Vietnamese

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A language of Viet Nam

ISO 639-3
vie
Alternate Names
Annamese, Ching, Gin, Jing, Kinh, Viet
Population

65,800,000 in Viet Nam (1999 census). Population total all countries: 67,762,060. Ethnic population: 73,600,000 (2009 census).

Location

Widespread. Also in Australia, Cambodia, Canada, China, Taiwan, Côte d’Ivoire, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Laos, Martinique, Netherlands, New Caledonia, Norway, Philippines, Russian Federation, Senegal, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States, Vanuatu.

Language Maps
Language Status

1 (National). De facto national language.

Classification
Austro-Asiatic, Mon-Khmer, Viet-Muong, Vietnamese
Dialects

Central Vietnamese (Hue), Northern Vietnamese (Hanoi, Tonkinese), Southern Vietnamese. Numerous dialects.

Typology

SVO; prepositions; classifiers and numerals precede noun heads; possessor noun phrases and adjectives follow noun heads

Language Development
Literacy rate in L1: 94%. Literacy rate in L2: 80%. Fully developed. Bible: 1916–1994.
Language Resources
OLAC resources in and about Vietnamese
Writing
Braille script. Han (Hanzi, Kanji, Hanja) script. Latin script, primary usage.
Other Comments

Kinh is an official ethnic community. Buddhist, Christian.

Also spoken in:

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