Vietnamese language Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
Vietnamese (Tiếng Việt), a tonal language, is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of the Vietnamese people, who constitute about 87% of Vietnam's population and of about two million Vietnamese emigrants, including a significant number of Vietnamese Americans. It is also spoken as a second language by Vietnam's minority population. Although it contains many vocabulary borrowings from Chinese and was originally written using Chinese characters, it is considered by linguists to be one of the Austroasiatic languages, of which it has the most speakers (it has 10 times the number of speakers as the next most-spoken language, the Khmer language).
| Vietnamese (Tiếng Việt) | |
|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Vietnam, USA, Cambodia, and various others |
| Total speakers: | 70 Million |
| Ranking: | 14th |
| Genetic classification: | Austroasiatic Mon-Khmer Viet-Muong Vietnamese |
| Official status | |
| Official language of: | Vietnam |
| Regulated by: | valign="top" |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | vi |
| ISO 639-2 | vie |
| SIL | VIE |
| Table of contents |
|
2 Classification 3 Geographic distribution 4 Sounds 5 Grammar 6 Vocabulary 7 Writing system 8 Computer support 9 Examples 10 External links |
History
Classification
Vietnamese is part of the Viet-Muong grouping of the Mon-Khmer branch of the Austroasiatic language family, a family that also includes the Khmer language, spoken in Cambodia.Geographic distribution
According to the Ethnologue, Vietnamese is also spoken in Australia, Cambodia, Canada, China, Côte d'Ivoire, Finland, France, Germany, Laos, Martinique, Netherlands, New Caledonia, Norway, Philippines, Senegal, Thailand, United Kingdom, USA, and Vanuatu.Official status
Vietnamese is the official language of Vietnam.
| Modern name | Locality name | Old name |
|---|---|---|
| Northern Vietnamese | Hanoi dialect | Tonkinese |
| Central Vietnamese | Hué dialect | High Annamese |
| Southern Vietnamese | Saigon dialect | Cochinchinese |
These dialects differ slightly in tone, although the Hué dialect is somewhat more different than others. The hỏi and ngã tones are more distinct in the northern than in the southern dialect. The current standard pronunciation and spellings are based on the dialect of an educated Hanoi speaker.
Sounds
Vowels
Rounding is contrastive for non-low back vowels.
| i | M, u | |
| e | 7, o | |
| E |
| O |
| a | A |
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
| Stops | p/b | t/d, [th]* | t | [ty] | k | |
| Fricatives | f/v | s/z | s/z | Z | x/[Y] | h |
| Nasals | m | n | ñ | N | ||
| Liquids | l |
As a result of a thousand years of Chinese domination, much of Vietnamese vocabulary relating to science and politics are derived from Chinese. However, it still retains a basic vocabulary more closely resembling other languages in its language family.
Prior to French occupation, the first two Vietnamese writing systems were based on Chinese script:
The six tones in Vietnamese are:
Grammar
Vocabulary
Writing system
Presently, the written language uses the Vietnamese alphabet (quốc ngữ or "national script"), based on the Latin alphabet. Originally a Romanization of Vietnamese, it was introduced in the 17th century by a French Jesuit missionary named Alexandre de Rhodes (1591-1660), based on works of earlier Portuguese missionaries. With the occupation of the French in the 19th century, it became popular and by the late 20th century virtually all writings were done in quốc ngữ.
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.
| ASCII Symbol | ASCII Name | Unicode Name | Description | Sample Unicode Vowel (e) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ngang | Ngang | no tone (flat) | e | |
| / | Sa('c | Sắc | rising | é |
| ` | Huye^`n | Huyền | falling | è |
| ? | Ho?i | Hỏi | dipping | ẻ |
| ~ | Nga~ | Ngã | dipping (but not as low) | ẽ |
| . | Na(.ng | Nặng | low, glottal | ẹ |
Tone markers are written above the vowel they affect, with the exception of Nặng, where the dot goes below the vowel. For example, the common family name Nguyễn begins with SAMPA /N/ (this sound is difficult for native English speakers to place at the beginning of a word), and is followed by something approximated by the English word "win". The ~ indicates a dipping tone; start somewhat low, go down in pitch, then rise to the end of the word.
Like English and many other languages on earth, Vietnamese, originally a monosyllabic language, as demonstrated by its rich tonal system and syllabic diphthongs and triphthongs meant to differentiate one-syllable words, has long become a polysyllabic language, as clearly evidenced with the presence of more than half of its multi-syllabic and compound words in its overall bountiful vocabulary stock.
Computer support
Unicode contains all characters that are necessary to write Vietnamese. There are also a number of codepages designed for representing Vietnamese texts, such as VISCII or CP1258.
Where ASCII must be used, Vietnamese is often typed using the VIQR convention.
Examples
This text is from the first six lines of Truyện Kiều;, an epic poem by the celebrated poet Nguyễn Du;, 阮攸 (1765-1820). It was originally written in Nôm (titled 金雲翹), 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.
This is an Article on Vietnamese language. Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About Vietnamese language English translation
External links
