Speaking and Writing Vietnamese

It is without dispute that the Vietnamese people and their culture has been deeply influenced by other countries due to their history of being conquered, resisting, and then re-conquered.  Therefore, the language of the Viet Nam people also bears similar qualities from other languages.  In fact, Vietnamese as a spoken language is a mixture of different parts and components.  The Mon Khmer language is monotonic but it did give the language of Viet Nam its basic words.  Then the Tai languages contributed a variety of aspects regarding tonality and grammar. 

The single biggest contributor to the language of Viet Nam is China.  After all, China dominated Viet Nam for almost a thousand years.  Much of the Vietnamese language's political, literary, philosophical, military, and religious vocabulary comes from Chinese.  Lastly, there is today an added sprinkling of French and English words as well.  Modern Vietnamese bears distinctive aspects from all these ancient and contemporary sources. 

The new Roman script called "quoc ngu" was spread by missionaries as a way of converting Viet Nam to Christianity.  This script eventually replaced the old Chinese-based "chu nom" system as the primary form of Vietnamese writing.  This newer script was eventually declared the official and national language of Viet Nam by the French in the 1910.  Since this time, it has been universally learned, used, and written by all Vietnamese.  So the language of Viet Nam, like its culture, is a blended stew with many delightful ingredients.  Perhaps these facts suggest that Vietnam's people, culture, and language are, in a sense, the result of forced multi-culturalism?

Harlan Urwiler

For more information, feel free to check out my website at:  http://www.myorientalgallery.com/.