Vietnam Languages

Asia Vietnam

Spoken languages are affiliated with each ethnic group. Vietnamese is the most widely spoken language, and is the language of government, schools and television. Other languages spoken regionally include the numerous small ethnic groups, Chinese, Khmer and French. English is being revived and is widely used in business. Records were kept in Chinese, Vietnamese, French and English.

The Vietnamese language was originally written in Chinese characters. The Vietnamese began developing their own system of writing called Chu nom which used some Chinese ideographs for sounds and others for complete words. This system began to slip into disuse in the late 16th century when Portuguese and French missionaries devised the Quoc ngu, a system of writing Vietnamese in Roman letters. This eventually became the common method of writing modern Vietnamese, although Chinese forms and ideographs continue to be used for religious and ceremonial purposes.