Vietnamese language

Vietnamese (Vietnamese "Ti?ng Vi?t"), a tonal language, is the national and
official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 87% of Vietnam's
population, in addition to about two million Vietnamese emigrants. 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 (the second
language being the Khmer language).

Presently, the written language uses a Roman character set called qu?c ng?
(national language). 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 qu?c ng?. Previous to French occupation, there were
two primary writing systems used - the standard ideographic Chinese
character set called ch? nho (scholar's characters, ??), and an extremely
complicated variant form known as ch? n�m (southern characters, ??).

The Chinese writing was in more common usage, whereas ch? n�m was used by
members of the educated elite. Both scripts have fallen out of common usage
in modern Vietnam, and ch? n�m is near-extinct.

The six tones in Vietnamese are:

    ASCII                   Unicode                         Sample Unicode
    Symbol    ASCII Name     Name         Description         Vowel (e)

 �            Kho^ng      Kh�ng        no tone (flat)      e

 /            Sa('c       S?c          rising              �

 `            Huye^`n     Huy?n        falling             �

 ?            Ho?i        H?i          dipping             ?

 ~            Nga~        Ng�          dipping (but not    ?
                                       as low)

 .            Na(.ng      N?ng         low, glottal        ?

Tone markers are written above the vowel they affect, with the exception of
N?ng, where the dot goes below the vowel. For example, the common family
name:

Nguy?n

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.

Vietnamese is a monosyllabic language, although many compound words are
present. Diphthongs and triphthongs are very common. There are various
mutually intelligible dialects (as intelligible as the dialects of English
found in the United States), the main ones being North (H� N?i), Central
(Hu?) and South (S�i G�n). These dialects differ slightly in tone, although
the Hu? dialect is somewhat more different than others. The current standard
pronunciation and spellings are based on the dialect of an educated H� N?i speaker.

Phonology
Consonants need to be SAMPA-ized; adapted from pgdudda's website

Consonants
�
           Bilabial Alveolar Retroflex PalatalVelar Glottal

 Stops     p/b      t/d,     t         [ty]   k     �
                    [th]*
 Fricativesf/v      s/z      s/z       Z�     x/[Y] h�
 Nasals    m        n        �         �      N     �
 Liquids   �        l        �         �      �     �
* /th/ is an unvoiced, aspirated alveolar stop

Vowels
Rounding is contrastive for non-low back vowels.
 i   �   M, u
 e   �   7, o
 E          O
      6
 a          A

Example Text

This text is from the first six lines of Kim Van Kieu, an epic poem by the
celebrated poet Nguy?n Du (1765-1820). It was originally written in N�m, and
is widely taught in Vietnam today.

Tr?m n?m trong c�i ng??i ta,
Ch? t�i ch? m?nh kh�o l� gh�t nhau.
Tr?i qua m?t cu?c b? d�u,
Nh?ng ?i?u tr�ng th?y m� ?au ??n l�ng.
L? g� b? s?c t? phong,
Tr?i xanh quen th�i m� h?ng ?�nh ghen.

English translation

Four score and two tens, within that short span of human life,
Talent and Destiny are poised in bitter conflict.
Oceans turn to mulberry fields: a desolate scene!
More gifts, less chance, such is the law of Nature
And the blue sky is known to be jealous of rosy cheeks.

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