Vietnamese is an Austroasiatic language spoken by about 82 million people mainly in Vietnam. There are also Vietnamese speakers in the USA, China, Cambodia, France, Australia, Laos, Canada and a number of other countries. Vietnamese has been the official language of Vietnam since the country gained independence from France in 1954.
Vietnamese was originally written with a Siniform (Chinese-like) script known as Chữ-nôm (𡨸喃) or Nôm (喃). At first most Vietnamese literature was essentially Chinese in structure and vocabulary. Later literature developed a more Vietnamese style, but was still full of Chinese loan words. The greatest literary work in Vietnamese is Kim Van Kieu, the 'Tale of Kieu', a romance written by Nguyen-Du (1765-1820).
Chữ-nôm was used until the 20th century. Courses in the Chữ-nôm script were available at Ho Chi Minh University until 1993, and the script is still studied and taught at the Han-Nôm Institute in Hanoi, which has recently published a dictionary of all the nôm characters.
During the 17th century, Roman Catholic missionaries introduced a Latin-based orthography for Vietnamese, Quốc Ngữ (national language),which has been used ever since. Until the early 20th century, Quốc Ngữ was used in parallel with Chữ-nôm. Today only Quốc Ngữ is used.
Vietnamese is a tonal language with 6 tones. These tones are marked as follows:
You can hear how to pronounce the Vietnamese letters and tones at:
www.seasite.niu.edu/Vietnamese/Guide_to_Pronunciation/alphabet/alphabet_system.htm
A recording of this text by Phan Tuấn Quốc (from south Vietnam)
A recording of this text by Nguyễn Văn Thắng (from north Vietnam)
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are
endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a
spirit of brotherhood.
(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)
Tower of Babel in Vietnamese | Useful phrases in Vietnamese
Details of the Vietnamese Chữ-nôm script
Vietnamese language learning materials
Information about the Vietnamese language
http://www.seasite.niu.edu/vietnamese/VNMainpage/vietsite/vietsite.htm
http://www.public.asu.edu/~ickpl/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_language
Online Vietnamese lessons
http://www.seasite.niu.edu/vietnamese/vnlanguage/supportns/tableofcontent.htm
http://www.public.asu.edu/~ickpl/vnonline/
http://learnviet.blogspot.com
http://yourvietnamese.com
Collections of Vietnamese phrases
http://linguanaut.com/english_vietnamese.htm
http://www.vietnamtravel.org/learn-vietnamese
Vietnamese/English forum
http://vietnameseonline.net
Online Vietnamese dictionaries
http://www.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/~duc/Dict/
http://vdict.com
http://www.vietnamesedictionary.net
Vietnamese Electronic talking dictionaries
http://www.ectaco.com
Online radio in Vietnamese
http://www.vietnamradio.com
http://www.rfa.org/vietnamese/
Free Vietnamese fonts
http://fontchu.com
http://www.vps.org
http://sourceforge.net/projects/vietunicode/
Other languages written with the Latin alphabet
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