Vietnamese Language Guide

Official language in
Vietnam
Also spoken in
France, Australia, United States
Script
Latin

Where it's spoken

The Constitution of Viet Nam states that the national language is Vietnamese, and that every nationality has the right to use its own language and system of writing. The Law on Education adds that Vietnamese is the official language used in education institutions.

Besides Viet Nam and the wider region, an Illustration of the IPA describes Vietnamese as spoken natively overseas, predominantly in France, Australia and the United States. The same description notes that consonants, vowels, tones and vocabulary vary considerably between Vietnamese dialects, including dialects spoken in areas next to Hanoi, and it describes the modern Hanoi dialect of Northern Vietnamese.

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Script & pronunciation

Vietnamese is written in the modern Vietnamese alphabet, quốc ngữ. The Unicode Standard describes its vowel letters as combined with a diacritical mark that denotes the phonemic tone that applies to the syllable, and it names the marks used for the Vietnamese tones as the grave accent, the hook above, the tilde, the acute accent and the dot below. A vowel letter can carry a vowel mark and a tone mark at the same time, so that a single character is, for example, a capital A with circumflex and hook above.

The Hanoi dialect is described as distinguishing eight tones: six in syllables that are open or end in a sonorant, and two in syllables that end in an unreleased oral stop. Their traditional Vietnamese names are ngang, huyền, sắc, nặng, hỏi and ngã. The earliest systematic account of Vietnamese sounds is described as still reflected in the modern orthography.

Because the mark belongs to the word, leaving it off gives a different word. In this app, Ở đâu? is "Where?" and Đầu is "Head"; the two differ only by the mark over the vowel. The only cards that carry a separate romanization are the place names, where the same name is repeated without its marks, as in Hà Nội and Ha Noi.

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Grammar essentials

Vietnamese is described as having canonical subject–verb–object order.

The word không does different work depending on where it stands. Before the verb it negates: Anh-ấy không đến is glossed "He doesn't come/didn't come." At the end of the clause it asks: Anh.ấy (có) đến không? is glossed "Is he coming?" A yes-no question is made by adding a particle at the end of the clause, and the pattern có ... không has been described as a general question. This app's card Anh/chị có cần túi không ạ? ("Would you like a bag?") sets out the same double duty and notes that Có cần không? is answered with Không cần.

When a noun is counted, Vietnamese nouns fall into three groups: some always require a classifier word with the numeral, some take one only optionally, and some never combine with a classifier at all.

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Politeness & etiquette

Vietnamese has personal pronouns, but in social situations a variety of kinship terms can be used in their place, and these can refer to the speaker, to the person addressed and to a third person alike. Which term is chosen depends on age, gender, social status, intimacy and acquaintance. The terms listed for general use include anh, literally "elder brother", chị, literally "elder sister", and em, literally "younger sibling".

Among the pronouns, tôi is listed as a formal first-person word; this app's card Tôi ("I / me") describes it as neutral and safe to use with anyone, and the card Bạn gives a word for "You". Pronouns are described as capable of causing offence if used incorrectly, especially when a more familiar word is used to someone who is regarded highly.

A politeness marker ạ can be placed at the very end of a sentence, after the question particle, as in the glossed example không ạ? This app's shop cards address the customer with Anh/chị and end with ạ, as in Anh/chị có cần túi không ạ? ("Would you like a bag?").

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