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Vietnamese (tiếng Việt, or less commonly Việt ngữ), formerly known under the French colonization as Annamese (see Annam), is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of Vietnamese people (người Việt or người Kinh), who constitute 86% of Vietnam's population, and of about three million overseas Vietnamese, the bulk of whom are Vietnamese Americans. It is also spoken as a second language by some ethnic minorities of Vietnam. It is part of the Austroasiatic language family, of which it has the most speakers by a significant margin (several times larger than the other Austroasiatic languages put together). Much vocabulary has been borrowed from Chinese, and it was originally written using the Chinese writing system. The Vietnamese writing system in use today is an adapted version of the Latin alphabet, with additional diacritics for tones and certain letters.
Classification Vietnamese is generally said 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. However, this is debated; some linguists believe that Viet-Muong is a separate family, geneologically 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 that can also be found in Korean. 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 Indic and Malayo-Polynesian languages at first, until Chinese came to predominate politically toward the middle of the first millennium 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 Việt (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 Chữ 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 Chữ Nôm, most notably Nguyễn Du and Hồ Xuân Hương (dubbed "the Queen of Nôm poetry"). As contact with the West grew, the '''''Quốc Ngữ''''' 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 đầm (dame, from madame), ga (train station, from gare), and va-li (valise). 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
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 chữ 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 businesses. Dialects There are various mutually intelligible spoken dialects, the main three being: These dialects differ slightly in tone, pronunciation, and sometimes vocabulary, although the Huế dialect is more markedly different from the others due to its local vocabulary. The hỏi 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 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 ă are pronounced very short, much shorter than the other vowels. Therefore, ơ and â are basically pronounced the same except that ơ is long while â is short — the same applies to the low vowels a (long) and ă (short). Outside Hanoi, u, ô, o may be back rounded , while ư, ơ, â, a are back unrounded , and i, ê, e, ă are front unrounded . 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 , while tay "hand/arm" is . In addition to single vowels (or monophthongs), Vietnamese has diphthongs (âm đôi). Three diphthongs consist of a vowel plus â. These are iâ (spelled ia or iê), uâ (spelled ua or uô), and ưâ (spelled ưa or ươ). 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, ưâ ) resulting in triphthongs. Tones Vietnamese vowels are all pronounced with an inherent tone (thanh or thanh điệu). Tones differ in: Tone is indicated by diacritics written above or below the vowel (most of the tone diacritics appear above the vowel, however, the nặng tone dot diacritic goes below the vowel). The six tones in the northern varieties (including Hanoi) are: Consonants The consonants (phụ 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"). 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. Simplified pronunciation guide for Vietnamese consonants at the beginning of syllables Sounds are pronounced as in English except for the following: 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 đã, present progressive tense by the particle đang, and future tense is indicated by the particle sẽ. 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 đọc sách này rồi" can be transformed into the following topic prominent equivalent. Sách này thì tôi đọc rồi. 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 những, các, chúng. 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: used for most inanimate objects; 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. For example, 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: Other pronouns in use for the most part conform to the European idea of grammatical person. Some are even gender-neutral and relationship-neutral: 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 (từ 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: Examples of reduplication decreasing intensity: 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. Ablaut Vietnamese has the following tonal alternations (or tonal ablaut) which are used grammatically: (Nguyễn 1997:42-44) 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 (phần mềm for software, lit. soft part). Northern, Central and Southern vocabulary There are some words that are used exclusively in three regions. Writing system Presently, the written language uses the Vietnamese alphabet (quốc ngữ or "national script," literally "national language," from Chinese 國語 / 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 quốc ngữ. 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 which has vowels and final consonants most similar to northern dialects and initial consonants most similar to southern dialects. (Nguyễn 1996). This Middle Vietnamese is presumably close to the Hanoi variety as spoken sometime after 1600 but before the present. Prior to French rule, the first two Vietnamese writing systems were based on Chinese script: The authentic Chinese writing, chữ nho, was in more common usage, whereas chữ nôm was used by members of the educated elite (one needs to be able to read chữ nho in order to read chữ nôm). Both scripts have fallen out of common usage in modern Vietnam, and chữ 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. Examples This text is from the first six lines of Truyện Kiều, a poem by the celebrated poet Nguyễn Du, 阮攸 (1765-1820), often considered the most significant work of Vietnamese literature. It was originally written in Nôm (titled Đoạn Trường Tân Thanh 斷腸新聲), and is widely taught in Vietnam today. Trăm năm trong cõi người ta, Chữ tài chữ mệnh khéo là ghét nhau. Trải qua một cuộc bể dâu, Những điều trông thấy mà đau đớn lòng. Lạ gì bỉ sắc tư phong, Trời xanh quen thói má hồng đánh ghen. Original Chu Nom version On the left is Unicode (using extended CJK), on the right is an image for those who don't have the required fonts.) 𤾓𢆥𥪝𡎝𠊛嗟 See also: The first 224 lines (in Vietnamese) (to see the next lines: click on câu 225 - 416 etc.) (Literal) English translation A hundred years – in this life span on earth talent and destiny are apt to feud. Go through an event in which the sea becomes mulberry fields and watch such things as make you sick at heart. Is it strange that one who is rich in this is poor in that? Blue Heaven’s wont to strike rosy cheeks from spite. Notes Further reading See also Dictionaries Software Resources Tutorials Other Resources | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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