The Vietnamese alphabet ( ) is a Latin-based modern writing script for the Vietnamese language. It has spelling conventions derived from the orthography of Romance languages such as Portuguese, Italian, and French.Haudricourt, André-Georges (2010). "The Origin of the Peculiarities of the Vietnamese Alphabet." Mon-Khmer Studies 39: 89–104. Translated by Alexis Michaud from: Haudricourt, André-Georges . "L'origine Des Particularités de L'alphabet Vietnamien." Dân Việt Nam 3: 61–68. It was originally developed by the Portuguese missionary Francisco de Pina and other Jesuits in the early 17th century.Jacques, Roland (2004). "Bồ Đào Nha và công trình sáng chế chữ quốc ngữ: Phải chăng cần viết lại lịch sử?" Translated by Nguyễn Đăng Trúc. In Các nhà truyền giáo Bồ Đào Nha và thời kỳ đầu của Giáo hội Công giáo Việt Nam (Quyển 1) – Les missionnaires portugais et les débuts de l'Eglise catholique au Viêt-nam (Tome 1) (in Vietnamese & French). Reichstett, France: Định Hướng Tùng Thư. .
The Vietnamese alphabet contains 29 letters, including 7 letters using four diacritics: , , , , , , and . There are an additional 5 diacritics used to designate tone (as in , , , , and ). The complex vowel system and the large number of letters with diacritics, which can stack twice on the same letter (e.g. meaning 'first'), makes it easy to distinguish the Vietnamese orthography from other writing systems that use the Latin alphabet.
The Vietnamese system's use of diacritics produces an accurate transcription for tones despite the limitations of the Roman alphabet. On the other hand, sound changes in the spoken language have led to different letters, digraphs and trigraphs now representing the same sounds.
Letter names and pronunciation
Vietnamese uses 22 letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet. The 4 remaining letters aren't considered part of the Vietnamese alphabet although they are used to write loanwords, languages of other ethnic groups in the country based on Vietnamese phonetics to differentiate the meanings or even Vietnamese dialects, for example: or for southerner pronunciation of in standard Vietnamese.
In total, there are 12 vowels () and 17 consonants (, literally 'extra sound').
+Vietnamese alphabetLetterInput keysNameIPATELEXVNIHanoiNghệ AnSài GònA, aĂ, ăAWA8Â, âAAA6B, bC, cD, dĐ, đDDD9E, eÊ, êEEE6G, gH, hI, i ngắnK, kcaL, le-lờM, mem-mờN, nen-nờO, oÔ, ôOOO6Ơ, ơOWO7P, pQ, qR, re-rờS, sét-siT, tU, uƯ, ưUW/WU7V, vX, xích-xìY, y Notes +Vietnamese unused lettersLetterName (whenpronounced)Hà NộiNghệ AnSài GònIPAPhonemeIPAPhonemeIPAPhonemeF, fJ, jW, w / đớp lưuZ, zdét
The vowels in the table are bolded and italicized. The use of the terms or to refer to and as or to refer to is to avoid confusion in some contexts, the same for as or (literally, 'strong s' or 'heavy s') and as (literally, 'light x'), as (literally, 'short i') and as (literally, 'long y'). is always followed by in every word and phrase in Vietnamese, e.g. 'trousers', 'to attract', etc. The name for is from the French name for the letter: (literally, 'Greek i'), referring to the letter's origin from the Greek letter upsilon. The other obsolete French pronunciations include () and (). The Vietnamese alphabet lacks the 4 letters (, ), (), ( 'double u', , 'double v') and (). However, these letters are often used for foreign loanwords (even partially adapted ones: 'fluorine', 'joule', 'base') or may be kept for foreign names. is most commonly treated as a vowel along with . represents 'short ' and represents 'long '. can have tones as well as other vowels (, , , , ) e.g. 'America'. It may also act as a consonant (when used after and ). It can sometimes be used to replace , e.g. 'bread' can sometimes be written by some people, but it is not generally considered standard or accurate. and are similar to each other in sound in Northern Vietnamese dialects or with some Southern Vietnamese speakers (especially in the Mekong Delta region) and can sometimes be used interchangeably between these speakers, e.g. or 'grass jelly'.
Middle Vietnamese alphabet The Vietnamese alphabet in the Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum of Alexandre de Rhodes has 23 letters: Upper caseABꞗCDđEGHIKLMNOPQRSTVXYLower caseabcdeghiklmnopqrſ/stv/uxy In this dictionary, there are fewer letters than the modern alphabet. The letters ă, â, ê, ô, ơ, and ư are regarded as separate letters in the modern alphabet and are used in the dictionary, but Rhodes (the author) does not regard them as separate letters. In the dictionary, a letter with diacritics, like à, ạ, ă, ằ, and ặ, are not separate from the letter ; à, ạ, ă, ằ, and ặ are just regarded as the letter with diacritics.
In the alphabet, there is a letter, the letter b with flourish ꞗ, that has fallen out of use. It was used to represent the voiced bilabial fricative /β/.André-Georges Haudricourt. "The two b's in the Vietnamese dictionary of Alexandre de Rhodes". HAL, Alexis Michaud dịch, trang 1.
Two letters, ꞗ and đ, are neither upper nor lower case.Alexandre de Rhodes. Dictionarium Anamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum. Romae, Sacra Congregationis de propaganda fide, năm 1651, trang chứa cột 65, cột 191 trong phần chính văn của sách (sách không được đánh số trang). So according to that orthography, the names of the two provinces Đồng Nai and Lâm Đồng will be đồng Nai and Lâm đồng. In the modern alphabet, the lower case version of đ is đ, and upper case version of đ is Đ.
There are two variants of minuscule s: the long s, ſ, and the short s, s. In the modern alphabet, the long s, ſ, is no longer used, and the short s, s, is the only variant of s.
Normal v in the dictionary has two variants: the normal v, v, and the curving-bottom v, u.Kenneth J. Gregerson. "A study of Middle Vietnamese phonology". Bulletin de la Société des Études Indochinoises, Nouvelle Série – Tome XLIV, Nº 2, 1969, page 151, 173. In the 17th century, v and u were not different letters, v being a variant of u.
Consonants The alphabet is largely derived from Portuguese with some influence from French, although the usage of and was borrowed from Italian (compare , ) and that for from (Latinised) Greek and Latin (compare , , ), mirroring the English usage of these letters (compare , , ).
There is one trigraph, , and ten digraphs: , , , , , , , , , . + ConsonantsGraphemePronunciation (IPA)Notes Syllable-initial Syllable-final NorthernCentral Southern NorthernCentral Southern B b C c ~ is used instead when preceding . is used instead of if a on-glide exists.Realized as or word-finally following rounded vowels . Ch ch Multiple phonemic analyses of the Northern realization of final have been proposed. D d In Middle Vietnamese, represented . The distinction between and is now purely etymological in most modern dialects, although it is noted that some Southerners may pronounce as if distinction from is strictly necessary. Đ đ G g Gh gh Used instead of before , seemingly to follow the Italian convention. is not allowed in these environments. Gi gi ~ In Middle Vietnamese, represented . The distinction between and is now purely etymological in most modern dialects, although it is noted that some Southerners may pronounce as if distinction from is strictly necessary. Spelled before another . H h K k Used instead of before to follow the European tradition. is not allowed in these environments. Kh kh In Middle Vietnamese, represented L l M m N n ~ In Southern Vietnamese, word-final is realized as if not following . Ng ng ~ Realized as or word finally after rounded vowels . Ngh ngh Spelling used instead of before in accordance with . Nh nh Multiple phonemic analyses of the Northern realization of final have been proposed. P p ~ Only occurs initially in loanwords. Some Vietnamese pronounce it as a sound instead (a similar process occurs among speakers of Arabic, which lacks an unvoiced counterpart to ). Ph ph In Middle Vietnamese, represented Qu qu // Used in place of if a on-glide exists. R r Realized as in Northern spelling pronunciation. In southern speech, the phoneme /r/, generally represented in Vietnamese linguistics by the letter ⟨r⟩, has a number of variant pronunciations. It may occur as a retroflex fricative , an alveolar approximant , an alveolar flap , a trill , a velar fricative , and a palatal approximant . The last two are not considered standard. S s Realized as in Northern spelling pronunciation. T t ~ In Southern Vietnamese, word-final is realized as if not following . Th th Tr tr Realized as in Northern spelling pronunciation. V v ~ In Middle Vietnamese, it was spelled with the now-obsolete letter to represent .Can be realized as in Southern speech through spelling pronunciation and in loanwords. In traditional performance including Cải lương, Đờn ca tài tử, Hát bội and some old speakers of Overseas Vietnamese, it is pronounced as consonant cluster or . X x In Middle Vietnamese, was pronounced .
Each consonant can also be called by the consonant followed by , except for . So would be called , would be called and so on.
Vowels
Pronunciation
The correspondence between the orthography and pronunciation is somewhat complicated. In some cases, the same letter may represent several different sounds, and different letters may represent the same sound. This is because the orthography was designed centuries ago and the spoken language has changed, as shown in the chart directly above that contrasts the difference between Middle and Modern Vietnamese.
and are mostly equivalent, and there is no concrete rule that says when to use one or the other, except in sequences like and (i.e. 'arm, hand' is read as while 'ear' is read as ). There have been attempts since the late 20th century to standardize the orthography by replacing with when it represents a vowel, the latest being a decision from the Vietnamese Ministry of Education in 1984. These efforts seem to have had limited effect. In textbooks published by Nhà Xuất bản Giáo dục ('Publishing House of Education'), is used to represent only in Sino-Vietnamese words that are written with one letter alone (diacritics can still be added, as in , ), at the beginning of a syllable when followed by (as in , ), after and in the sequence ; therefore such forms as * and * are not "standard", though they are much preferred elsewhere. Most people and the popular media continue to use the spelling that they are most accustomed to.
+Spelling and pronunciation in Vietnamese Spelling Sound a ( in some dialects) except as below in au and ay (but in ao and ai ) before syllable-final nh and ch , see Vietnamese phonology#Analysis of final ch, nh in ưa , ia and ya in ua except after qqua is pronounced except in quay, where it is pronounced . When not preceded by q, ua is pronounced . ă â e ê except as below before syllable-final nh and ch , see Vietnamese phonology#Analysis of final ch, nh in iê and yê i except as below after any vowel letter o except as below before ng and cHowever, oong and ooc are pronounced and . after any vowel letter (= after a or e) before any vowel letter except i (= before ă, a or e) ô except as below before ng and c except after a u that is not preceded by a quông and uôc are pronounced and when not preceded by a q. in uô except after qquô is pronounced except in quông and quôc, where it is pronounced . When not preceded by q, uô is pronounced . ơ except as below in ươ u except as below after q or any vowel letter before any vowel letter except a, ô and i Before a, ô and i: if preceded by q, otherwise ư y except as below after any vowel letter except u (= after â and a)
The uses of and to represent the phoneme can be categorized as "standard" (as used in textbooks published by Nhà Xuất bản Giáo dục) and "non-standard" as follows.