Vietnamese language

Vietnamese, or tiếng Việt, is the official language of Vietnam and belongs to the Vietic subgroup of the Austroasiatic language family. It is spoken by around 86 million people as their native language and by 11 million more as a second language. This makes it the most widely spoken language in the Austroasiatic family.

Like many languages in Southeast Asia and East Asia, Vietnamese is a tonal and isolating language, meaning it uses sound tones to change meaning and has a simple structure without complex word endings. It follows a strict subject–verb–object order and uses noun classifiers to group objects.

Vietnamese words are often one syllable, but many everyday words are made by combining syllables together. The language includes many words borrowed from Middle Chinese, known as Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary, and has also been influenced by French.

Today, Vietnamese is written using a Latin-based alphabet called chữ Quốc ngữ. This writing system was adopted in the early 20th century during French rule of Vietnam and uses special symbols to show tones and certain sounds. Before this, Vietnamese was written using chữ Nôm, a special script that mixed Chinese characters with locally created symbols.

Classification

Early studies of language in the late 1800s and early 1900s found that Vietnamese belongs to the Mon–Khmer branch of the Austroasiatic language family. This family also includes the Khmer language spoken in Cambodia, as well as many smaller languages in places like Laos, southern China, and parts of Thailand. Later research showed that Vietnamese is especially closely related to the Mường language. Today, experts use the term "Vietic" to describe this group of related languages.

History

The Austroasiatic language family is thought to have spread around 2000 BC. The arrival of the Phùng Nguyên culture in the Red River Delta around that time may be linked to the Vietic branch of the language family.

This early Vietic language looked very different from Vietnamese today. It had unique features like sesquisyllabic roots (a small syllable followed by a full syllable) and many consonant clusters. It did not use tones but had special sounds like glottal stops and voiceless fricatives at the end of words.

Later, Vietnamese began borrowing words from Tai languages and then from Chinese, especially after contact with the Han dynasty in the 2nd century BC. This contact influenced the language as Vietic groups moved south from the Red River Delta into nearby areas, possibly to avoid Chinese control. Over time, Vietnamese became part of the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area, where languages developed similar features like isolating morphology and syllable structures. Many languages in this area, including Vietnamese, developed tones as a new feature.

After separating from the Muong language around the end of the first millennium AD, Vietnamese went through several stages. Ancient Vietnamese, from around the year 1500, showed changes like the loss of sound distinctions and the development of new sounds. Middle Vietnamese, from the 16th to 19th centuries, is known from old dictionaries. Modern Vietnamese began in the 19th century and was influenced by Chinese and later French, adding many new words to the language.

Geographic distribution

Because many people from Vietnam moved to other places, Vietnamese is spoken in many parts of the world. You can hear it in Southeast Asia, East Asia, North America, Europe, and Australia. It is also an official minority language in the Czech Republic.

Vietnamese is the main language of Vietnam. It is also spoken by people living on three islands near Dongxing in China. Many Vietnamese speakers live in nearby countries like Cambodia and Laos.

See also: Vietnamese language in the United States

In the United States, Vietnamese is one of the most commonly spoken languages. Over 1.5 million people speak it, mainly in states like Texas and California. In Australia, it is the third most spoken language after English. In France, it is the most spoken Asian language among people at home.

Official status

Vietnamese is the official language of Vietnam. It is the first language for most people there and also used by many different groups.

In the Czech Republic, Vietnamese is recognized as a minority language. This means the Vietnamese community there has a representative to help with policies for different groups. They can also use Vietnamese when dealing with public services and courts. Vietnamese also became a recognized minority language in Slovakia in 2023.

In San Francisco in the United States, Vietnamese services started in 2024.

As a foreign language

Vietnamese is taught in schools outside of Vietnam, especially where Vietnamese communities live. This helps connect younger generations to their heritage. In places near Vietnam, like parts of China, Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand, learning Vietnamese is often for trade and business reasons.

Since the 1980s, Vietnamese language schools have opened in many countries, including the United States, Germany, and France.

Phonology

Main article: Vietnamese phonology

Vietnamese has many different sounds, called vowels, that can be used in words. Some vowels are pronounced with rounded lips, while others are not. Some vowels are also very short compared to others.

Vietnamese words can also have different tones, which change the way a word sounds and its meaning. These tones are shown with special marks above or below the vowels.

Grammar

Main articles: Vietnamese grammar and Vietnamese morphology

Vietnamese is a simple language that does not use special word endings to show things like time or who something belongs to. Sentences in Vietnamese usually follow the order of "who" then "what" then "doing," such as "I see the dog."

Here are a few examples of Vietnamese sentences and what they mean:

• "Minh is a teacher."
• "Trí is 13 years old."
• "Mai seems to be a college or high school student."
• "Tài is talking."
• "Giáp is very tall."
• "That person is his/her brother."
• "This dog never barks at all."
• "He/she/it only eats Vietnamese rice (or food)."
• "I like the black horse."
• "I like that black horse."
• "Please stay here for a few minutes until I return."

Lexicon

Austroasiatic origins

Many early studies tried to figure out where the Vietnamese language came from, thinking it might be related to Kra-Dai, Sino-Tibetan, or Austroasiatic languages. Today, Austroasiatic origins seem the most likely, with some of the oldest words in Vietnamese coming from this family. Vietnamese shares many words with the Mường languages, which are closely related.

Other words, like nước non (meaning "country" or "nation"), seem to be purely Vietnamese and were once written in special characters called chữ Nôm but are now written using the Vietnamese alphabet.

Chinese contact

Even though Vietnamese roots are Austroasiatic, contact with Chinese greatly shaped the language, causing it to change around the 10th to 11th century and become Modern Vietnamese. For example, the Vietnamese word quản lý (meaning "management" or "manage") likely comes from a Chinese word. Chinese influence happened during times like the Nam Việt period and other periods of influence. Besides English and French, Japanese also added some words to Vietnamese.

Modern Vietnamese has lost many old features due to Chinese influence, which happened during times when Vietnam was under Chinese rule and after it became independent. Early thinkers thought there were only two waves of Chinese words entering Vietnamese, but newer studies show there were three major groups of Chinese borrowings.

French era

Vietnam became a French colony in 1883, which brought many French words into Vietnamese. For example, cà phê (coffee) comes from the French café. Yogurt is sữa chua, and cheese is phô mai, both from French words. Other examples include nốt nhạc (musical note) from French note de musique, vô lăng (steering wheel) from French volant directionnel, and cà vạt (necktie) from French cravate.

English

Some English words have been borrowed into Vietnamese, like "TV" becoming "tivi" or just TV, though it is officially called truyền hình. Some words are translated, such as "software" becoming phần mềm (meaning "soft part"). Some scientific terms come from old Chinese characters, while others stay the same.

Japanese

Japanese loanwords are a newer area of study, with three waves of influence. The first wave included words created in Japanese to represent Western ideas not found in Chinese or Japanese, which later entered Vietnamese. The second wave happened during Japan's brief occupation of Vietnam from 1940 to 1945, but Japanese influence grew more in the 1980s. This newer wave included words like kimono, sumo, samurai, and bonsai. Sometimes, the same idea can be expressed using words from both the first and second waves, like judo and nhu đạo.

Modern Chinese influence

Some words, like lạp xưởng (Chinese sausage), keep Cantonese pronunciations and were brought by southern Chinese migrants. New terms from Chinese are usually based on Mandarin pronunciation. In southern Vietnam, the term xí ngầu can refer to dice, possibly from a Cantonese or Teochew idiom.

Slang

Vietnamese slang (tiếng lóng) has changed over time. It includes words from Vietnamese and words borrowed from other languages like Mandarin or Indo-European languages. While slang from Mandarin makes up only a small part (around 4.6%), slang from Indo-European languages is more common today, making up about 12%.

With the growth of the Internet, new slang has emerged and spread through social media. This modern slang is mostly used by younger people in Vietnam and is often based on wordplay or words that sound the same. Some of these words can be rude or just fun tricks with language.

Older generations sometimes struggle to understand the slang used by today’s teens. Some people worry that using too much teen slang might make young people’s regular speech less formal. Others think the real issue is not the slang itself, but how people communicate quickly online. They believe it’s important to teach young people when it’s okay to use slang and when it’s not appropriate.

Writing systems

Main articles: History of writing in Vietnam and Vietnamese Braille

After Vietnam ended a long period of rule by China in the year 939, the Vietnamese began using a writing system called Literary Chinese for important documents and books. Until the late 1800s, almost all official writing used Chinese characters. Today, Vietnam mainly uses the chữ Quốc ngữ script, which is based on the Latin alphabet. But some older writing styles, like chữ Hán (Chinese characters) and chữ Nôm, are still seen in special activities like art.

Chữ Nôm

Main article: Chữ Nôm

Starting around the 1200s, Vietnamese writers created a special script called chữ Nôm to write their own stories and poems. They used Chinese characters in new ways and made up new symbols to show Vietnamese words. This script was used by famous poets like Nguyễn Du and Hồ Xuân Hương during the 1700s and 1800s. It was rarely used for official work, only during a few short periods in history.

Vietnamese alphabet

Main article: Vietnamese alphabet

In the 1600s, a priest named Alexandre de Rhodes created a way to write Vietnamese using the Latin alphabet, with some extra letters and marks to show different sounds. This became known as chữ Quốc ngữ. At first, it was mostly used in religious writing, but it became more popular over time. By the early 1900s, it was used in schools and government work. Today, it is the main way Vietnamese is written.

Computer support

Modern computers can show all Vietnamese letters using Unicode. On older systems, special codes like VSCII or Windows-1258 were used. Today, most computers and phones support Vietnamese well, and there are tools to help type Vietnamese easily on any keyboard.

Dates and numbers writing formats

In Vietnamese, dates are written as "[day] [month] [year]". For example, September 2, 2025, is written as "Ngày hai Tháng chín Năm hai nghìn không trăm hai mươi lăm" in full, or "2 September 2025" in short form. Vietnamese people often use a comma instead of a dot for decimals, like writing "1 629,15" for one thousand six hundred twenty-nine point one five.

Literature

Main article: Vietnamese literature

The Tale of Kiều is a famous long poem written by the poet Nguyễn Du. It is one of the most important works in Vietnamese literature. The poem was first written in an old writing style called chữ Nôm and is still studied in schools today.

Language variation

The Nguồn language is seen by the Vietnamese government as a dialect of Vietnamese, but some think it is its own language or part of the Mường language. Vietnamese has several regional types that people can usually understand each other despite small differences.

Vietnamese is often split into three main areas: North (45%), Central (10%), and South (45%). Some experts also find a special North-Central type. These areas mainly differ in how sounds are made and in some words used. The North-Central area keeps older sound features that other areas have lost. People from different areas sometimes find each other hard to understand because of word choices. The Southern area has less change because it was settled later. Mountain areas keep more differences than coastal areas.

Since the mid-20th century, many people have moved between North and South, mixing accents. After 1954, many people from the North moved south, and after 1975, more moved for jobs. This movement has helped people from different areas understand each other better. Most Southerners use the Northern accent when singing or speaking publicly.

Modern Standard Vietnamese is based on the Hanoi dialect, but each area keeps its own way of speaking. Historically, each area pronounces certain letters differently. The Central and Southern dialects keep sounds closer to old Vietnamese than the Northern dialect.

Vocabulary

Most words from different areas can be used together and understood, even if some are used more often than others. Some accents mix words in new ways.

Consonants

The sounds ch and tr are said differently in North-Central, Central, and Southern types but are said the same in Northern types. Many North-Central types keep three sounds for d, gi, and r, but Northern types mix them, and Central and Southern types mix d and gi but keep r separate. At the end of words, some sounds have mixed in Central and Southern types.

In some rural Northern types, the sounds l and n mix. Even in standard Vietnamese, you can find this mix. For example, the number "five" is năm alone but lăm in mười lăm "fifteen". In some Northern types, it even starts with nh: hai mươi nhăm "twenty-five".

There is also a mix of r and g in some rural Southern types.

Old consonant clusters from Middle Vietnamese have mostly disappeared, but some communities keep them. For example, "sky" is blời in Hảo Nho but trời in Southern Vietnamese and giời in Hanoi Vietnamese.

Tones

Vietnamese has six tones, with differences in how high or low the pitch is and other voice types between dialects.

The table shows the pitch of each tone using Chao tone number notation, where 1 is the lowest pitch and 5 the highest. It also shows special voice types, glottal stops, and sub-dialect differences. (See also the tone section below.)

Word play

In Vietnamese, there are fun games with words that people enjoy playing. One simple game uses two-syllable words where the last part of one word becomes the start of the next word. Two players take turns, and the goal is to keep the chain going until someone can’t think of the next word.

There is also a language game called nói lái. In this game, players change the sounds or tones of words, sometimes switching parts of the words. This can make the words mean something new, sound funny, or even hide a secret message. Kids also play a game similar to pig latin, where they add a silly sound to a word and switch parts of it. This helps them talk in a “secret” way that adults might not understand.

Sample text

Here is the first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights written in Vietnamese:

Mọi con người sinh ra đều tự do và bình đẳng về nhân phẩm và quyền lợi. Họ được tạo hóa ban cho lý trí và lương tâm và phải đối xử với nhau với tinh thần huynh đệ.

The same sentence is shown using a special way to write sounds called the International Phonetic Alphabet:

[moj˧˩ˀ kɔn˧ ŋɯə̯j˨˩ sɪŋ̟˧ za˧ ɗew˨˩ tɯ˧˩ˀ ɗɔ˧ va˨˩ ɓɪŋ̟˨˩ ɗɐŋ˧˩˧ ve˨˩ ɲʌn˧ fʌm˧˩˧ va˨˩ kwiə̯n˨˩ ləj˧˩ˀ ‖ hɔ˧˩ˀ ɗɯə̯k˧˩ˀ taw˧˩ˀ hwa˧˥ ɓan˧ t͡ɕɔ˧ li˧˥ t͡ɕi˧˥ va˨˩ lɯə̯ŋ˧ tʌm˧ va˨˩ faj˧˩˧ ɗoj˧ sɯ˧˩˧ vəj˧˥ ɲaw˧ vəj˧˥ tɪŋ̟˧ tʰan˨˩ hwɪŋ̟˧ ɗe˧˩ˀ]

In English, it means:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.