Languages

The official language of the Social Republic of Vietnam (SRV) is Vietnamese (Quoc ngu). A tonal language, it bears similarities to Khmer, Thai, and Chinese, and at least one-third of the vocabulary is derived from Chinese. Formerly, Vietnamese was written in Chinese characters, but under French rule a Romanized alphabet originally developed by Roman Catholic missionaries in the 17th century was adopted as the standard written form of the language. Most of the minority groups have their own spoken languages, and some have their own writing systems, but all children in the SRV today receive instruction in the national language. There are other languages spoken as well such as Chinese, Khmer, Cham and other languages spoken by tribes inhabiting the mountainous regions. Although there are some similarities to Southeast Asian languages, such as Chinese, Vietnamese is thought to be a separate language group, although a member of the Austro-Asiatic language family.

Previously known under the French colonization as Annamese, Vietnamese is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of the country’s population and of nearly 3 million Vietnamese abroad; it also spoken as a secondary language by several ethnic minorities of Vietnam. It was only in the 20th century when Vietnamese became the official executive language. For a long period of time Vietnam used written traditional Chinese for governing purposes and written Vietnamese was mainly used for literature and poetry. A large extent of Vietnamese vocabulary has been adopted from Chinese particularly words that signify abstract ideas. The current Vietnamese writing system is a borrowed version of the Latin alphabet with extra diacritics for specific letters and tones.

There are 4 commonly understandable regional dialects of the Vietnamese language. It includes the Northern Vietnamese (spoken in Hanoi, Haiphong), North-central Vietnamese (Nghe An, Thanh Hoa, Ha Tinh, Quang Bình), Central Vietnamese (Huê, Quang Nam), and Southern Vietnamese (Saigon, Mekong). These dialects generally differ in sound systems, vocabulary (basic and non-basic), and grammar. Other common languages spoken by minority groups in Vietnam include Murong, Chinese, Tay, Nung and Hmông. French is still spoken by a number of older Vietnamese as second language. English is gaining popularity and is a mandatory subject in most schools. Chinese and Japanese have also become popular among Vietnamese.

Language policy

While spoken by the Vietnamese people for millennia, written 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 written classical Chinese, whereas written Vietnamese in the form of Chu nom was invented in the 13th century and extensively used in the 17th and 18th centuries for poetry and literature. Chu nom 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 business.