters are often typed using the VIQR convention, though this is largely unnecessary with the increasing ubiquity of Unicode. There are many software tools that help type Roman-script Vietnamese on English keyboards, such as WinVNKey and Unikey on Windows, or MacVNKey on Macintosh, with popular methods of encoding Vietnamese using Telex, VNI or VIQR input methods all included. Telex input method is often set as the default for many devices. Besides third-party software tools, operating systems such as Windows or macOS can also be installed with Vietnamese and Vietnamese keyboard, e.g. Vietnamese Telex in Microsoft Windows.

    Dates and numbers writing formats

    Vietnamese speak date in the format "day month year". Each month's name is just the ordinal of that month appended after the word tháng, which means "month". Traditional Vietnamese, however, assigns other names to some months; these names are mostly used in the lunar calendar and in poetry.

    English month name Vietnamese month name
    Normal Traditional
    January Tháng một (1) Tháng giêng
    February Tháng hai (2)
    March Tháng ba (3)
    April Tháng tư (4)
    May Tháng năm (5)
    June Tháng sáu (6)
    July Tháng bảy (7)
    August Tháng tám (8)
    September Tháng chín (9)
    October Tháng mười (10)
    November Tháng mười một (11)
    December Tháng mười hai (12) Tháng chạp

    When written in the short form, "DD/MM/YYYY" is preferred.

    Example:

    The Vietnamese prefer writing numbers with a comma as the decimal separator in lieu of dots, and either spaces or dots to group the digits. An example is 1 629,15 (one thousand six hundred twenty-nine point fifteen). Because a comma is used as the decimal separator, a semicolon is used to separate two numbers instead.

    Literature

    See main article: Vietnamese literature. The Tale of Kiều is an epic narrative poem by the celebrated poet Nguyễn Du,, which is often considered the most significant work of Vietnamese literature. It was originally written in chữ Nôm (titled Vietnamese: Đoạn Trường Tân Thanh) and is widely taught in Vietnam (in chữ Quốc ngữ transliteration).

    Language variation

    The Vietnamese language has several mutually intelligible regional varieties:

    Dialect regionLocalities
    Northern Vietnamese dialectsNorthern Vietnam
    Thanh Hóa dialect
    Central Vietnamese dialectsNghệ An, Hà Tĩnh, Quảng Bình, Quảng Trị
    Huế dialectThừa Thiên Huế
    Southern Vietnamese dialectsSouth Central Coast, Central Highlands and Southern Vietnam

    Vietnamese has traditionally been divided into three dialect regions: North (45%), Central (10%), and South (45%). Michel Ferlus and Nguyễn Tài Cẩn found that there was a separate North-Central dialect for Vietnamese as well. The term Haut-Annam refers to dialects spoken from the northern Nghệ An Province to the southern (former) Thừa Thiên Province that preserve archaic features (like consonant clusters and undiphthongized vowels) that have been lost in other modern dialects.

    The dialect regions differ mostly in their sound systems (see below) but also in vocabulary (including basic and non-basic vocabulary) and grammar. The North-Central and the Central regional varieties, which have a significant number of vocabulary differences, are generally less mutually intelligible to Northern and Southern speakers. There is less internal variation within the Southern region than the other regions because of its relatively late settlement by Vietnamese-speakers (around the end of the 15th century). The North-Central region is particularly conservative since its pronunciation has diverged less from Vietnamese orthography than the other varieties, which tend to merge certain sounds. Along the coastal areas, regional variation has been neutralized to a certain extent, but 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 although their pronunciation fits the written language the most closely; that is typically because of various words in their vocabulary that are unfamiliar to other speakers (see the example vocabulary table below).

    The large movements of people between North and South since the mid-20th century has resulted in a sizable number of Southern residents speaking in the Northern accent/dialect and, to a greater extent, Northern residents speaking in the Southern accent/dialect. After the Geneva Accords of 1954, which called for the temporary division of the country, about a million northerners (mainly from Hanoi, Haiphong, and the surrounding Red River Delta areas) moved south (mainly to Saigon and heavily to Biên Hòa and Vũng Tàu and the surrounding areas) as part of Operation Passage to Freedom. About 180,000 moved in the reverse direction (Tập kết ra Bắc, literally "go to the North".)

    After the Fall of Saigon in 1975, Northern and North-Central speakers from the densely-populated Red River Delta and the traditionally-poorer provinces of Nghệ An, Hà Tĩnh, and Quảng Bình have continued to move south to look for better economic opportunities allowed by the new government's New Economic Zones, a program that lasted from 1975 to 1985.[58] The first half of the program (1975–1980) resulted in 1.3 million people sent to the New Economic Zones (NEZs), most of which were relocated to the southern half of the country in previously uninhabited areas, and 550,000 of them were Northerners. The second half (1981–1985) saw almost 1 million Northerners relocated to the New Economic Zones. Government and military personnel from Northern and North-Central Vietnam are also posted to various locations throughout the country that were often away from their home regions. More recently, the growth of the free market system has resulted in increased interregional movement and relations between distant parts of Vietnam through business and travel. The movements have also resulted in some blending of dialects and more significantly have made the Northern dialect more easily understood in the South and vice versa. Most Southerners, when singing modern/old popular Vietnamese songs or addressing the public, do so in the standardized accent if possible, which uses the Northern pronunciation. That is true in both Vietnam and overseas Vietnamese communities.

    Modern Standard Vietnamese is based on the Hanoi dialect. Nevertheless, the major dialects are still predominant in their respective areas and have also evolved over time with influences from other areas. Historically, accents have been distinguished by how each region pronounces the letters d ([z] in the Northern dialect and [j] in the Central and Southern dialect) and r ([z] in the Northern dialect and [r] in the Central and Southern dialects). Thus, the Central and the Southern dialects can be said to have retained a pronunciation closer to Vietnamese orthography and resemble how Middle Vietnamese sounded, in contrast to the modern Northern (Hanoi) dialect, which has since undergone pronunciation shifts.

    Vocabulary

    Regional variation in vocabulary[59] ! Northern !! Central !! Southern !! English gloss
    vâng dạ dạ "yes"
    này ni, "this"
    thế này, như này như ri, a ri như vầy "thus, this way"
    đấy nớ, đó "that"
    thế, thế ấy, thế đấy rứa, rứa tê vậy, vậy đó "thus, so, that way"
    kia, kìa , tề đó "that yonder"
    đâu đâu "where"
    nào mồ nào "which"
    tại sao răng tại sao "why"
    thế nào, như nào răng, mần răng làm sao "how"
    tôi, tui tui tui "I, me (polite)"
    tao tau tao "I, me (informal, familiar)"
    chúng tao, bọn tao, chúng tôi, bọn tôi choa, bọn choa tụi tao, tụi tui, bọn tui "we, us (but not you, colloquial, familiar)"
    mày mi mày "you (informal, familiar)"
    chúng mày, bọn mày bây, bọn bây tụi mầy, tụi bây, bọn mày "you guys (informal, familiar)"
    hắn, hấn"he/she/it (informal, familiar)"
    chúng nó, bọn nó bọn nớ tụi nó "they/them (informal, familiar)"
    ông ấy ông nớ ổng "he/him, that gentleman, sir"
    bà ấy bà nớ bả"she/her, that lady, madam"
    anh ấy anh nớ ảnh "he/him, that young man (of equal status)"
    ruộng nương ruộng, rẫy "field"
    bát đọi chén "rice bowl"
    muôi, môi môi "ladle"
    đầu trốc đầu "head"
    ô tô ô tô xe hơi (ô tô) "car"
    thìa thìa muỗng "spoon"
    bốbọba"father"
    Although regional variations developed over time, most of those words can be used interchangeably and be understood well, albeit with more or less frequency then others or with slightly different but often discernible word choices and pronunciations. Some accents may mix, with words such dạ vâng combining dạ and vâng, being created.

    Consonants

    The syllable-initial ch and tr digraphs are pronounced distinctly in the North-Central, Central, and Southern varieties but are merged in Northern varieties, which pronounce them the same way). Many North-Central varieties preserve three distinct pronunciations for d, gi, and r, but the Northern varieties have a three-way merger, and the Central and the Southern varieties have a merger of d and gi but keep r distinct. At the end of syllables, the palatals ch and nh have merged with the alveolars t and n, which, in turn, have also partially merged with velars c and ng in the Central and the Southern varieties.

    Regional consonant correspondences! Syllable position !! Orthography !! Northern !! North-central !! Central !! Southern
    syllable-initialxpronounced as /[s]/pronounced as /[s]/
    spronounced as /[ʂ]/ pronounced as /[s, ʂ]/
    chpronounced as /[t͡ɕ]/pronounced as /[c]/
    trpronounced as /[ʈ]/ pronounced as /[c, ʈ]/
    rpronounced as /[z]/pronounced as /[r]/
    dpronounced as /[j]/
    gi
    vpronounced as /[v]/pronounced as /[v, j]/
    syllable-finaltpronounced as /[t]/pronounced as /[k]/
    cpronounced as /[k]/
    t
    after i, ê
    pronounced as /[t]/pronounced as /[t]/
    chpronounced as /[k̟]/
    t
    after u, ô
    pronounced as /[t]/pronounced as /[kp]/
    c
    after u, ô, o
    pronounced as /[kp]/
    npronounced as /[n]/pronounced as /[ŋ]/
    ngpronounced as /[ŋ]/
    n
    after i, ê
    pronounced as /[n]/pronounced as /[n]/
    nhpronounced as /[ŋ̟]/
    n
    after u, ô
    pronounced as /[n]/pronounced as /[ŋm]/
    ng
    after u, ô, o
    pronounced as /[ŋm]/

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

    l, n variation! Orthography! "Mainstream" varieties! Rural varieties
    npronounced as /[n]/pronounced as /[l]/
    lpronounced as /[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 it appears as Vietnamese: lăm in Vietnamese: mười lăm "fifteen" (see Vietnamese grammar#Cardinal). In some northern varieties, the numeral appears with an initial nh instead of l: Vietnamese: hai mươi nhăm "twenty-five", instead of the mainstream Vietnamese: hai mươi lăm.

    There is also a merger of r and g in certain rural varieties in the South:

    r, g variation! Orthography! "Mainstream" varieties! Rural varieties
    rpronounced as /[r]/pronounced as /[ɣ]/
    gpronounced as /[ɣ]/

    The consonant clusters that were originally present in Middle Vietnamese (in the 17th century) have been lost in almost all modern Vietnamese varieties although they have been retained in other closely related Vietic languages. However, some speech communities have preserved some of these archaic clusters: "sky" is Vietnamese: blời with a cluster in Hảo Nho (Yên Mô, Ninh Bình Province) but trời in Southern Vietnamese and Vietnamese: giời in Hanoi Vietnamese (initial single consonants pronounced as //ʈ/, /z//, respectively).

    Tones

    Although there are six tones in Vietnamese, some tones may slightly merge but are still highly distinguishable from the context of the speech. The hỏi and ngã tones are distinct in North and some North-Central varieties (although often with different pitch contours) but have somewhat merged in the Central, Southern, and some North-Central varieties (also with different pitch contours). Some North-Central varieties (such as Vietnamese: Hà Tĩnh Vietnamese) have a slight merger of the ngã and nặng tones but keep the hỏi tone distinct. Still, other North-Central varieties have a three-way merger of hỏi, ngã, and nặng and so have a four-tone system. In addition, there are several phonetic differences (mostly in pitch contour and phonation type) in the tones among the dialects.

    Tone! rowspan="2"
    NorthernNorth-centralCentralSouthern
     Vinh  Thanh
    Chương
    Hà Tĩnh
    ngangpronounced as /˧ 33/ pronounced as /˧˥ 35/ pronounced as /˧˥ 35/ pronounced as /˧˥ 35, ˧˥˧ 353/ pronounced as /˧˥ 35/ pronounced as /˧ 33/
    huyềnpronounced as /˨˩̤ 21̤/ pronounced as /˧ 33/ pronounced as /˧ 33/ pronounced as /˧ 33/ pronounced as /˧ 33/ pronounced as /˨˩ 21/
    sắcpronounced as /˧˥ 35/ pronounced as /˩ 11/ pronounced as /˩ 11, ˩˧̰ 13̰/ pronounced as /˩˧̰ 13̰/ pronounced as /˩˧̰ 13̰/ pronounced as /˧˥ 35/
    hỏipronounced as /˧˩˧̰ 31̰3/ pronounced as /˧˩ 31/pronounced as /˧˩ 31/pronounced as /˧˩̰ʔ 31̰ʔ/pronounced as /˧˩˨ 312/pronounced as /˨˩˦ 214/
    ngãpronounced as /˧ʔ˥ 3ʔ5/ pronounced as /˩˧̰ 13̰/pronounced as /˨̰ 22̰/
    nặngpronounced as /˨˩̰ʔ 21̰ʔ/ pronounced as /˨ 22/ pronounced as /˨̰ 22̰/ pronounced as /˨̰ 22̰/ pronounced as /˨˩˨ 212/

    The table above shows the pitch contour of each tone using Chao tone number notation in which 1 represents the lowest pitch, and 5 the highest; glottalization (creaky, stiff, harsh) is indicated with the (IPA|◌̰) symbol; murmured voice with (IPA|◌̤); glottal stop with (IPA|ʔ); sub-dialectal variants are separated with commas. (See also the tone section below.)

    Word play

    A basic form of word play in Vietnamese involves disyllabic words in which the last syllable forms the first syllable of the next word in the chain. This game involves two members versing each other until the opponent is unable to think of another word. For instance:

    Hậu trường (backstage) Trường học (School) Học tập (Study)Tập trung (Concentrate)
    Trung tâm (Centre) Tâm lí (Mentality) Lí do (Reason)Etc., until someone cannot form the next word or gives up.

    Another language game known as nói lái is used by Vietnamese speakers. Nói lái involves switching, adding or removing the tones in a pair of words and may also involve switching the order of words or the first consonant and the rime of each word. Some examples:

    Original phrase Phrase after nói lái transformation Structural change
    đái dầm "(child) pee" dấm đài (literal translation "vinegar stage") word order and tone switch
    chửa hoang "pregnancy out of wedlock" hoảng chưa "scared yet?" word order and tone switch
    bầy tôi "all the king's subjects" bồi tây "west waiter" initial consonant, rime, and tone switch
    bí mật "secrets" bật mí "reveal" initial consonant and rime switch
    Tây Ban Nha "Spain (España)" Tây Bán Nhà (literal translation "West Sell House", mainly used to mock Spain national football team) initial consonant, rime, and tone switch
    Bồ Đào Nha "Portugal" Nhà Đào Bô (literal translation "House Dig Bucket", mainly used to mock Portugal national football team) word order and tone 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. Naturally, nói lái can be used for a humorous effect.[60]

    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 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 "situation" la hoàn la cảnh loan hà lanh cả
    chim hoàn cảnh "situation" 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.

    See also

    Bibliography

    General

    Sound system

    Language variation

    Pragmatics

    Historical and comparative

    Orthography

    Pedagogical

    External links

    Online lessons
    Vocabulary
    Language tools

    Research projects and data resources

    Notes and References

    1. Book: Driem, George van. George van Driem. Languages of the Himalayas, Volume One. 2001. BRILL. 90-04-12062-9. 264. Of the approximately 90 millions speakers of Austroasiatic languages, over 70 million speak Vietnamese, nearly ten million speak Khmer and roughly five million speak Santali..
    2. several times as many as the rest of the Austroasiatic family combined.[1]
    3. The integration of French loanwords into Vietnamese: A corpus-based analysis of tonal, syllabic and segmental aspects . Vera . Scholvin . Judith . Meinschaefer . Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society . 2018.
    4. The Problem of the Word in Vietnamese. Laurence C.. Thompson. January 17, 1963. WORD. 19. 1. 39–52. CrossRef. 10.1080/00437956.1963.11659787.
    5. Web site: Vietnamese literature. Encyclopedia Britannica. en. 2019-04-13.
    6. Book: Li, Yu . The Chinese Writing System in Asia: An Interdisciplinary Perspective . Routledge . 2020 . 978-1-00-069906-7 . 102–103.
    7. Web site: Mon–Khmer languages: The Vietic branch . SEAlang Projects . November 8, 2006.
    8. Ferlus, Michel. 1996. Langues et peuples viet-muong. Mon-Khmer Studies 26. 7–28.
    9. Hayes . La Vaughn H . 1992 . Vietic and Việt-Mường: a new subgrouping in Mon-Khmer . Mon-Khmer Studies . 21 . 211–228 .
    10. Diffloth, Gérard. (1992). "Vietnamese as a Mon-Khmer language". Papers from the First Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society, 125–128. Tempe, Arizona: Program for Southeast Asian Studies.
    11. .
    12. .
    13. .
    14. .
    15. Haudricourt. André-Georges. 2017. La place du Vietnamien dans les langues Austroasiatiques. The place of Vietnamese in Austroasiatic (1953). Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris. 49. 1. 122–128.
    16. Book: Language Power and Hierarchy: Multilingual Education in China . Linda . Tsung . Bloomsbury . 2014 . 978-1-4411-4235-1 . 188 .
    17. Web site: 2021 Australia, Census All persons QuickStats | Australian Bureau of Statistics .
    18. http://www.ined.fr/fichier/t_publication/65/publi_pdf1_pop_et_soc_francais_376.pdf La dynamique des langues en France au fil du XXe siècle
    19. Encyclopedia: Britannica. Vietnamese language. 29 November 2023.
    20. Web site: National Minorities | Government of the Czech Republic. www.vlada.cz.
    21. http://zpravy.idnes.cz/vietnamci-oficialni-narodnostni-mensinou-fiq-/domaci.aspx?c=A130703_133019_domaci_jj Česko má nové oficiální národnostní menšiny. Vietnamce a Bělorusy
    22. http://thailand.prd.go.th/view_news.php?id=7197&a=3 More Thai Students Interested in Learning ASEAN Languages
    23. Web site: More and more foreigners have need to learn Vietnamese. Vietnam. Times. May 30, 2020. Vietnam Times.
    24. Web site: Vietnamese in the United States. Angie. Nguyen. Lien. Dao. California State Library. May 18, 2007. 82. January 10, 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20160304200121/http://www.library.ca.gov/services/docs/vietnamese.pdf. March 4, 2016. dead. mdy-all.
    25. Encyclopedia: Vietnamese Immigration. Ha. Lam. Encyclopedia of Bilingual Education. Josué M.. González. Thousand Oaks, California. SAGE Publications. 2008. 884–887. 978-1-4129-3720-7.
    26. http://www.vietnambreakingnews.com/2013/09/vietnamese-teaching-and-learning-overwhelming-germany/ Vietnamese teaching and learning overwhelming Germany
    27. https://web.archive.org/web/20120502004731/http://news.chaobuoisang.net/school-in-berlin-maintains-vietnamese-language-197390.htm School in Berlin maintains Vietnamese language
    28. There are different descriptions of Hanoi vowels. Another common description is that of :
      FrontCentralBack
      unroundedrounded
      Centeringia~iê pronounced as /[iə̯]/ưa~ươ pronounced as /[ɯə̯]/ua~uô pronounced as /[uə̯]/
      Closei pronounced as /[i]/ư pronounced as /[ɯ]/u pronounced as /[u]/
      Close-midê pronounced as /[e]/ơ pronounced as /[ɤ]/ô pronounced as /[o]/
      Open-mide pronounced as /[ɛ]/ă pronounced as /[ɐ]/â pronounced as /[ʌ]/o pronounced as /[ɔ]/
      Opena pronounced as /[a]/

      This description distinguishes four degrees of vowel height and a rounding contrast (rounded vs. unrounded) between back vowels. The relative shortness of ă and â would then be a secondary feature. Thompson describes the vowel ă pronounced as /[ɐ]/ as being slightly higher (upper low) than a pronounced as /[a]/.

    29. The closing diphthongs and triphthongs as described by Thompson can be compared with the description above:
       pronounced as //w// offglidepronounced as //j// offglide
      Centeringiêu pronounced as /[iə̯w]/ươu pronounced as /[ɯə̯w]/ươi pronounced as /[ɯə̯j]/uôi pronounced as /[uə̯j]/
      Closeiu pronounced as /[iw]/ưu pronounced as /[ɯw]/ưi pronounced as /[ɯj]/ui pronounced as /[uj]/
      Close-midêu pronounced as /[ew]/
      âu pronounced as /[ʌw]/
      ơi pronounced as /[ɤj]/
      ây pronounced as /[ʌj]/
      ôi pronounced as /[oj]/
      Open-mideo pronounced as /[ɛw]/oi pronounced as /[ɔj]/
      Open ao pronounced as /[aw]/
      au pronounced as /[ɐw]/
      ai pronounced as /[aj]/
      ay pronounced as /[ɐj]/
       
    30. Deborah, H.-F., W., H. B., & T., E. H. (2002). Characteristics of Vietnamese Phonology. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 11(3), 264–273. https://doi.org/10.1044/1058-0360(2002/031)
    31. Alves. Mark. 2006-02-01. Linguistic Research on the Origins of the Vietnamese Language: An Overview. Journal of Vietnamese Studies. 1. 1–2. 104–130. 10.1525/vs.2006.1.1-2.104.
    32. LaPolla. Randy J.. 2010. "Language Contact and Language Change in the History of the Sinitic Languages.". Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences. 2. 5. 6858–6868. 10.1016/j.sbspro.2010.05.036.
    33. Web site: Phan. John. 2013-01-28. Lacquered Words: The Evolution Of Vietnamese Under Sinitic Influences From The 1St Century Bce Through The 17Th Century Ce. en-US.
    34. Web site: Phan, John D. . de Sousa, Hilário. 2016. (Paper presented at the International workshop on the history of Colloquial Chinese – written and spoken, Rutgers University, New Brunswick NJ, 11–12 March 2016.).
    35. Phan. John. 2010. "Re-Imagining 'Annam': A New Analysis of Sino–Viet–Muong Linguistic Contact". Chinese Southern Diaspora Studies. 4. 3–24.
    36. NGUYEN . Danh Hoang Thanh . LE . Trang Thi Huyen . 2020-03-31 . Japanese Loanwords Adopted into the Vietnamese Language by Vietnamese Students and Temporary Workers . Asian and African Languages and Linguistics . en . 14 . 21 . 10.15026/94521.
    37. Chung. 2001. Some returned loans, Japanese loanwords in Taiwan Mandarin. Language Change in East Asia. 161–179.
    38. Web site: Tiếng lóng trên các phương tiện truyền thông hiện nay. khoavanhoc-ngonngu.edu.vn.
    39. Web site: 2020-07-18. Vãi là gì? Tại sao các bạn trẻ lại hay sử dụng từ này?. tbtvn.org.
    40. Web site: 2016-06-25. 10 từ lóng thường dùng của giới trẻ ngày nay. vnexpress.net.
    41. Web site: 2016-06-25. 10 từ lóng thường dùng của giới trẻ ngày nay. vnexpress.net.
    42. Web site: What is the difference between "nhé" and "nha, nghe, nhà, nhỉ" ? "nhé" vs "nha, nghe, nhà, nhỉ" ?. 2021-03-14. hinative.com. en. 2022-06-17. https://web.archive.org/web/20220617072614/https://hinative.com/en-US/questions/5240316. dead.
    43. Web site: Vã mồ hôi "giải mã" tiếng lóng tuổi teen – Xã hội – VietNamNet. 2021-04-06. vietnamnet.vn.
    44. Web site: 2019-12-05 . What is the meaning of "tôi chóng mặt luôn, quá lu bu quá mệt (plz english)"? - Question about Vietnamese . 2023-06-07 . HiNative . en.
    45. Web site: 2018-12-07. Lo ngại thực trạng sử dụng ngôn ngữ mạng trong học sinh. baoninhbinh.org.vn.
    46. Book: Asia's Orthographic Dilemma . Hannas . Wm. C. . University of Hawaii Press . 1997 . 978-0-8248-1892-0 . 78–79, 82 .
    47. Book: Holcombe, Charles . A History of East Asia: From the Origins of Civilization to the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge University Press . 2017 . 978-1107544895 . 207.
    48. Book: Kornicki, Peter . Languages, Scripts, and Chinese Texts in East Asia . Oxford University Press . 2018 . 978-0-192-51869-9. 63.
    49. Book: Jacques. Roland. Portuguese Pioneers of Vietnamese Linguistics Prior to 1650 – Pionniers Portugais de la Linguistique Vietnamienne Jusqu'en 1650. 2002. Orchid Press. Bangkok, Thailand. 974-8304-77-9. en, fr.
    50. Từ Nước Mặn đến Roma: Những đóng góp của các giáo sĩ Dòng Tên trong quá trình La tinh hoá tiếng Việt ở thế kỷ 17 . Trần . Quốc Anh. Phạm . Thị Kiều Ly . October 2019 . . Conference 400 năm hình thành và phát triển chữ Quốc ngữ trong lịch sử loan báo Tin Mừng tại Việt Nam . Hochiminh City.
    51. Web site: Alphabet Vietnamese Typography . 2023-06-24 . vietnamesetypography.com.
    52. Web site: admin. 2014-02-05. Vietnamese Language History. 2021-01-30. Vietnamese Culture and Tradition. en-US.
    53. Book: Ostrowski, Brian Eugene . Wilcox . Wynn . Vietnam and the West: New Approaches . 2010 . SEAP Publications, Cornell University Press . Ithaca, New York . 978-0-87727-782-8 . The Rise of Christian Nôm Literature in Seventeenth-Century Vietnam: Fusing European Content and Local Expression . 23, 38 .
    54. Web site: French Indochina 500 Piastres 1951 . art-hanoi.com.
    55. Web site: North Vietnam 5 Dong 1946 . art-hanoi.com.
    56. Vũ Thế Khôi (2009). "Ai “bức tử” chữ Hán-Nôm?".
    57. Book: Encyclopedia of World Cultures, volume 6: Russia and Eurasia / China . Paul . Friedrich . Norma . Diamond . Jing . 454 . G.K. Hall . New York . 1994 . 0-8161-1810-8 .
    58. Web site: Desbarats. Jacqueline. Repression in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam: Executions and Population Relocation. Indochina report; no. 11. Executive Publications, Singapore 1987. 28 November 2013. 17 February 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150217064307/http://jim.com/repression.htm. dead.
    59. Table data from .
    60. http://www.users.bigpond.com/doanviettrung/noilai.html www.users.bigpond.com/doanviettrung/noilai.html