The modern and official Vietnamese writing system is based on the Latin script.
The alphabet
The Vietnamese alphabet, or bảng chữ cái (lit. “table of letters”), is a modification of the Latin alphabet. It consists of 29 letters in total.
| Aa | Ăă | Ââ | Bb | Cc | Dd |
| Đđ | Ee | Êê | Gg | Hh | Ii |
| Kk | Ll | Mm | Nn | Oo | Ôô |
| Ơơ | Pp | Rr | Ss | Tt | |
| Uu | Ưư | Vv | Xx | Yy |
Digraphs and trigraphs
Apart from the individual letters, there are also digraphs and trigraphs, which include:
- Nine consonant digraphs representing nine consonants: ch, gh, gi, kh, ng, nh, ph, th, and tr;
- Eight vowel digraphs representing three diphthongs: ia, ya, iê, yê, ưa, ươ, ua, and uô;
- Only one trigraph, representing a consonant: ngh.
Diacritics
Because the basic Latin alphabet alone isn’t enough to set up a writing system for Vietnamese, it was modified by adding some diacritics. There are three types of diacritics used in the writing system: tone marks, vowel marks, and the bar. As you may have already known, Vietnamese is a tonal language, and it has six tones, so we need to use five tone marks to represent them (except for the first tone, which requires no marks). Moreover, the language is very rich in vowels, consisting of 11 monophthongs, exceeding the ability of the basic Latin alphabet, so we also need another type of diacritics called vowel marks. And last but not least, there is also the bar to represent an additional consonant.
| Type | Use | |
|---|---|---|
| Tone mark | hook above | second tone (thanh hỏi), as in ả |
| acute accent | third tone (thanh sắc), as in á | |
| grave accent | fourth tone (thanh huyền), as in à | |
| tilde | fifth tone (thanh ngã), as in ã | |
| dot below | sixth tone (thanh nặng), as in ạ | |
| Vowel mark | circumflex | â, ê, and ô |
| horn | ơ and ư | |
| breve | ă | |
| The bar | đ | |
The spelling rules
Note: to understand the spelling rules clearly, you should have a basic grasp of the syllable structure.
The spelling rules, as the name suggests, decide the correct way to spell words. In Vietnamese writing system, one sound can be spelt in more than one ways, so we rely on the rules to know how a specific sound is spelt under a specific context. The rules are given in the table below.
| Sound | Context | Spelling | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| /k/ as initial consonant | before medial /w/ (spelt u) | q | quét, quà, quyển |
| before e, ê, i, or y | k | keo, kế, kịp | |
| otherwise | c | cát, cửa, cũng | |
| /ɣ/ | before e, ê, i, or y | gh | ghép, ghê, ghim |
| otherwise | g | ga, gừng, gội | |
| /ŋ/ as initial consonant | before e, ê, i, or y | ngh | nghẹt, nghề, nghiêng |
| otherwise | ng | ngăm, ngỡ, ngọ | |
| /z/ (a.k.a. soft g) | before i | g | gì, giếng |
| otherwise | gi | già, giật, giun | |
| /w/ as medial | before e, a, or ă, and NOT after q | o | khoẻ, oan, ngoặt |
| otherwise | u | nhuệ, huấn, khuynh, què, quản | |
| /i/ | initial consonant present, medial absent |
i | vì, kỉ, tím, nhịp |
| medial absent, final consonant present |
in, ích, tím, nhịp | ||
| after medial /w/ (spelt u) | y | uỷ, nguy, huýt | |
| standing alone | i or y | y, ý, ỷ, ì, ị, âm ỉ, ầm ĩ | |
| /iə/ | medial absent, final consonant absent |
ia | kia, phía, lìa |
| after medial /w/ (spelt u), final consonant absent |
ya | khuya | |
| initial consonant present, medial absent, final consonant present |
iê | tiễn, điểu, kiếp | |
| initial consonant absent, medial absent, final consonant present |
yê | yên, yết | |
| after medial /w/ (spelt u), final consonant present |
uyển, quyết | ||
| /ɨə/ | final consonant absent | ưa | vừa, mưa, nhựa |
| final consonant present | ươ | bước, rượu, vườn | |
| /uə/ | final consonant absent | ua | đũa, múa, chua |
| final consonant present | uô | muộn, chuông, thuốc |
According to the spelling rules, we can be certain to spell words correctly in almost every situation, except for one: when /i/ stands alone, i.e., it itself is the whole syllable. In this situation, there are no clear-cut ways to determine if we should spell it i or y, it’s just the way it is, and we have to address it on a case-by-case basis. However, if you really want to go into details, then basically it’s:
- y for Sino-Vietnamese words, for example:
- y: medicine (醫)
- ý: idea (意)
- ỷ: to rely (倚)
- i for native Vietnamese words, for example:
- ì: inert
- ị: to poop
- âm ỉ: lingering
- ầm ĩ: noisy
But how do I even know which word is Sino-Vietnamese and which is native? Yeah, about that … It’s a bit advanced for beginner-level learners, similar to how you don’t expect a beginner-level English learner to know which word is French, Latin, Greek or “English”. Just learn each word on a case-by-case basis.
Placement of tone marks
Tone mark placement is as follows:
- If the vowel is a monophthong (spelt with an individual letter), place the tone mark at the letter.
-
If the vowel is a diphthong (spelt with a digraph), then:
- If the second letter is a, place the tone mark at the first letter.
- Otherwise, place the tone mark at the second letter.
The rime table provides the correct tone mark placement for each rime.
Irregularies, ambiguities, and variants
The Vietnamese writing system has a history of hundreds of years of development, so it’s expected, if not inevitable, to have some irregularities, ambiguities, and variants in the system.
Rime with irregular spelling
There are rimes that aren’t spelt how it “should be” spelt, i.e., they don’t conform to the normal patterns in the writing system. Some of them are:
- ao, which is a plus /w/ (should be: au)
- au, which is ă plus /w/ (should be: ău)
- ay, which is ă plus /j/ (should be: ăi)
These are just a few examples. The rime table provides a comprehensive overview of such rimes.
Alternative placement of tone marks
There are three rimes with an alternative placement of tone marks: oa, oe, and uy.
Each of them consists of the medial /w/ (spelt u or o) and a main vowel (a, e, or y). According to the spelling rules, tone marks should be placed at the letter representing the main vowel, e.g. hoà, khoẻ, thuý.
However, there is the old-styled tone mark placement, or bỏ dấu kiểu cũ, which has tone marks placed at the letter representing the medial, e.g. hòa, khỏe, thúy.
Short i or long y?
For many words, most of which are the Sino-Vietnamese words starting with one of the following consonants: h, k, l, m, s, and t, plus the vowel /i/ alone as the whole rime (i.e., both medial and final consonant absent), there are two possible spellings for /i/: i (standard) and y (non-standard).
Examples:
| Standard | Non-standard | Chinese character |
|---|---|---|
| hi vọng | hy vọng | 希望 |
| kỉ luật | kỷ luật | 紀律 |
| lí do | lý do | 理由 |
| mĩ thuật | mỹ thuật | 美術 |
| thạc sĩ | thạc sỹ | 碩士 |
| công ti | công ty | 公司 |
What makes things complicated is that, for many of those, the non-standard form is actually preferred over the standard (mostly due to aesthetics and/or tradition).
The exception of quốc
There is one exception to the whole writing system: the syllable quốc, which is exclusively used in the word/morpheme quốc (“state”, “country”), which is borrowed from Chinese 國. This syllable is special in that, theoretically, its spelling actually violates Vietnamese phonotactics: qu indicates that the medial /w/ is present, whereas ô is a rounded vowel. The two of them are not allowed to co-exist in Vietnamese. Because of this, it’s impossible to figure out the correct pronunciation of this syllable based on its spelling. In fact, the pronunciation, coincidentally or not, is also very special: the Northern dialect pronounces it like cuốc, not like quấc, but the Southern dialect pronounces it like quấc, not like cuốc.
The soft g sound
According to the spelling rules, g before i indicates the soft g sound (the /z/ sound). This is similar to many European languages, especially Italian, where g also indicates the soft g sound when preceding e or i.
But what if g comes before e or ê in Vietnamese?
Logically, it should be the soft g sound, like in Europe. However, one of the unspoken rules of the Vietnamese writing system is that placing g directly before e and ê is essentially forbidden, as in giẻ (“rag”) or gieo (“to sow”). Technically, the i is redundant. Similarly, in Italian, a lot of the time they write gie only for it to be pronounced exactly like ge.
It’s all good until we encounter syllable that contains gia or giê. Is the i actually a part of the vowel (diphthong) or just there to soften the g (in case of gia) or simply redundant (in case of giê)?
Let’s take a look at giê. Obviously, the consonant is soft g, but the vowel can, theoretically, be either ê or iê. Fortunately, we don’t have to think much: it’s (almost) always iê. Similarly, in gia, the vowel can be either a or ia, but in practice, it’s (almost) always a. So, one with the i and the other without.
However …
If we are being precise, there are still exceptions. There is giền (“amaranth”), but nowadays it’s only spelt dền. Another is gịa, as in giặt gịa (“to wash”). However, in this case, there are no ambiguities since the tone mark placement clearly shows that the vowel is ia because if it were only a, then the letter must carry the tone mark (giạ). Also, this word is very obsolete, to the point that most native speakers have never heard of it. Instead, the much more common alternative is giặt giũ.