Vietnamese alphabet

The Vietnamese alphabet (Vietnamese: chữ Quốc ngữ, chữ Nôm: 𡨸國語, lit. 'script of the national language') is a Latin-based writing system used for the Vietnamese language. It was created by Portuguese missionary Francisco de Pina and other Jesuits in the early 1600s. This alphabet has special marks above and below letters, called diacritics, to show different sounds and tones in the language.

It has 29 letters, including 7 letters with diacritics: ⟨ă⟩, ⟨â⟩, ⟨ê⟩, ⟨ô⟩, ⟨ơ⟩, ⟨ư⟩, and ⟨đ⟩. There are also 5 diacritics used to show tone, like ⟨à⟩, ⟨á⟩, ⟨ả⟩, ⟨ã⟩, and ⟨ạ⟩. These marks help make sure the meaning of words is clear, even though the basic letters come from the Latin alphabet.

Because of these special marks, the Vietnamese alphabet can show the many sounds and tones of the language well. However, changes in how people speak have sometimes made different letters or groups of letters sound the same.

Letter names and pronunciation

Vietnamese uses 22 letters from the ISO basic Latin alphabet. The other 4 letters are not part of the main alphabet but are used for special words and names.

There are 12 vowels and 17 consonants in Vietnamese. Some letters have special names to avoid confusion, like calling "b" "bê bò" instead of just "b". The letter "q" is always followed by "u" in Vietnamese words. The letter "y" is often used like a vowel and can have different sounds and tones, similar to other vowels. In some areas, the letters "s" and "x" can sound alike and might be used interchangeably.

Consonants

The Vietnamese alphabet comes mostly from Portuguese with some ideas from French. Some special ways to use letters like ⟨gh⟩ and ⟨gi⟩ were taken from Italian, like in the words ghetto and Giuseppe. The ways to use ⟨c, k, qu⟩ came from Greek and Latin, similar to how we use them in English, like in cat, kite, and queen.

There is one special group of three letters, ⟨ngh⟩, and ten groups of two letters: ⟨ch⟩, ⟨gh⟩, ⟨gi⟩, ⟨kh⟩, ⟨ng⟩, ⟨nh⟩, ⟨ph⟩, ⟨qu⟩, ⟨th⟩, ⟨tr⟩.

Each consonant can also be named by adding ờ to it, except for k. For example, b is called bờ and c is called cờ.

Vowels

Pronunciation

The way letters are used to show sounds in Vietnamese can be tricky. Sometimes the same letter can make different sounds, and different letters can make the same sound. This is because the writing system was created many years ago, and the spoken language has changed since then.

The letters ⟨i⟩ and ⟨y⟩ are often used in the same way. There are no strict rules about when to use one over the other, except in certain combinations like ⟨ay⟩ and ⟨uy⟩. For example, the word tay means "arm, hand" and is read as /tă̄j/, while tai means "ear" and is read as /tāj/. Efforts have been made to standardize the writing by using ⟨i⟩ instead of ⟨y⟩ in some cases, but these changes have not been widely followed.

Spelling

Vowel nuclei

The table below shows the vowel sounds in Hanoi Vietnamese and how they are written.

Notes:

• The vowel sound /i/ is usually written as ⟨i⟩. It is sometimes written as ⟨y⟩ after certain letters like ⟨h⟩, ⟨k⟩, ⟨l⟩, ⟨m⟩, ⟨n⟩, ⟨s⟩, ⟨t⟩, ⟨v⟩, or ⟨x⟩. For example, /mǐˀ/ is written as Mỹ meaning "America".
• The vowel /ɔ/ is written as ⟨oo⟩ before ⟨c⟩ or ⟨ng⟩, such as in oóc meaning "organ (musical)".
• The vowel /o/ is written as ⟨ôô⟩ before ⟨c⟩ or ⟨ng⟩ in some cases, like in ôông (a variant of ông).

Diphthongs and triphthongs

Notes:

The sound /w/ is written in different ways depending on its position and the letters around it. For example, it is written as ⟨u⟩ after /k/ and as ⟨o⟩ in front of certain vowels.

The sound /j/ is usually written as ⟨i⟩, but as ⟨y⟩ after ⟨â⟩ and ⟨ă⟩.

The diphthong /iə̯/ is written as ⟨ia⟩ at the end of a syllable, like in mía meaning "sugar cane", and as iê before a consonant, like in miếng meaning "piece".

The diphthong /uə̯/ is written as ⟨ua⟩ at the end of a syllable, like in mua meaning "to buy", and as ⟨uô⟩ before a consonant, like in muôn meaning "ten thousand".

The diphthong /ɨə̯/ is written as ⟨ưa⟩ at the end of a syllable, like in mưa meaning "to rain", and as ⟨ươ⟩ before a consonant, like in mương meaning "irrigation canal".

Tone marks

Vietnamese is a tonal language, meaning the meaning of each word changes depending on the pitch used when saying it. There are six different tones in the main northern dialect. One of these tones has no mark, and the other five are shown with special symbols added to the vowel letters.

In the southern dialect, two of these tones are merged, so there are only five tones. The way these tones are shown can differ between older and newer styles of writing, especially in words with more than one vowel. The newer style is often used in school books, while many people still use the older style in everyday writing.

Structure

In the past, people used hyphens to connect parts of words with many syllables, but this is no longer done. Now, hyphens are only used when we borrow words from other languages.

Each syllable in writing has up to three parts, in this order:

1. An optional beginning consonant
2. A required vowel with a tone mark, if needed, above or below it
3. An ending consonant, which can be one of these: ⟨c⟩, ⟨ch⟩, ⟨m⟩, ⟨n⟩, ⟨ng⟩, ⟨nh⟩, ⟨p⟩, ⟨t⟩, or nothing.

History

Further information: History of writing in Vietnam and Vietnamese language and computers

Since 111 BC, when Vietnam was under the rule of China, the country was strongly influenced by Chinese culture. Writing in China was done in Literary Chinese, while the Vietnamese developed their own writing called chữ Nôm around the 9th century. Chữ Nôm used Chinese characters but added new ones to show Vietnamese words.

People have called the Latin-based Vietnamese script chữ Quốc ngữ since at least 1867. In that year, a scholar named Trương Vĩnh Ký published books using this script. The Latin script was first used by Portuguese and Italian missionaries in the 1600s to help people learn Vietnamese. Their work led to the development of the modern Vietnamese alphabet. For about 200 years, chữ Quốc ngữ was mostly used by Catholic communities.

In 1910, French colonial rulers made chữ Quốc ngữ the official script. This helped spread the use of the Latin alphabet, even though some traditional leaders preferred older writing systems. By the 1920s, most Vietnamese people used chữ Quốc ngữ. The French set up schools where Vietnamese was taught using this script, which helped it become the main way to write the language.

Late 20th century to present

Writing Vietnamese with its many accents has been difficult. Because of this, some people outside Vietnam sometimes drop the accents. Today, computers support Vietnamese well using Unicode, which includes all the special letters needed. Most modern devices now allow people to type Vietnamese easily, without needing special software.

Computing

Main article: Vietnamese language and computers

The Unicode system fully supports the Vietnamese writing system. Before Unicode, different ways to write Vietnamese on computers were used. Now, most documents use Unicode, which allows choosing between different ways to type letters with accents.

Most modern phones and computers include support for typing Vietnamese directly. In the past, people needed special programs to add accents, but this is no longer necessary.

Unicode code points

The following table provides Unicode code points for all non-ASCII Vietnamese letters.