Description
General : 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 alphabet and pronunciation
Notes
The letters "F", "J", "W" and "Z" are not part of the Vietnamese alphabet, but are used in foreign loan words. "W" (vê-đúp)" is sometimes used in place of "Ư" in abbreviations. In informal writing, "W", "F", and "J" are sometimes used as shorthands for "QU", "PH" and "GI" respectively.
The digraph "GH" and the trigraph "NGH" are basically replacements for "G" and "NG" that are used before "I", in order to avoid confusion with the "GI" digraph. For historical reasons, they are also used before "E" or "Ê".
G = [ʒ] before i, ê, and e, [ɣ] elsewhere
D and GI = [z] in the northern dialects (including Hanoi), and [j] in the central, southern and Saigon dialects.
V is pronounced [v] in the northern dialects, and [j] in the southern dialects.
R = [ʐ, ɹ] in southern dialects
Vietnamese is a tonal language with 6 tones. These tones are marked as follows:
* This information from http://www.omniglot.com/writing/vietnamese.htm.