Vietnamese alphabet
The Vietnamese alphabet (quốc ngữ or "national language") is the current writing system for the national language of Vietnam. It is based on the Latin alphabet, with some digraphs and the addition of nine special 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 letter, makes written Vietnamese easily recognizable.
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The letters
The Vietnamese alphabet has the following 37 letters (29 single and 8 digraphs), in collating order:
| A | Ă | Â | B | C | Ch | D | Đ | E | Ê | G | Gi | H | I | K | Kh | L | M | N | Ng | Nh | O | Ô | Ơ | P | Ph | Q | R | S | T | Th | Tr | U | Ư | V | X | Y |
| a | ă | â | b | c | ch | d | đ | e | ê | g | gi | h | i | k | kh | l | m | n | ng | nh | o | ô | ơ | p | ph | q | r | s | t | th | tr | u | ư | v | x | y |
In order to avoid confusion with the "gi" digraph, the letter "g" and the digraph "ng" are written "gh" and "ngh", respectively, when they appear before "i"; and also (for historical reasons) before "e" or "ê". The letters J, W and Z are also used in foreign loan words.
Most of the consonants are pronounced like their European equivalents, with the following clarifications:
- "Ch" is a palatal stop. To western ears, it sounds rather like the ts in "cats".
- "Đ" is used to represent the regular /d/ sound.
- Both "D" and "Gi" are pronounced either /z/ in the Hanoi dialect, or /j/ (English y) in the central and Saigon dialects.
- "Kh" is an aspirated "k".
- "Nh" is a palatal n pronounced like Spanish "ñ" (or, for that matter, Portuguese "nh").
- "Ph" is pronounced /f/. Indeed, there seems to be no justification for the use of "ph" rather than "f" in Vietnamese, as it is not an aspirated "p" (cf. "Kh", "Th").
- "S" is pronounced like English sh, and "X" is pronounced /s/.
- "Th" is an aspirated "t".
- "Tr" is a retroflex "t"; it sounds rather like a French or German "tr".
Vowels
Monophthongs
The correspondence between the orthography and pronunciation is somewhat complicated, where a single letter either represents more than one different monophthongs, or both a monophthong and a diphthong(s), or where different letters represent the same monophthong.
| Orthography | Sound value(s) | Orthography | Sound value(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| a | /ɐː/, /ɐ/, /ɜ/ | o | /ɔ/, /ɐw/, /w/ |
| ă | /ɐ/ | ô | /o/, /ɜw/, /ɜ/ |
| â | /ɜ/ | ơ | /əː/, /ɜ/ |
| e | /ɛ/ | u | /u/, /w/ |
| ê | /e/, /ɜ/ | ư | /ɨ/ |
| i | /i/, /j/ | y | /i/, /j/ |
Below is a matching of Vietnamese vowels and their respective orthographic symbols used in the writing system.
/i/
- usually written as i: /si/ = sĩ 'scholar'.
- sometimes written as y: /mi/ = Mỹ 'America'.
- always written as y if
- preceded by an orthographic vowel: /xwiɜn/ = khuyên 'to advise';
- or at the beginning of a word: /iɜw/ = yêu 'to love'.
- (Note that i and y are also used to write the consonant semivowel /j/.)
/e/
- written as ê.
/ɛ/
- written as e.
/ɨ/
- written as ư.
/əː/
- written as ơ.
/ɜ/
- /ɜ/ occurs as a monophthong and also as the second part of a diphthong.
/ɐː/
- written as a.
/ɐ/
/u/
- written as u.
/o/
- written as ô.
/ɔ/
- written as o.
Diphthongs and triphthongs
| /ɜ/ Diphthong | Orthography | /j/ Di-/Tri-phthong | Orthography | /w/ Di-/Tri-phthong | Orthography |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| /iɜ/ | ia, ya, iê, yê | /əːj/ | ơi | /iw/ | iu |
| /ɨɜ/ | ưa, ươ | /ɜj/ | ây, ê | /ew/ | êu |
| /uɜ/ | ua, uô | /ɐːj/ | ai | /ɛw/ | eo |
| /ɐj/ | ay, a | /əːw/ | ơu | ||
| /ɨj/ | ưi | /ɜw/ | âu, ô | ||
| /uj/ | ui | /ɐːw/ | ao | ||
| /oj/ | ôi | /ɐw/ | au, o | ||
| /ɔj/ | oi | /ɨw/ | ưu | ||
| /ɨɜj/ | ươi | /iɜw/ | iêu, yêu | ||
| /uɜj/ | uôi | /ɨɜw/ | ươu |
/iɜ/
- written as ia in open syllables: /miɜ/ = mía 'sugar cane' (note: open syllables are syllables that end a vowel, closed syllables end in a consonant)
- written as iê before a consonant: /miɜŋ/ = miếng 'morsel'
- the i is written as y at the beginning of words or after an orthographic vowel:
- ya: /xwiɜ/ = khuya 'late at night'
- yê: /xwiɜn/ = khuyên 'to advise'; /iɜn/ = yên 'calm'
/uɜ/
- written as ua in open syllables: /muɜ/ = mua 'to buy'
- written as uô before a consonant: /muɜn/ = muôn 'ten thousand'
/ɨɜ/
- written as ưa in open syllables: /mɨɜ/ = mưa 'to rain'
- written as ươ before consonants: /mɨɜŋ/ = mương 'irrigation canal'
Consonants
Tone markings
Vietnamese is a tonal language, i.e. the meaning of each word depends on the "tone" (basically a specific pitch and glottalization pattern) in which it is pronounced.
There are six distinct tones; the first one ("level tone") is not marked, and the other five are indicated by diacritics applied to the main vowel of the syllable:
| Tone | Marking | Marked vowels | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ngang (Level) | Unmarked | A/a | Ă/ă | Â/â | E/e | Ê/ê | I/i | O/o | Ô/ô | Ơ/ơ | U/u | Ư/ư | Y/y |
| Huyền (Falling) | Grave | À/à | Ằ/ằ | Ầ/ầ | È/è | Ề/ề | Ì/ì | Ò/ò | Ồ/ồ | Ờ/ờ | Ù/ù | Ừ/ừ | Ỳ/ỳ |
| Hỏi (Dipping-rising) | Hook | Ả/ả | Ẳ/ẳ | Ẩ/ẩ | Ẻ/ẻ | Ể/ể | Ỉ/ỉ | Ỏ/ỏ | Ổ/ổ | Ở/ở | Ủ/ủ | Ử/ử | Ỷ/ỷ |
| Ngã (Rising glottalized) | Tilde | Ã/ã | Ẵ/ẵ | Ẫ/ẫ | Ẽ/ẽ | Ễ/ễ | Ĩ/ĩ | Õ/õ | Ỗ/ỗ | Ỡ/ỡ | Ũ/ũ | Ữ/ữ | Ỹ/ỹ |
| Sắc (Rising) | Acute | Á/á | Ắ/ắ | Ấ/ấ | É/é | Ế/ế | Í/í | Ó/ó | Ố/ố | Ớ/ớ | Ú/ú | Ứ/ứ | Ý/ý |
| Nặng (Falling glottalized) | Dot below | Ạ/ạ | Ặ/ặ | Ậ/ậ | Ẹ/ẹ | Ệ/ệ | Ị/ị | Ọ/ọ | Ộ/ộ | Ợ/ợ | Ụ/ụ | Ự/ự | Ỵ/ỵ |
The lowercase letter "i" should retain its dot even when accented. (However, this detail is often lost in computers and on the Internet, due to the obscurity of Vietnamese specialty fonts and limitations of encoding systems.)
In lexical ordering, differences in letters are treated as primary, differences in tone markings as secondary, and differences in case as tertiary differences. 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.
History
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 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.
As early as 1527, Portuguese Christian missionaries in Vietnam began using the Latin alphabet to transcribe the Vietnamese language for teaching and evangelization purposes. These informal efforts led eventually to the development of the present Vietnamese alphabet, largely by the work of French Jesuit Alexandre de Rhodes, who worked in the country between 1624 and 1644. Building on previous Portuguese-Vietnamese dictionaries by Gaspar D'Amaral and Duarte da Costa, Rhodes wrote a Vietnamese-Portuguese-Latin dictionary, which was printed in Rome in 1651, using his spelling system.
In spite of this development, chữ nôm and chữ nho remained in use until the early 20th century, when the French colonial administration made Rhodes's alphabet official. By the late 20th century, quốc ngữ was universally used to write Vietnamese, such that literacy in the previous Chinese character-based writing systems for Vietnamese is now limited to a small number of scholars and specialists.
Because the period of education necessary to gain initial literacy is considerably less for the largely phonetic Latin-based script compared to the several years necessary to master the full range of Chinese characters, the adoption of the Vietnamese alphabet also facilitated widespread literacy among Vietnamese speakers—in fact, whereas a majority of Vietnamese in Vietnam could not read or write prior to the 20th century, the population is now almost universally literate.
Vietnamese fonts and encodings
The universal character set Unicode does not have a separate segment for the Vietnamese alphabet; the required characters are scattered throughout the Basic Latin, Latin-1 Supplement, Latin Extended-A, Latin Extended-B, and Latin Extended Additional segments. 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 Unicode.
See also
- VIQR, a standard 7-bit writing convention of the Vietnamese alphabet.
- VISCII, a standard 8-bit encoding of the Vietnamese alphabet.
- Vietnamese language
- Vietnamese phonology
External link
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. Dân Việt-Nam, 3, 61-68.
- Nguyen, Đang Liêm. (1970). Vietnamese pronunciation. PALI language texts: Southeast Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0-8702-2462-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 0-4159-6762-7.
- 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).