Learn about the Vietnamese alphabet
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| Vietnamese Teachers Answer Your Questions - Lesson #4 - What Alphabet Does Vietnamese Use? |
Intro |
|---|
| Michael: What alphabet does Vietnamese use? |
| Nguyet: And has it changed over time? |
| Michael: At VietnamesePod101.com, we hear these questions often. In the following situation Bao Bui, a kindergarten student, is studying the alphabet with her mum, Lan Le. She sees an unfamiliar letter and asks, |
| "What letter is that?" |
| Bảo Bùi: Đó là chữ gì? |
| Dialogue |
| Bảo Bùi: Đó là chữ gì? |
| Lan Lê: Chữ ô. |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Bảo Bùi: Đó là chữ gì? |
| Michael: "What letter is that?" |
| Lan Lê: Chữ ô. |
| Michael: "It's ô." |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: The Vietnamese language uses the Latin script and consists of twenty-nine letters. In Vietnamese, their alphabet is called |
| Nguyet: Quốc ngữ |
| Michael: which literally means "National Language" or "National Script." Seventeen of the letters in this alphabet are consonants, while the rest are vowels. Out of these twenty-nine letters, seven are modified letters, and out of these seven, only one is used as a consonant, which is the letter |
| Nguyet: đ |
| Michael: The one used in the dialogue is the letter |
| Nguyet: ô |
| Michael: which is one of the seven modified letters. Keep in mind that, while the Vietnamese alphabet is based on the Roman alphabet, it does not make use of the letters "f, j, w," and "z." Going back to the modified letters, in the Vietnamese alphabet, each of these seven special letters with sound marks—or diacritical marks—come after their equivalent letters that do not have the mark. For instance, the letters |
| Nguyet: ă |
| Michael: and |
| Nguyet: â |
| Michael: both come after the regular letter |
| Nguyet: A. |
| Michael: The same is true with the rest of the special characters. There's an interesting story behind how the Vietnamese alphabet as we now know it came to be, but we'll talk about it later. |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: So, for now, you have learned that the Vietnamese alphabet consists of 29 letters, of which 7 were created only for the use of the Vietnamese language. |
| Expansion |
| Michael: This time, let's talk about how the marking system in the Vietnamese alphabet works. Vietnamese is a tonal language and has a total of six tones. In writing, tones are represented by tone marks. The first one, which is |
| Nguyet: Ngang, |
| Michael: is an unmarked tone. Words with this tone are spoken with no accent, with the pitch ranging from mid to high-mid. Obviously, you don't use any marks or diacritics when writing a word carrying this tone. The next tone is called |
| Nguyet: sắc |
| Michael: This is a high-rising tone, which means words carrying it are spoken with a high-rising pitch. This tone uses the acute accent, a forward-slash placed above a vowel. The next one is the |
| Nguyet: huyền |
| Michael: This one is a falling tone and uses the grave accent, a backward-slash placed above a vowel. Next, we have |
| Nguyet: ngã |
| Michael: This is a high-rising tone, but is also called a broken rising tone. It is represented by a tilde placed above a vowel. The next tone is |
| Nguyet: hỏi |
| Michael: This tone denotes a mid-low dropping or dipping pitch. The diacritic used for this tone resembles a question mark without the dot and appears like a hook above the vowels it is placed on. Finally, we have the |
| Nguyet: nặng |
| Michael: Unlike the five other tones, the diacritic representing this tone—which is a dot—is placed under the vowel. This tone denotes a heavy falling pitch. |
| Cultural Insight |
| Michael: Did you know that the Vietnamese once used two scripts for writing? They used both Chinese characters and another script which was referred to as |
| Nguyet: Chữ Nôm |
| Michael: or "Southern characters." This was during the time when Vietnam was still ruled by the Chinese dynasties. The latter writing system was used between the 15th and the 19th centuries, mostly by cultured elites and for popular works only, such as folk songs and popular literature. Vietnamese literature was initially Chinese in terms of structure and vocabulary. A Vietnamese style of writing was developed later, although it was still sprinkled with many Chinese loan words, such as |
| Nguyet: học trò |
| Michael: or "student." There were glimpses of an official Vietnamese language finally taking form when the Southern Characters were used for official purposes under the |
| Nguyet: Hồ |
| Michael: and |
| Nguyet: Tây Sơn |
| Michael: dynasties, but it was only for a brief period. |
| Finally, during the 17th century, Jesuit missionaries introduced a Latin-based alphabet that would become Vietnam's official script, or, as mentioned earlier, |
| Nguyet: Quốc ngữ |
| Michael: The two writing scripts would be used side by side for three centuries. In 1920, the official script currently used in Vietnam would ultimately displace its predecessor. |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Nguyet: Tạm biệt! |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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