Vietnamese was identified more than 150 years ago [3] to be part of the Viet-Muong (or Vietic) grouping of the Mon-Khmer branch of the Austroasiatic language family, a family that also includes Khmer, spoken in Cambodia, as well as various tribal and regional languages, such as the Munda languages, spoken in northeastern India, and others in southern China. Even though this is supported by etymological comparison [4], some linguists still believe that Viet-Muong is a separate family, genealogically unrelated to other Mon-Khmer languages.

 History

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 disappeared from the language. However, Vietnamese appears to have been heavily influenced by its location in the Southeast Asian sprachbund-with the result that it has acquired or converged toward characteristics such as isolating morphology and tonogenesis. These characteristics, which may or may not have been part of proto-Austroasiatic, nonetheless have become part of many of the philologically unrelated languages of Southeast Asia-for example, Thai (one of the Tai-Kadai languages), Tsat (a member of the Malayo-Polynesian group within Austronesian), and Vietnamese each developed tones as a phonemic feature, although their respective ancestral languages were not originally tonal. The Vietnamese language has similarities with Cantonese in regard to the specific intonations and unreleased plosive consonant endings, a legacy of archaic Chinese.

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 of the Vietnamese language and people into what is now central and southern Vietnam (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), Vietnamese was linguistically influenced primarily by Chinese, which came to predominate politically in the 2nd century B.C.E.

With the rise of Chinese political dominance came radical importation of Chinese vocabulary and grammatical influence. As Chinese was, for a prolonged period, the only medium of literature and government, as well as the primary language of the ruling class in Vietnam, much of the Vietnamese lexicon in all realms consists of Hán Vi?t (Sino-Vietnamese) words. In fact, as the vernacular language of Vietnam gradually grew in prestige toward the beginning of the second millennium, the Vietnamese language was written using Chinese characters (see Ch? nôm) adapted to write Vietnamese, in a similar pattern as used in Japan (kanji), Korea (hanja) and other countries in the sinosphere. The Nôm writing reached its zenith in the 18th century when many Vietnamese writers and poets composed their works in Ch? Nôm, most notably Nguy?n Du and H? Xuân Huong (dubbed "the Queen of Nôm poetry").

As contact with the West grew, the Qu?c Ng? system of Romanized writing was developed in the 17th century by Portuguese and other Europeans involved in proselytizing and trade in Vietnam. 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 gare), and búp bê (doll, from poupée). In addition, many Sino-Vietnamese terms were devised for Western ideas imported through the French. However, the Romanized script did not come to predominate until the beginning of the 20th century, when education became widespread and a simpler writing system was found more expedient for teaching and communication with the general population.

 Geographic distribution

  Worldwide distribution of Vietnamese, ¦¦ Official ¦¦ More than 1,000,000 speakers ¦¦ More than 100,000 speakers

As the national language of the majority ethnic group, Vietnamese is spoken throughout Vietnam by the Vietnamese people as well as by ethnic minorities. It is also spoken in overseas Vietnamese communities, most notably in the United States, where it has more than one million speakers and is the seventh most-spoken language (it is 3rd in Texas, 4th in Arkansas and Louisiana, and 5th in California [5]). In Australia, it is the sixth most-spoken language.

According to the Ethnologue, Vietnamese is also spoken by substantial numbers of people in Cambodia, Canada, Côte d'Ivoire, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Thailand, United Kingdom, Laos, Martinique, Netherlands, New Caledonia, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Russia, Senegal and Vanuatu.

 Official status

While spoken by the Vietnamese people for millennia, Vietnamese did not become the official administrative language of Vietnam until the 20th century. For most of its history, the entity now known as Vietnam used Chinese for governing purposes. Vietnamese in the form of ch? nôm was used for administrative purposes during the brief Ho and Tay Son Dynasties. During French colonialism, French superseded Chinese in administration. It was not until independence from France that Vietnamese was used officially. It is the language of instruction in schools and universities and is the language for official business.

These dialects differ slightly in tone, pronunciation, and sometimes vocabulary, although the Hu? dialect is more markedly different from the others due to its local vocabulary. The h?i and ngã tones are distinct in the north but have merged in the south. The ch and tr digraphs are pronounced distinctly in the Southern and Central dialect but are merged in the Northern dialect. Grammatical differences are negligible.

 Sounds

Main article: Vietnamese phonology

 Vowels

Like other southeast Asian languages, Vietnamese has a comparatively large number of vowels (nguyên âm). Below is a vowel chart of the Hanoi variety (i.e., other regions of Vietnam may have different vowel inventories).

 All vowels are unrounded except for u, ô, and o. Vowels â and a are pronounced very short, much shorter than the other vowels. Therefore, o and â are basically pronounced the same except that o is long while â is short - the same applies to the low vowels a (long) and a (short).

Outside Hanoi, u, ô, o may be back rounded [u, o, ?], while u, o, â, a are back unrounded [?, ?, ?, ?], and i, ê, e, a are front unrounded [i, e, ?, æ].

The correspondence between the orthography and pronunciation is rather complicated. For example, the vowel i is also often written as y; both may represent [j], in which case the difference is in the quality of the preceding vowel. For instance, tai "ear" is [t?¯j], while tay "hand/arm" is [taj].

In addition to single vowels (or monophthongs), Vietnamese has diphthongs (âm dôi). Three diphthongs consist of a vowel plus â. These are iâ (spelled ia or iê), uâ (spelled ua or uô), and uâ (spelled ua or uo). The other diphthongs consist of a vowel plus semivowel. There are two of these semivowels: y and w. Vietnamese has many diphthongs of this type. Furthermore, these semivowels may also follow the first three diphthongs (iâ, uâ, uâ ) resulting in triphthongs.

 Tones

Vietnamese vowels are all pronounced with an inherent tone (thanh or thanh di?u). Tones differ in:

* glottality (with or without accompanying constricted vocal cords)

Tone is indicated by diacritics written above or below the vowel (most of the tone diacritics appear above the vowel, however, the n?ng tone dot diacritic goes below the vowel). The six tones in the northern varieties (including Hanoi) are:

The consonants (ph? âm) of the Hanoi variety are listed below in the Vietnamese orthography, except for the bilabial approximant which is written here as "w" (in the writing system it is written the same as the vowels "o" and "u").

Some consonant sounds are written with only one letter (like "p"), other consonant sounds are written with a two-letter 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").

Northern Vietnamese (Hanoi)

 The consonants of Ho Chi Minh city (Saigon) variety are slightly different from Hanoi (and other northern regions). For instance, "tr" and "ch" represent the same sound in Hanoi (and northern regions), but in Saigon or in central regions "tr" and "ch" represent different consonant sounds.

Southern Vietnamese (Saigon)

Simplified pronunciation guide for Vietnamese consonants at the beginning of syllables

Sounds are pronounced as in English except for the following:

* "ph" is like English "f".

* Rural Southern "v" is like English "y". (Hanoi and standard Southern "v" is the same as English "v".)

* "d" is like French "d".

* "t" is like French or Spanish "t" or like pinyin "d". (Somewhat like English "d" at the beginning of words.)

* "th" is like Hindi "th" (?) or like English "t" at the beginning of words.

* "x" is like English "s".

* Hanoi "d" is English "z". Saigon "d" is like English "y".

* "ch" is like Pinyin "zh", similar to the "j" in English "jar". (but never aspirated, as in "chair")

* "nh" is like Portuguese "nh", Spanish "ñ", or French "gn".

* "c" is like English "k" (and never like English "c" in "cede" or "s" in "seed").

* "kh" is like German or Scottish "ch" or Arabic or Persian "kh".

* "g" is like Dutch "g" or modern Greek "gh" (G).

o However, Vietnamese "gi" is like English "z" in Hanoi and like English "y" in Saigon.

* "ng" is like Hangul "ng" (?) or English "ng" (without a "g" at the end)

* Saigon "tr" is like Hindi "?+?" (?+?) or like English "tr" with the tongue tip curled backwards.

* Saigon "s" is like English "sh". (Hanoi "s" is the same as English "s").

* Saigon "qu" is like English "w". (Hanoi "qu" is the same as English "qu").

* Saigon "r" is variously like

o a) Spanish "r" (most common) or

o b) French "g", in provincial south, or

o c) Spanish "rr". (Hanoi "r" is the same as English "z").

Note that the guide above does not apply to Vietnamese consonants at the end of syllables, especially for the more southern varieties of Vietnamese. (See Vietnamese phonology: Regional consonant variation for further elaboration.)

 Grammar

Vietnamese, like many languages in Southeast Asia and Chinese, is an analytic (or isolating) language. As such its grammar highly relies on word order and sentence structure rather than morphology (in which word changes through inflection). Whereas European languages tend to use morphology to express tense, Vietnamese uses grammatical particles or syntactic constructions.

Vietnamese is often erroneously considered to be a "monosyllabic" language. It is true that Vietnamese has many words that consist of only one syllable; however, most words are indeed disyllabic. This is largely because of the many reduplication words that appear in household vocabulary, or adjectives. More accurately, most morphemes are monosyllabic.

Vietnamese syntax conforms to the Subject Verb Object word order.

 Tense

Although it is not usually required, past tense is indicated by adding the particle dã, present progressive tense by the particle dang, and future tense is indicated by the particle s?.

 Topic-comment structure

The topic-comment structure is an important sentence type in Vietnamese. Therefore Vietnamese has often been claimed to be a topic-prominent language (Thompson 1991). As an example the sentence "tôi d?c sách này r?i" can be transformed into the following topic prominent equivalent.

Sách này thì tôi d?c r?i.

book this (TOPICMARKER) I read already

I already read this book.

 Plural

Although it is not usually required, the plural may be indicated by particles like nh?ng and các for nouns, and chúng and occasionally các for personal pronouns.

 Classifiers

Vietnamese extensively uses a system of classifiers to indicate word classes of nouns. English classifiers, for example, may be (highlighted in bold) one head of cattle ("head", always singular regardless of number, indicates large livestock), two sticks of dynamite ("stick" indicates something relatively rigid, long and comparatively thin), three strands of hair ("strand" indicates something flexible, long and quite thin), or four bars of gold (a "bar" being similar to a "stick", but comparatively less "thin"). Vietnamese's system and usage of classifiers are similar to Chinese and are more variable than English. They are used more frequently than articles are used in English. Among the most common classifiers are:

* cái : used for most inanimate objects;

* con: usually for animals, but can be used to describe some inanimate objects (con dao = knife, con du?ng = street, con vít = screw)

* bài: used for compositions like songs, drawings, poems, essays, etc.

* cây: used for stick-like objects (plants, guns, canes, etc.)

* chi?c: objects that are worn or moved by people (chairs, cars, ear rings, ships, shirts, shoes)

* tòa: buildings of authority: courts, halls, "ivory towers".

* qu?/trái: used for globular objects (the Earth, fruits)

* quy?n/cu?n: used for book-like objects (books, journals, etc.)

* t?: sheets and other thin objects made of paper (newspapers, papers, calendars, etc.)

* lá: smaller sheets of paper (letters, playing cards)

* vi?c: an event or an ongoing process

The classifier cái has a special role in that it can extend all other classifiers, e.g. cái con, cái chi?c.

 Pronouns

Main article: Vietnamese pronouns

Vietnamese pronouns are more accurately terms of reference. Its concept is different from that in European languages, so its forms of reference do not neatly fall into the grammatical person classifications created by European grammarians. The same word can be used as a first-, second-, or third-person pronoun, depending on the speaker and the audience. For example, to say I love you in Vietnamese, one can use one of many translations:

The most common terms of reference are kinship terms, which might differ slightly in different regions.

When addressing an audience, the speaker must carefully assess the social relationship between him/her and the audience, difference in age, and sex of the audience to choose an appropriate form of address. The following are some kinship terms of address that can be used in the second-person sense (you). They all can also be used in the first-person sense (I), but if they're not marked by (S) the usage is limited to the literal meaning:

* Ông: grandfather, used as a term of respect for a man senior to the speaker and who is late middle age or older

* Bà: grandmother, used as a term of respect for a (usually married) woman senior to the speaker and who is late middle age or older

* Bác: parent's older brother or sister, used to address a man/woman slightly older than one's parents or husband of father's older sister or husband of mother's older sister.

* Cô: father's sister, used to address a younger woman or a woman as old as one's father.

* C?u: mother's younger brother, used to address a younger man or a man as old as one's mother.

* Dì: mother's sister, used to address a younger woman or a woman as old as one's mother.

* Chú: father's younger brother, used to address a younger man or a man slightly younger than one's father or husband of father's younger sister.

* Thím: wife of father's younger brother.

* M?: wife of mother's younger brother.

* Du?ng: husband of mother's sister.

* Anh: older brother, for a slightly older man, or for the man in a romantic relationship. (S)

* Ch?: older sister, for a slightly older woman. (S)

* Em: younger sibling, for a slightly younger person, for the woman in a romantic relationship. (S)

Other pronouns in use for the most part conform to the European idea of grammatical person. Some are even gender-neutral and relationship-neutral:

* Nó: it (also he or she, when referring to a subordinate; perhaps also pejorative)

* Chúng ta: we (including audience)

* Chúng tôi: formal I, we (excluding audience)

* Chúng nó: they (pejorative)

* Mày: you singular (to subordinates, or extremely informal)

Using a person's name to refer to oneself or to address another is considered more personal and informal than using pronouns. It can be found among close friends or children.

 Reduplication

Reduplication (t? láy) is found abundantly in Vietnamese. They are formed by repeating a part of a word to form new words, altering the meaning of the original word. Its effect is to sometimes either increase or decrease the intensity of the adjective, and is often used as a literary device (like alliteration) in poetry and other compositions, as well as in everyday speech.

Examples of reduplication increasing intensity:

* dau ? dau di?ng: hurt ? hurt horribly

* m?nh ? m?nh m?: strong ? very strong

* r?c ? r?c r?: flaring ? blazing

Examples of reduplication decreasing intensity:

* nh? ? nhè nh?: soft ? soft (less)

* xinh ? xinh xinh: pretty ? cute

* d? ? do d?: red ? somewhat red

* xanh ? xanh xanh: blue/green ? somewhat blue/green

Reduplication of this type, indicating diminished intensity, is also present in Mandarin Chinese.

A type of assimilation known as tonal harmony is involved in Vietnamese reduplication.

This section is a stub. You can help by expanding it.

 Ablaut

Vietnamese has the following tonal alternations (or tonal ablaut) which are used grammatically:

Vietnamese also has other instances of alternations, such as consonant mutations and vowel ablaut. Different regional varieties of Vietnamese may have different types of alternations.

 Vocabulary

As a result of a thousand years of Chinese domination, much of Vietnamese vocabulary relating to science and politics are derived from Chinese. As much as 60% of the vocabulary have Chinese roots, although many compound words are Sino-Vietnamese, composed of native Vietnamese words combined with the Chinese borrowings. Reduplication is a regular part of the language that usually denotes intensity. One can usually distinguish between a native Vietnamese word and a Chinese borrowing if it can be reduplicated or its meaning doesn't change when the tone is shifted. As a result of French colonization, Vietnamese also has words borrowed from the French language. Recently many words are borrowed from English, for example TV (pronounced tivi), phông for font. Sometimes these borrowings are calques literally translated into Vietnamese (ph?n m?m for software, lit. soft part).

 Northern, Central and Southern vocabulary

There are some words that are used exclusively in three regions.

Presently, the written language uses the Vietnamese alphabet (qu?c ng? or "national script," literally "national language," from Chinese ?? / guoyu), based on the Latin alphabet. Originally a Romanization of Vietnamese, it was codified in the 17th century by a French Jesuit missionary named Alexandre de Rhodes (1591-1660), based on works of earlier Portuguese missionaries (Gaspar de Amaral and Antoine de Barbosa). The use of the script was gradually extended from its initial domain in Christian writing to become more popular among the general public.

Under French colonial rule, the script became official and required for all public documents in 1910 by issue of a decree by the French Résident Supérieur of the protectorate of Tonkin. By the end of first half 20th century virtually all writings were done in qu?c ng?.

Changes in the script were made by French scholars and administrators and by conferences held after independence during 1954-1974. The script now reflects a so-called 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.

Before French rule, the first two Vietnamese writing systems were based on Chinese script:

* the standard ideographic Chinese character set called ch? nho (scholar's characters, ??): used to write Literary Chinese

* a complicated variant form known as ch? nôm (southern/vernacular characters, ??) with characters not found in the Chinese character set; this system was better adapted to the unique phonetic aspects of Vietnamese which differed from Chinese

The authentic Chinese writing, ch? nho, was in more common usage, whereas ch? nôm was used by members of the educated elite (one needs to be able to read ch? nho in order to read ch? nôm). Both scripts have fallen out of common usage in modern Vietnam, and ch? nôm is near extinct.

 Computer support

The Unicode character set contains all Vietnamese characters and Vietnamese currency symbol. On systems that do not support Unicode, many 8-bit Vietnamese code pages are available such as VISCII or CP1258. Where ASCII must be used, Vietnamese letters are often typed using the VIQR convention, though this is largely unnecessary nowadays, with the increasing ubiquity of Unicode. There are many software tools that help type true Vietnamese text on US keyboards such as WinVNKey, Unikey on Windows, or MacVNKey on Macintosh.