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Spoken as the mother tongue of more than 86% of the country’s
population, Vietnamese is the official/national language in Vietnam.
Origin
Though much effort has been paid to trace the origin of Vietnamese language,
so-far findings remain debatable. It is, however, unquestionable that it
does emerge from the aspirations of its people to have something speak for
their own cultural identity (in both oral and written ways). After a long
time borrowing Chinese characters, in 14th century, Vietnamese people
created their own scripts called “chu Nom” to set down their language. In
17th century, with huge joint effort of Western missionaries, notably
Alexandre de Rhodes, it was transcribed again into Romanised scripts which
later became the national language characters (chu Quoc Ngu).
Pronunciation
Vietnamese, albeit written with Latin letters, somewhat sounds complicated
for foreigners to pronounce. It is a tonal language with six different
tones. Specifically, the meaning of a word is determined by the pitch at
which it is delivered. The word ba, for example, can mean:
three with the mid-level tone (ba)
grandmother with the low falling tone (bà)
poisoned food with the low rising tone (b?)
aunt with the high rising tone (bá)
waste with the high broken tone (bã)
or random with the low broken tone (b?).
Thus, learning how to say a Vietnamese word is much easier with asking
locals for sample pronunciation in advance.
Dialects
There are at least three dialects in Vietnam: northern, central and
southern. Even with standardized grammar, the accents do vary significantly
among these regions. The accent of Hanoians is considered the “standard”
Vietnamese.
In all, Vietnamese people do take great pride in their beautiful language
with abundance of vocabulary, rhythm as well as emotional and literary
creation power. It is absolutely possible for you to grasp a little of this
Vietnameseness. Also, this is fun and heartily encouraged with local smiles
of welcome.
Vietnamese ethnic language
Vietnamese cultural fabric is woven by not only Viet/King people but also 53
other ethnic groups, each with its own language. Twenty four of these
minorities even have their own writing scripts. The rest live in oral
societies with no less rich traditional literature. As some of these
languages are now in danger of extinction, Vietnam government is striving
hard to sustain and develop them while at the same time popularizing
Vietnamese language as a lingua franca of the whole nation.
Your languages:
Coming to Vietnam now, you should relax yourself out of language obstruction
since more and more foreign languages are increasingly popular. English is
compulsorily taught at almost every school. French and Russian are mostly
common in the North. Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Spanish are also rising
in popularity. Most tours will be provided with efficient English speaking
guides. You can, of course, ask for a guide of your language though this
chance may depend much on the travel agents and locations you are dealing
with. |
