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Ethnologue > Web version > Country index > Asia > Viet Nam > Vietnamese

Vietnamese

A language of Viet Nam

ISO 639-3vie

Population  65,800,000 in Viet Nam (1999 census). Population total all countries: 68,634,000.
Region  Widespread. Also in Australia, Cambodia, Canada, China, Côte d’Ivoire, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Laos, Martinique, Netherlands, New Caledonia, Norway, Philippines, Russian Federation (Asia), Senegal, Taiwan, Thailand, United Kingdom, United States, Vanuatu.
Language maps  Northern Viet Nam, reference number 97
Northern Viet Nam, reference number 97
Northwestern Viet Nam, reference number 97
Southern Viet Nam, reference number 97
Alternate names   Annamese, Ching, Gin, Jing, Kinh, Viet
Dialects  Northern Vietnamese (Tonkinese, Hanoi), Central Vietnamese (Hue), Southern Vietnamese. Numerous dialects.
Classification  Austro-Asiatic, Mon-Khmer, Viet-Muong, Vietnamese
Language use  Official language.
Language development  Literacy rate in L1: 65%. Literacy rate in L2: 80%. Fully developed. Bible: 1916–1994.
Writing system  Latin script.
Comments  People called ‘Kinh’. SVO; prepositions; classifiers and numerals precede noun heads; possessor noun phrases and adjectives follow noun heads. Buddhist, Christian.

Also spoken in:

Cambodia

Language name   Vietnamese
Population  393,000 in Cambodia (2000).
 

China

Language name   Vietnamese
Population  7,200 in China (1999 J. Ouyang).
Region  South coast of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous region, on Shanxin, Wanwei, and Wutou peninsulas (the “three peninsulas”), Fangcheng Pan-Nationality Autonomous County; Jiangping region.
Language map  Southern China, reference number 52
Alternate names  Annamese, Ching, Gin, Jing, Kinh
Language use  Moderately vigorous. A few Chinese living in the area speak Vietnamese as L2. In parts of Fangcheng County most shifting to Yue Chinese [yue]. Due to increased commerce and contact with Viet Nam since mid 1990s, the language could revive in China. Most domains in the “three peninsulas”, although interchangeably with Yue Chinese; only restricted domains elsewhere. All ages. Most also use Yue Chinese of Guangxi. A few also use Yue or Mandarin Chinese [cmn].
Language development  Literacy rate in L2: 92%.
Comments  Ethnic Vietnamese are classified in an official nationality, called Jing or Gin. Fishermen; agriculturalists; aquatic breeding; small businessmen. Christian, Daoist.
 

Entries from the SIL Bibliography about this language:

Academic Publications

AMARA Prasithrathsint; NATCHANAN Yaowapat, authors. 2009. "A typology of relative clauses in Mainland Southeast Asian languages."  Available online

AMELOT, Angélique; MICHAUD, Alexis; ROUBEAU, Bernard; VŨ Ngọc Tuấn, authors. 2006. "Nasal release, nasal finals and tonal contrasts in Hanoi Vietnamese: an aerodynamic experiment."  Available online

BARKER, Milton E., author. 1963. "Proto-Vietnamuong initial labial consonants."

BARKER, Milton E., author. 1966. "Vietnamese-Muong tone correspondences."

BARKER, Milton E., author. 1969. "The phonological adaptation of French loanwords in Vietnamese."  Available online

BARKER, Milton E.; BARKER, Muriel A., authors. 1970. "Proto-Vietnamuong (Annamuong) final consonants and vowels."

BURTON, Eva, author. 1964. "Communication in Vietnamese poetry."

CAO Xuân Hạo, author. 1992. "Some preliminaries to the syntactic analysis of the Vietnamese sentence."  Available online

CHALERMCHAI, Chaichompoo, author. 2006. "Segmental variation of Vietnamese in northeastern Thailand."  Available online

CLARK, Marybeth, author. 1992. "Conjunction as topicalizer in Vietnamese."  Available online

COOPER, Michael, author. 1996. Some fortitions and lenitions in Vietnamese.

DALEY, Karen A. C., author. 1996. The use of classifiers in Vietnamese narrative texts.

DALEY, Karen A. C., author. 1998. Vietnamese Classifiers in Narrative Texts.  Available for purchase

DAY, A. Colin, author. 1962. "Final consonants in Northern Vietnamese."

DINH Dien, author. 2002. "Cognitive linguistics approach to Vietnamese noun compounds."  Available online

DINH Dien, author. 2005. "Building an annotated English-Vietnamese parallel corpus."  Available online

DONALDSON, Jean, author. 1963. "A study of the ‘nặng’ tone in the northern dialect of Vietnamese."

EDMONDSON, Jerold A.; NGUYEN Van Loi, authors. 1998. "Tones and voice quality in modern northern Vietnamese: Instrumental case studies."  Available online

FERLUS, Michel, author. 1992. "Histoire abregée de l’évolution des consonnes initiales du Vietnamien et du Sino-Vietnamien."  Available online

FRIBERG, Barbara, author. 1972. Generative phonology as applied to Vietnamese dialects: a study based on Middle Vietnamese, comparing the three major dialects of Modern Vietnamese.

GREGERSON, Kenneth J., author. 1963. The phonemes of Middle Vietnamese.

GREGERSON, Kenneth J., author. 1969. "A study of Middle Vietnamese phonology."

GREGERSON, Kenneth J., author. 1973. Review of: Vietnamese-English student dictionary, by Nguyễn Ðình-Hòa.

GREGERSON, Kenneth J., author. 1991. "An Austronesian lexicon in Vietnamese."

GREGERSON, Kenneth J.; THOMAS, David D., authors. 1976. "Vietnamese hỏi and ngã tones and Mon-Khmer -h finals."  Available online

HAUPERS, Ralph, author. 1969. "A note on Vietnamese kh and ph."  Available online

HOÀNG Văn Hành, author. 1992. "The mechanism for forming nominating units in isolating languages."  Available online

INGRAM, John C. L.; NGUYẼ̂N, Anh-Thư T., authors. 2007. "Stress and tone sandhi in Vietnamese reduplications."  Available online

KINGKARN Thepkanjana; SUTHATIP Mueanjai, authors. 2009. "Semantic extension of the verb of giving in Vietnamese."  Available online

KOHNERT, Kathryn; PHAM Giang, authors. 2009. "A corpus-based analysis of Vietnamese 'classifiers' "con" and "cái"."  Available online

LEE, Ernest W., author. 1978. "Diglot textbooks and dictionaries as a means to the assimilation of the national language of Viet Nam."

LY Toan Thang, author. 1999. "Representation of space in Vietnamese classifiers."  Available online

MILLER, Carolyn P., author. 1966. Structural ambiguity within the Vietnamese relative clause.

MILLER, Carolyn P., author. 1973. "Informant techniques and procedures used in formulating a generative description of the relative clause in Vietnamese."  Available online

MILLER, Carolyn P., author. 1976. "Structural ambiguity in the Vietnamese relative clause."  Available online

MILLER, John D., author. 1961. "Word tone recognition in Vietnamese whispered speech."

MILLER, John D., author. 1976. "Types of phonic interference in Vietnamese speakers of English."  Available online

NGUYỄN Ðình Hoà, author. 1992. "Vietnamese phonology and graphemic borrowings from Chinese: The book of 3,000 characters revisited."  Available online

NGUYỄN Phú Phong, author. 1992. "Vietnamese demonstratives revisited."  Available online

NOMURA, Naomitsu Mikami, author. 1992. "A semantic analysis of the so-called passive verbs in some Indochinese languages."  Available online

O'LEARY, Clare F., author. 1988. Language maintenance and shift in a Vietnamese refugee community: a study of attitudes and behaviors.

PHAM Xuân Tín; THOMAS, David D., authors. 1964. Basic Vietnamese course.

PITTMAN, Richard S., author. 1970. "On eliciting transformations in Vietnamese."

PREISIG, Elisabeth, author. 1982. Relations interpersonnelles dans la famille vietnamienne: Etude ethnolinguistique du système d’appellation interpersonnelle du dialecte de la région de Hanoi.

QIXIANG, Yan; ZHIZHI, Zhou, authors. 1997. "On the genetic affiliation of Vietnamese."  Available online

SOPHANA Srichampa, author. 1997. "Serial verb constructions in Vietnamese."  Available online

SOPHANA Srichampa, author. 1998. "Prepositional vs directional coverbs in Vietnamese."  Available online

SOPHANA Srichampa, author. 2000. "Vietnamese slang expressions."  Available online

SOPHANA Srichampa, author. 2001. "Semantics of Vietnamese directional verbs."  Available online

SOPHANA Srichampa, author. 2004. "Politeness strategies in Hanoi Vietnamese speech."  Available online

SOPHANA Srichampa, author. 2005. "Comparison of greetings in the Vietnamese dialects of Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh City."  Available online

SOPHANA Srichampa, author. 2006. "Thai and Vietnamese proverbs and common expressions: the influence of Buddhist and local beliefs."  Available online

SOPHANA Srichampa, author. 2007. "Vietnamese propaganda reflections from 1945-2000."  Available online

SOPHANA Srichampa, author. 2009. "Patterns of polite expressions in Vietnamese."  Available online

TAYLOR, Harvey M., author. 1962. "A phonetic description of the tones of the Hue dialect of Vietnamese."

THOMAS, David D., author. 1962. "On defining the ‘word’ in Vietnamese."

THOMAS, David D., author. 1962. "Thế nào là một ‘tiếng (word) trong Việt-ngũ."

THOMAS, David D., author. 1967. Review of: a Vietnamese grammar, by Laurence C. Thompson.

THOMAS, David D., author. 1973. Review of: a tagmemic comparison of the structure of English and Vietnamese languages, by Dương Thanh Bình.

THOMAS, David D., author. 1974. Review of: a contrastive grammatical analysis of English and Vietnamese, by Nguyễn Ðăng Liêm.

THOMAS, David D., author. 1974. Review of: Vietnamese grammar, by Nguyễn Ðăng Liêm.

THOMAS, David D., author. 1981. "The Vietnamese preverb auxiliary system."

THOMAS, David D., author. 1992. Review of: Discursive practices and linguistic meanings: The Vietnamese system of personal reference, by Hy V. Luong.

THOMAS, David D., author. 1992. Review of: Discursive practices and linguistic meanings: the Vietnamese system of personal reference, by Hy V. Luong.

WATSON, Richard L., author. 1970. Review of: Read Vietnamese, by Nguyẽn Ðình-Hòa.

WATSON, Richard L., author. 1970. Review of: Vietnamese-English dictionary, by Nguyẽn Ðình-Hòa.

Vernacular Publications

33 Bảng treo vệ-sinh, khoa-học và đức-dục. 1971.

Bài Anh-Ngữ thực-hành. 1973.

Basic Vietnamese course. 1964.

Em học toán: quyển 1, 2. 1970.

Tập nói tiếng Việt, lớp một sắc-tộc (Loại sách phổ thông dành riêng cho các sắc-tộc) sách hưởng dẫn giáo chức. 1972.

Tập nói tiếng Việt, lóp sáu; phân chỉ nam. 1969.

Tập nói tiếng Việt, lớp vỡ lòng (Sách hướng dẫn giáo chức). 1971.