Vietnamese alphabet

The Vietnamese alphabet (Vietnamese: chữ Quốc ngữ; literally "national language script") is the modern writing system for the Vietnamese language. It uses the Latin script, based on its employment in the alphabets of Romance languages,^[3] in particular the Portuguese alphabet,^[1] with some digraphs and the addition of nine accent marks or diacritics – four of them to create additional sounds, and the other five to indicate the tone of each word. The many diacritics, often two on the same vowel, make written Vietnamese easily recognizable.^[4]

Letter names and pronunciation

There are 29 letters in the Vietnamese alphabet.

Note:

• Naming b bê bò and p pê phở is to avoid confusion in some dialects or some contexts, the same for s sờ mạnh (nặng) and x xờ nhẹ, i i ngắn and y y dài.
• Q, q is always followed by u in every word and phrase in Vietnamese, e.g. quần (trousers), quyến rũ (to attract), etc.
• The name i-cờ-rét for y is from the French name for the letter: i grec (Greek I),^[5] referring to the letter's origin from the Greek letter upsilon.

Consonants

The alphabet is largely derived from the Portuguese, although the usage of gh and gi was borrowed from Italian (compare ghetto, Giuseppe), and that for c/k/qu from Greek and Latin (compare canis, kinesis, quō vādis), basically paralleling the English usage of these letters (compare cat, kite, queen).

Consonants

Grapheme	Word-Initial (IPA)		Word-Final		Notes
	Northern	Southern	Northern	Southern
B b	/ɓ/
C c	/k/		/k/		⟨k⟩ is used when preceding ⟨i y e ê⟩. ⟨qu⟩ is used instead of ⟨co cu⟩ if a /w/ on-glide exists. Realized as [k͡p] in word-final position following rounded vowels ⟨u ô o⟩.
Ch ch	/c/		/ʲk/	/t/	Multiple phonemic analyses of final ⟨ch⟩ have been proposed (main article).
D d	/z/	/j/			In Middle Vietnamese, ⟨d⟩ represented /ð/. Many modern dialects merge ⟨d⟩ and ⟨gi⟩, but ⟨d⟩ is pronounced /j/ in dialects that distinguish them.
Đ đ	/ɗ/
G g	/ɣ/
Gh gh					Spelling used ⟨gh⟩ instead of ⟨g⟩ before ⟨i e ê⟩, seemingly to follow the Italian convention. ⟨g⟩ is not allowed in these environments.
Gi gi	/z/	/j/			In Middle Vietnamese, ⟨gi⟩ represented /ʝ/. Many modern dialects merge ⟨d⟩ and ⟨gi⟩, but ⟨gi⟩ is pronounced /z/ in dialects that distinguish them. Spelled ⟨g⟩ before another ⟨i⟩.[lower-alpha 1]
H h	/h/
K k	/k/				Spelling used instead of ⟨c⟩ before ⟨i y e ê⟩ to follow the European tradition. ⟨c⟩ is not allowed in these environments.
Kh kh	/x/				In Middle Vietnamese, ⟨kh⟩ was pronounced [kʰ]
L l	/l/
M m	/m/		/m/
N n	/n/		/n/	/ŋ/	In Southern Vietnamese, word-final ⟨n⟩ is realized as [ŋ] if not following ⟨i ê⟩.
Ng ng	/ŋ/		/ŋ/		Realized as [ŋ͡m] in word-final position following rounded vowels ⟨u ô o⟩.
Ngh ngh					Spelling used instead of ⟨ng⟩ before ⟨i e ê⟩ in accordance with ⟨gh⟩.
Nh nh	/ɲ/		/ʲŋ/	/n/	Multiple phonemic analyses of final ⟨nh⟩ have been proposed (main article).
P p			/p/		Only occurs initially in loanwords. Even so, not many Vietnamese can convincingly pronounce a "p" sound, and often resulting in a "b" sound instead.
Ph ph	/f/				In Middle Vietnamese, ⟨ph⟩ was pronounced [pʰ]
Qu qu	/kʷ/				Spelling used in place of ⟨co cu⟩ if a /w/ on-glide exists.
R r	/z/	/ʐ/			Is sometimes pronounced as /ɹ/ or /r/ in Southern speech.
S s	/s/	/ʂ/
T t	/t/		/t/	/k/	In Southern Vietnamese, word-final ⟨t⟩ is realized as [k] if not following ⟨i ê⟩.
Th th	/tʰ/
Tr tr	/c/	/ʈ/
V v	/v/	/j/			In Middle Vietnamese, it was represented by a b with flourish ⟨⟩ and was pronounced [β]. Can be realized as [v] in Southern speech through spelling pronunciation and in loanwords.
X x	/s/				In Middle Vietnamese, ⟨x⟩ was pronounced [ɕ].

Vowels

Tone marks

Vietnamese is a tonal language, i.e., the meaning of each word depends on the "tone" (basically a specific tone and glottalization pattern) in which it is pronounced. There are six distinct tones in the standard northern dialect. In the south, there is a merging of the hỏi and ngã tones, in effect leaving five basic tones. The first one ("level tone") is not marked, and the other five are indicated by diacritics applied to the vowel part of the syllable. The tone names are chosen such that the name of each tone is spoken in the tone it identifies.

• Unmarked vowels are pronounced with a level voice, in the middle of the speaking range.
• The grave accent indicates that the speaker should start somewhat low and drop slightly in tone, with the voice becoming increasingly breathy.
• The hook indicates in Northern Vietnamese that the speaker should start in the middle range and fall, but in Southern Vietnamese that the speaker should start somewhat low and fall, then rise (as when asking a question in English).
• In the North, a tilde indicates that the speaker should start mid, break off (with a glottal stop), then start again and rise like a question in tone. In the South, it is realized identically to the Hỏi tone.
• The acute accent indicates that the speaker should start mid and rise sharply in tone.
• The dot signifies in Northern Vietnamese that the speaker starts low and fall lower in tone, with the voice becoming increasingly creaky and ending in a glottal stop, but in Southern Vietnamese speakers starts low and rise mid in tone.

In syllables where the vowel part consists of more than one vowel (such as diphthongs and triphthongs), the placement of the tone is still a matter of debate. Generally, there are two methodologies, an "old style" and a "new style". While the "old style" emphasizes aesthetics by placing the tone mark as close as possible to the center of the word (by placing the tone mark on the last vowel if an ending consonant part exists and on the next-to-last vowel if the ending consonant doesn't exist, as in hóa, hủy), the "new style" emphasizes linguistic principles and tries to apply the tone mark on the main vowel (as in hoá, huỷ). In both styles, when one vowel already has a quality diacritic on it, the tone mark must be applied to it as well, regardless of where it appears in the syllable (thus thuế is acceptable while thúê is not). In the case of the ươ diphthong, the mark is placed on the ơ. The u in qu is considered part of the consonant. Currently, the new style is usually used in textbooks published by Nhà Xuất bản Giáo dục, while most people still prefer the old style in casual uses. Among Overseas Vietnamese communities, the old style is predominant for all purposes.

In lexical ordering, differences in letters are treated as primary, differences in tone markings as secondary, and differences in case as tertiary differences. (Letters include for instance A and Ă but not Ẳ. Older dictionaries also treated digraphs and trigraphs like CH and NGH as base letters.^[6]) Ordering according to primary and secondary differences proceeds syllable by syllable. According to this principle, a dictionary lists tuân thủ before tuần chay because the secondary difference in the first syllable takes precedence over the primary difference in the second.

Structure

As a result of influence from the Chinese writing system, each syllable in Vietnamese is written separately as if it were a word. In the past, syllables in multisyllabic words were concatenated with hyphens, but this practice has died out, and hyphenation is now reserved for foreign borrowings. A written syllable consists of at most three parts, in the following order from left to right:

1. An optional beginning consonant part
2. A required vowel syllable nucleus and the tone mark, if needed, applied above or below it
3. An ending consonant part, can only be one of the following: c, ch, m, n, ng, nh, p, t, or nothing.

History

A page from Alexandre de Rhodes' 1651 dictionary

The Vietnamese language was first written down, from the 13th century onwards, using variant Chinese characters (chữ Nôm 字喃), each of them representing one word. The system was based on the script used for writing classical Chinese (chữ nho), but it was supplemented with characters developed in Vietnam (chữ thuần nôm, proper Nom characters) to represent native Vietnamese words.

As early as 1520, Portuguese and Italian Jesuit missionaries in Vietnam began using Latin script to transcribe the Vietnamese language as an assistance for learning the language. These efforts led eventually to the development of the present Vietnamese alphabet, started by Portuguese missionary Francisco de Pina.^[1] His work was continued by the Avignon missionary Alexandre de Rhodes, who worked in the country between 1624 and 1644. Building on previous dictionaries by Gaspar do Amaral and António Barbosa, Rhodes wrote the Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum, a Vietnamese–Portuguese–Latin dictionary, which was later printed in Rome in 1651, using their spelling system.^[1]

Later on, under French rule in the late 19th century, some missionaries saw the Confucian literati as the main obstacle to Catholic conversion in Vietnam, hence the elimination of the Chinese language was also regarded as a means for isolating Vietnam from its heritage, and instrumental in neutralizing its traditional elite.^[7] Historian Pamela A. Pears asserted that the French, by instituting the Roman alphabet in Vietnam, cut the Vietnamese off from their traditional literature, rendering them unable to read it.^[8] However, it was the French authority that had to reluctantly accept the use of chữ Quốc ngữ to write Vietnamese.^[9]

The French colonial education system was based in the east of Indochina,^[10] and in that context the Tonkin Free School flourished fleetingly, set up by nationalists in 1907, and adopted the alphabetic script. By 1917, the Confucian examination system was suppressed, so convincing the Vietnamese elites of the need to educate their offspring in the French language education system.^[11] That, however, did not satisfy the ruling French, who demanded exclusive educational establishments.^[12] The colonial regime then came up with the idea of setting up an educational system for natives with quoc ngu Vietnamese as first language in primary school, but French as second language, via quoc ngu. Hundred of thousands of text books for primary education began to be published in quoc ngu, with the result of unintentionally turning the script into the popular medium for the expression of Vietnamese culture. By the late 1930s, approximately 10% of the population was literate, a huge increase over several decades before.^[12]

Despite conflicts over the meaning of Vietnamese nationalism during the Vietnam War, as both sides sought to define themselves as the true national government, neither side attempted to promote a new and separate writing system or revert to Chinese characters.

Prior to the advent of 21st-century computer-assisted typesetting methods, the act of typesetting and printing Vietnamese had been described as a "nightmare" due to the number of accents and diacritics.^[13][14][15] Though the characters "f", "j", "w", "z" are not in the Vietnamese alphabet, the Vietnamese people get used to pronouncing the words that come from foreign more correctly with English accent or with ruby characters.

Sino-Vietnamese and quốc ngữ

Writing Sino-Vietnamese words with quốc ngữ caused some confusion about the origins of some terms, due to the large number of homophones in Chinese and Sino-Vietnamese. For example, both 明 (bright) and 冥 (dark) are read as minh, which therefore has two opposite meanings (although the meaning of "dark" is now esoteric and is used in only a few compound words). Perhaps for this reason, the Vietnamese name for Pluto is not Minh Vương Tinh (冥王星 – lit. underworld king star) as in other East Asian languages, but is Diêm Vương Tinh (閻王星), named after the Buddhist deity Yama. During the Hồ Dynasty, Vietnam was officially known as Đại Ngu (大虞 – Great Yu). Most modern Vietnamese know ngu as "stupid" (愚); consequently, some misinterpret it as "Big Idiot". In this case, Ngu means peace and joy. However, the homograph/homophone problem is not as serious as it may seem, because although many Sino-Vietnamese words have multiple meanings when written with quốc ngữ, usually only one has widespread usage, while the others are relegated to obscurity. Furthermore, Sino-Vietnamese words are usually not used alone, but in compound words; thus, the meaning of the compound word is preserved even if individually each has multiple meanings. Most importantly, since quốc ngữ is an exact phonemic transcription of the spoken language, its understandability is as high or higher than a normal conversation.

Computer support

The universal character set Unicode has full support for the Vietnamese writing system, although it does not have a separate segment for it. The required characters that other languages use are scattered throughout the Basic Latin, Latin-1 Supplement, Latin Extended-A, and Latin Extended-B blocks; those that remain (such as the letters with more than one diacritic) are placed in the Latin Extended Additional block. An ASCII-based writing convention, Vietnamese Quoted Readable, and several byte-based encodings including TCVN3, VNI, and VISCII were widely used before Unicode became popular. Most new documents now exclusively use the Unicode format UTF-8.

Unicode allows the user to choose between precomposed characters and combining characters in inputting Vietnamese. Because, in the past, some fonts implemented combining characters in a nonstandard way (see Verdana font), most people use precomposed characters when composing Vietnamese-language documents (except on Windows where Windows-1258 used combining characters).

Most keyboards used by Vietnamese-language users do not support direct input of diacritics by default. Various free software such as Unikey that act as keyboard drivers exist. They support the most popular input methods, including Telex, VNI, VIQR and its variants.

See also

• Ă, Â, Đ, Ê, Ô, Ơ, Ư
• Chữ Nôm, formerly the script used to write the Vietnamese language.
• Dot (diacritic)
• Hook above
• Horn (diacritic)
• VIQR, a standard 7-bit writing convention of the Vietnamese alphabet.
• VISCII, a standard 8-bit encoding of the Vietnamese alphabet.
• Vietnamese Braille
• Vietnamese calligraphy
• Vietnamese phonology

Bibliography

• Gregerson, Kenneth J. (1969). A study of Middle Vietnamese phonology. Bulletin de la Société des Etudes Indochinoises, 44, 135-193. (Published version of the author's MA thesis, University of Washington). (Reprinted 1981, Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics).
• Haudricourt, André-Georges (1949). "Origine des particularités de l'alphabet vietnamien (English translation as: The origin of the peculiarities of the Vietnamese alphabet)" (PDF). Dân Việt-Nam. 3: 61–68.
• Healy, Dana.(2003). Teach Yourself Vietnamese, Hodder Education, London.
• Nguyen, Đang Liêm. (1970). Vietnamese pronunciation. PALI language texts: Southeast Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0-87022-462-X
• Nguyễn, Đình-Hoà. (1955). Quốc-ngữ: The modern writing system in Vietnam. Washington, D. C.: Author.
• Nguyễn, Đình-Hoà (1992). "Vietnamese phonology and graphemic borrowings from Chinese: The Book of 3,000 Characters revisited". Mon-Khmer Studies. 20: 163–182.
• Nguyễn, Đình-Hoà. (1996). Vietnamese. In P. T. Daniels, & W. Bright (Eds.), The world's writing systems, (pp. 691–699). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-507993-0.
• Nguyễn, Đình-Hoà. (1997). Vietnamese: Tiếng Việt không son phấn. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISBN 1-55619-733-0.
• Pham, Andrea Hoa. (2003). Vietnamese tone: A new analysis. Outstanding dissertations in linguistics. New York: Routledge. (Published version of author's 2001 PhD dissertation, University of Florida: Hoa, Pham. Vietnamese tone: Tone is not pitch). ISBN 0-415-96762-7.
• Sassoon, Rosemary (1995). The Acquisition of a Second Writing System (illustrated, reprint ed.). Intellect Books. ISBN 1871516439. Retrieved 24 April 2014.
• Thompson, Laurence E. (1991). A Vietnamese reference grammar. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0-8248-1117-8. (Original work published 1965).
• Wellisch, Hans H. (1978). The conversion of scripts, its nature, history, and utilization. Information sciences series (illustrated ed.). Wiley. ISBN 0471016209. Retrieved 24 April 2014.
• Language Monthly, Issues 40-57. Praetorius. 1987. Retrieved 24 April 2014.

Further reading

• Nguyen, A. M. (2006). Let's learn the Vietnamese alphabet. Las Vegas: Viet Baby. ISBN 0-9776482-0-6
• Shih, Virginia Jing-yi. Quoc Ngu Revolution: A Weapon of Nationalism in Vietnam. 1991.

References

External links

• Media related to Vietnamese writing at Wikimedia Commons
• Vietnamese Unicode FAQs