how many writing systems has the vietnamese language had in the course of its history?)

by Teagan Walter Sr. 7 min read

How many writing systems are there in Vietnam?

The Vietnamese Writing System. Modern Vietnamese is written with the Latin alphabet, known as quoc ngu ( quốc ngữ) in Vietnamese. Quoc ngu consists of 29 letters. These are: The 26 letters of the English alphabet minus f, j, w , and z. ̣ (These letters are, however, found in foreign loanwords.)

Is the Hanoi writing system suitable for the Vietnamese language?

HISTORY. From 207 BC to 939 AD, the rule of several Chinese dynasties had a profound influence on the Vietnamese culture and literature. As a result, the official Vietnamese language was written in Classical Chinese ( chữ Nho) before the development of native Vietnamese script ( chữ Nôm) and the adoption of the Latin alphabet ( Quốc ...

How many periods of the Vietnamese language are there?

Vietnamese (Vietnamese: tiếng Việt) is an Austroasiatic language originating from Vietnam where it is the national and official language.Vietnamese is spoken natively by over 70 million people, several times as many as the rest of the Austroasiatic family combined. It is the native language of the Vietnamese (Kinh) people, as well as a second language or first language for …

How did the Vietnamese language develop its tones 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 …

What writing system did Vietnamese use?

Quoc-ngu, (Vietnamese: “national language”) writing system used for the Vietnamese language. Quoc-ngu was devised in the mid 17th century by Portuguese missionaries who modified the Roman alphabet with accents and signs to suit the particular consonants, vowels, and tones of Vietnamese.

How many alphabets are there in Vietnamese language?

29 letters
The Vietnamese alphabet contains 29 letters, including seven letters using four diacritics: ă, â/ê/ô, ơ/ư, đ.
...
Vietnamese alphabet.
Vietnamese alphabet chữ Quốc ngữ
Script typeAlphabet
CreatorPortuguese Jesuits, Alexandre de Rhodes
LanguagesVietnamese, other indigenous languages of Vietnam
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How many types of Vietnamese languages are there?

There are three major dialects spoken within Vietnam: Hanoi (Northern Vietnamese) dialect, Hue (Central Vietnamese) dialect, and Saigon (Southern Vietnamese) dialect. The Northern dialect forms the basis of the standard language and is the prestige dialect.

How has the Vietnamese language changed over time?

Perhaps the most important evolution of the language during this time is termed the “tone splits”. These increased the number of tones in spoken Vietnamese from three to six. The beginnings of Modern Vietnamese From the 17th century onwards, the language began to evolve towards the Modern form.Aug 6, 2018

How do you say Z in Vietnamese?

The Vietnamese alphabet consists of 29 letters. In the Vietnamese alphabet, there are: 11 single vowels: a, ă, â, e, ê, i, o, ô, ơ, u, ư, y.
...
Vietnamese Alphabet & Pronunciation.
Vietnamese AlphabetEnglish SoundPronunciation Example
rz, ɹ'z' as in zoo (north), 'r' as in ring (south)
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Nov 3, 2018

Is Vietnamese an alphabetic language?

Modern Vietnamese uses a Latin-based alphabet called chữ Quốc ngữ (“national language script”) which was originally devised by Portuguese and Italian missionaries in the 16th century.

What's the Vietnamese language?

Vietnamese is an Austroasiatic language originating from Vietnam where it is the national and official language. Vietnamese is spoken natively by over 70 million people, several times as many as the rest of the Austroasiatic family combined.
Wikipedia

Is Vietnamese a phonetic language?

Vietnamese is a very phonetic language. The pronunciation and the spelling of words closely match up. This means you can learn to 'read' Vietnamese (ie.

Does Vietnam have a language?

Vietnamese is the official language; English is increasingly favored as a second language. French, Chinese, Khmer and various highlander languages are also spoken. Between 85 percent and 90 percent of Vietnam's residents are ethnically Vietnamese.

What language is Vietnamese similar to?

Since ancient times, Thai and Vietnamese have been affecting each other. Both the languages have been heavily influenced by Chinese vocabulary so they may sound similar. Their shared history is why the two languages seem identical to most people.

What is the most hardest language to learn?

Mandarin
1. Mandarin. As mentioned before, Mandarin is unanimously considered the toughest language to master in the world! Spoken by over a billion people in the world, the language can be extremely difficult for people whose native languages use the Latin writing system.

Who made the Vietnamese language?

The migrants communicated with locals who spoke the Tai-Kadai language and then created the Viet-Muong language, or the Northern Vietic language. Some people in these mountainous areas then migrated to the Red River delta, where the Kinh people are living now. About 85.32% of the Vietnamese population are Kinh people.Jun 6, 2021

What was the official writing system of Vietnam?

Following Vietnam’s independence from the French, Vietnamese Government officially recognized quoc ngu as the nation’s official writing system. Uncle Ho also advocated movement to Vietnamese words and founded the Bình Dân Học Vụ (Department for Popularizing Culture) to launch a campaign to eliminate illiteracy.

What type of writing system did the Viets use?

Instead, the Viets adapted Chinese characters into their own script, chữ nôm, a half-phonetic and half-ideographic writing system . According to the annals, Han Thuyen became the first poet to write in chữ nôm at the end of the 13th century.

What are some examples of loan words in Vietnam?

Today, many of these “loan-words” have been Vietnamized to such an extent that few people are aware of their Chinese origins. Examples include Tiền (money), Hàng (goods/merchandise), chợ (market), and Mùa (season).

What is the Roman script used in Vietnam?

French, Portuguese and Spanish Catholic missionaries, aided by Vietnamese preachers, developed a new writing system as a means of spreading the gospel to a broader audience.

What is the origin of Vietnamese words?

About 60 percent of modern Vietnamese words are of Chinese origin. Many basic words, like geographical terms, were adopted from monotonal Mon-Khmer languages, while tonality came from Tai. In Vietnamese, each syllable has one of six tones, which completely alters the meaning of the word, and one, two or three of 11 distinct vowel sounds.

How many tones are there in Vietnamese?

In Vietnamese, each syllable has one of six tones, which completely alters the meaning of the word, and one, two or three of 11 distinct vowel sounds. This is a complicated language, which, not surprisingly, has a complicated past.

What was the official language of the Lowland Viets?

In a bid to assimilate the lowland Viets, they introduced a Chinese-style administrative system headed by Chinese governors and opened schools to teach Chinese characters. During the 1,000 years of Chinese rule, while Han (classical Chinese) was the official written language, the spoken language continued to develop.

What is the Vietnamese alphabet?

Learn more about Vietnamese Alphabet. Vietnamese Language is a tonal language: its words are written with diacritics, or accent marks. The same underlying letters with different diacritics produce different words: different in both pronuncation and meaning.

Is Vietnamese a tonal language?

Learn more about Vietnamese Alphabet. Vietnamese Language is a tonal language: its words are written with diacritics, or accent marks.

How many tones are there in Vietnamese?

Vietnamese has 6 tones. Vietnamese Language is monosyllabic, i.e., having only one syllable (vowel) per word, like many other Southeast Asian Languages. Contrast this with English when words have many syllables. For example, the word beautiful has 3 syllables.

What is the Southern Dialect?

the Southern Dialect (represented by Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), the most dynamic city in Vietnam) There is one very important note: these 3 dialects are mutually intelligible by all Vietnamese. They differ mainly in pronunciation of certain alphabet letters and in a few word usages.

What was the name of the system that Vietnamese people used to write their own language?

Despite the overwhelming prestige of Chinese writing, the Vietnamese managed along the way to develop a system to write their own language. CHU NOM ( chữ Nôm) The chu nom was a system developed to write Vietnamese. The actual date is not agreed but chu nom was already in existence by the mid-13th century.

What is the story of Vietnamese writing?

The story of Vietnamese writing does not end with Classical Chinese. Despite the overwhelming prestige of Chinese writing, the Vietnamese managed along the way to develop a system to write their own language. CHU NOM ( chữ Nôm) The chu nom was a system developed to write Vietnamese.

What are the Vietnamese tone markings?

In addition, diacritics are used to indicate the tones of Vietnamese. Tone markings are: a (no mark), à, á, ả, ã, and ạ . When letters are combined with tone markings, some complex diacritics can result, such as: ắ, ở, ẫ, and ể.

When was Quoc Ngu invented?

The earliest extant dictionary using quoc ngu was the Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum , published by Alexandre de Rhodes in 1651 . Rhodes, who was French, relied heavily on earlier Portuguese dictionaries in compiling his work.

What is diacritic in Vietnamese?

1. Diacritics are used to represent sound distinctions not covered by the Roman or Latin alphabet. This is not unusual. Although it is used around the world, the Roman alphabet is actually inadequate to represent even the languages of Europe. Some diacritics in Vietnamese:

Is Vietnamese a monosyllable?

Partly as a result, Vietnamese speakers tend to believe that their language is made up entirely of monosyllabic words. To be sure, the monosyllable is an important entity in Vietnamese.

Is Vietnamese a word?

However, the Vietnamese monosyllable is not automatically a 'word' -- or at least, not a word as we would define it in English. Often, two syllables go together to form a single word, which can be identified by the way it functions grammatically in a sentence. For instance, take the sentence:

INTRODUCTION

My goal for the first edition was to enrich Vietnamese typography. Published in November 2015 as my final thesis for a master of arts in graphic design from the School of Art at George Mason University, this book had quickly become an essential guide for designing Vietnamese diacritics.

HISTORY

From 207 BC to 939 AD, the rule of several Chinese dynasties had a profound influence on the Vietnamese culture and literature. As a result, the official Vietnamese language was written in Classical Chinese ( chữ Nho) before the development of native Vietnamese script ( chữ Nôm) and the adoption of the Latin alphabet ( Quốc ngữ) 2.

CHỮ NHO

Under the control of the Chinese in the ninth century, Vietnam’s governmental documents were written in Chinese ideographs called chữ Nho ( scholars’ script ), also referred to as chữ Hán ( Han script ).

What is the writing system used in Vietnamese?

The writing system used for Vietnamese is based closely on the system developed by Alexandre de Rhodes for his 1651 Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum. It reflects the pronunciation of the Vietnamese of Hanoi at that time, a stage commonly termed Middle Vietnamese ( tiếng Việt trung đại ). The pronunciation of the "rime" of the syllable, i.e. all parts other than the initial consonant (optional /w/ glide, vowel nucleus, tone and final consonant), appears nearly identical between Middle Vietnamese and modern Hanoi pronunciation. On the other hand, the Middle Vietnamese pronunciation of the initial consonant differs greatly from all modern dialects, and in fact is significantly closer to the modern Saigon dialect than the modern Hanoi dialect.

What language did Vietnamese use?

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 ), sơ mi (shirt, from chemise ), and búp bê (doll, from poupée ).

Where did Vietnamese originate?

Vietnamese (Vietnamese: Tiếng Việt or Tiếng Kinh) is an Austroasiatic language that originated in Vietnam, where it is the national and official language.

What language family is Vietnamese?

Classification. Early linguistic work some 150 years ago classified Vietnamese as belonging to the Mon–Khmer branch of the Austroasiatic language family (which also includes the Khmer language spoken in Cambodia, as well as various smaller and/or regional languages, such as the Munda and Khasi languages spoken in eastern India, and others in Laos, ...

What are some French words that Vietnamese use?

Vietnamese adopted many French terms, such as đầm (dame, from madame ), ga (train station, from gare ), sơ mi (shirt, from chemise ), and búp bê (doll, from poupée ). Henri Maspero described six periods of the Vietnamese language:

When was Vietnamese first spoken?

Proto-Vietnamese, the oldest reconstructable version of Vietnamese, dated to just before the entry of massive amounts of Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary into the language, c. 7th to 9th century AD. At this state, the language had three tones.

What is the apex diacritic in Vietnamese?

De Rhodes's orthography also made use of an apex diacritic to indicate a final labial-velar nasal /ŋ͡m/, an allophone of /ŋ/ that is peculiar to the Hanoi dialect to the present day. This diacritic is often mistaken for a tilde in modern reproductions of early Vietnamese writing.

What type of writing did the Vietnamese use?

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 ).

What is the Vietnamese alphabet?

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), ...

Where did the Vietnamese language come from?

It is a language of the native origin. This language came into being in the agricultural civilization in the north of Red River and Ma River (Vietnam). According to the explanation of A. G. Haudricourt in 1954, Viet – Muong in early AD included languages and local language without diacritics.

Is Vietnamese a language?

Popularity of Vietnamese language. Vietnamese language is the national language of Vietnam with over 80 percent of population speaking the language as mother tongue.

What is the closest language to Vietnamese?

Viet – Muong is the subdivisions of Vietic languages group, sub-branch of Austroasiatic language family. In Vietic languages group, apart from Viet – Muong language which are spoken in Son La, Thanh Hoa, and Nghe An, Nguon language is also seen as the closest language to Vietnamese language.

What is the origin of the Vietnamese alphabet?

The formation of present-day Vietnamese alphabet was related to the mission of Western missionaries. Vietnamese alphabet is a type of language formed in accordance with recording by Latin alphabets which was used in Europe for a long time ago. By the 17th century, it was the phase of the medieval Vietnamese language.

How many periods are there in Vietnamese?

Based on the relations between languages, the history of Vietnamese language is divided into six periods: Proto-Vietic language, pre-ancient Vietnamese, ancient Vietnamese, medieval Vietnamese, pre-modern Vietnamese, and modern Vietnamese.

Is Vietnamese a dialect?

The language can be different from one region to another region across the country. The difference is also called regional dialects of Vietnamese language including North, Central and South. Vietnamese grammar and writing system.

Which language has the highest development of tones?

So far, through communicating with Chinese languages, especially the language belonging to Tai-Kadai, which has the high development of tones system, the system of tones in Vietnamese language appeared and had identifications as today.

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Overview

  • Chu Nom – Vietnamese The Chinese annexed Giao Chi (the Tonkin Delta) in 111 A.D. In a bid to assimilate the lowland Viets, they introduced a Chinese-style administrative system headed by Chinese governors and opened schools to teach Chinese characters. During the 1,000 years of Chinese rule, while Han (classical Chinese) was the official written la...
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Geographical Distribution

Main Features of Vietnamese

Vietnamese Language Dialects

  • The Vietnamese Language (in Vietnamese: Tiếng Việt, or Tieng Viet without accent marks) has existed for millenia but only in spoken form for most of the earlier periods. The writing system used in Vietnam was classical Chinese (~9th → 13th Century), Chữ Nôm (13th → 17th) and Romanized script (17th → Present) , .
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