Vietnamese alphabet: Encyclopedia II - Vietnamese alphabet - The letters

Vietnamese alphabet - The letters

The Vietnamese alphabet has the following 29 letters, in collating order:

Vietnamese uses also the 8 digraphs and 1 trigraph below.

These groups are not considered single letters for collating and similar purposes; so, for example, "CH" will be collated between "CA" and "CO" in dictionaries.

The letters "F", "J", "W" and "Z" are not part of the Vietnamese alphabet, but are used in foreign loan words.

Vietnamese alphabet - Vowels

The correspondence between the orthography and pronunciation is somewhat complicated. In some cases, the same letter may represent several different sounds, and different letters may represent the same sound.

The table below matches Vietnamese vowels (written in IPA) and their respective orthographic symbols used in the writing system.

• usually written as i: /si/ = sĩ (A suffix indicating profession, similar to the English suffix -er).
• sometimes written as y: /mi/ = Mỹ 'America'.
• always written as y if
  1. preceded by an orthographic vowel: /xwiɜn/ = khuyên 'to advise';
  2. at the beginning of a word derived from Chinese (written as i otherwise): /iɜw/ = yêu 'to love'.
• (Note that i and y are also used to write the consonant semivowel /j/.)

• written as ê.

• written as e.

• written as ư.

• written as ơ.

• /ɜ/ occurs as a monophthong and also as the second part of a diphthong.

• written as a.

• written as u.

• written as ô.

• written as o.

• written as ia in open syllables: /miɜ/ = mía 'sugar cane' (note: open syllables are syllables that end a vowel, closed syllables end in a consonant)
• written as iê before a consonant: /miɜŋ/ = miếng 'piece'
• the i is written as y at the beginning of words or after an orthographic vowel:
  • ya: /xwiɜ/ = khuya 'late at night'
  • yê: /xwiɜn/ = khuyên 'to advise'; /iɜn/ = yên 'calm'

/uɜ/

• written as ua in open syllables: /muɜ/ = mua 'to buy'
• written as uô before a consonant: /muɜn/ = muôn 'ten thousand'

/ɨɜ/

• written as ưa in open syllables: /mɨɜ/ = mưa 'to rain'
• written as ươ before consonants: /mɨɜŋ/ = mương 'irrigation canal'

Vietnamese alphabet - Consonants

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".

Most of the consonants are pronounced like their European equivalents, with the following clarifications:

• "CH" is a voiceless palatal stop (IPA: [c]) or affricate (IPA: [ʧ]).
• "Đ" is similar to a "D" sound in many languages. Vietnamese "Đ", however, is additionally pronounced with a glottal stop immediately preceding or simultaneous with "Đ".
• Both "D" and "GI" are pronounced either [z] in the northern dialects (including Hanoi), or [j] (similar to English "y") in the central and Saigon dialects.
• "V" is pronounced [v] in the northern dialects, or [j] in the southern dialects.
• "KH" is a voiceless velar fricative (IPA: [x]). It is similar to the German or Scottish "CH", Russian "X", Mandarin "H", or Arabic and Persian "KH".
• "NG" is a velar nasal (IPA: [ŋ]). "NG" is similar to both occurrences of "ng" in English "singing". It is never pronounced like English "N" or "N" plus "G".
• "NH" is a palatal nasal (IPA: [ɲ]), similar to Spanish "Ñ", Portuguese "NH", or French "GN".
• "PH" is pronounced /f/, as in English "Philip". (Vietnamese "PH" is never pronounced like English "P" or Hindi "PH" फ.)
• "S" is pronounced like the English "SH", and "X" is pronounced like English "SS" for the southern dialect and some central dialects; But they are both pronounced like English "SS" among the northern dialects.
• "TH" is an aspirated "T" (IPA: [tʰ]). It is similar to the "TH" थ sound in Hindi or the "T" sound in English when pronounced at the beginning of a word. It is never pronounced like the "T" in French or Spanish.
• "TR" is a retroflex "T" (in the southern regions) and pronounced like the Vietnamese "CH" in the northern dialects. Its only other equivalent is in the Mandarin Chinese "ZH". Mandarin Chinese words that start with the "ZH" will usually turn into Sino-Vietnamese words that start with "TR".

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The letters", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki