The Vietnamese Alphabet

Did you know that the modern Vietnamese alphabet, chữ Quốc ngữ, was developed as recently as the 17th century and is based on a Latinized script of Vietnamese created by a Portuguese Jesuit priest named Francisco de Pina and other Jesuit missionaries? It was later refined by the French during the French colonial period in Vietnam, resulting in the alphabet we have today, which has Portuguese, French, and Italian influences. In 1867, Vietnamese scholar Trương Vĩnh Ký dubbed this Latinized Vietnamese script “chữ Quốc ngữ” in one of his grammar books, Mẹo luật dạy học tiếng pha-lang-sa (Tips to teach and learn French).

Before the Vietnamese language was Latinized, it was based on Chinese characters with Vietnamese enhancements. Early Vietnamese literature was written in Classical Chinese (Văn ngôn) with classical Chinese characters ((漢文, Hán văn) starting from 111 BC. Indigenous writing, chữ Hán, was used in Vietnam starting in the ninth century after the Red River Delta region became part of the Han dynasty, and is made up of Chinese characters that were used to write literary Chinese and Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary. In the 12th century, the logographic (where characters can represent words or morphemes) writing system chữ Nôm developed in Vietnam, a system adapted from Chinese and infused with Vietnamese characters to express native Vietnamese words.

Today’s Vietnamese alphabet is composed of 29 letters, of which 17 are consonants and 12 are vowels, and uses special markings called diacritics to represent traditional Vietnamese sounds. Here is the Vietnamese alphabet with names and pronunciations (sources in links).

Vietnamese Alphabet

Letter	Name	Pronunciation
A, a	a	like “a” in “father”
Ă, ă	á	shorter version of “a”
Â, â	ớ	like “u” in “but”
B, b	bê	like “b” in “bat”
C, c	xê	like “c” in “cat”
D, d	dê	northern uses “z”, southern uses “y”
Đ, đ	đê	like “d” in “dog”
E, e	e	like “e” in “yet”
Ê, ê	ê	like “ay” in “say”
G, g	giê	like “g” in “goat”
H, h	hát	like “h” in “horse”
I, i	i ngắn	like “ee” in “see”
K, k	ca	like “k” in “kite”
L, l	e-lờ	like “l” in “light”
M, m	em-mờ	like “m” in “mom”
N, n	en-nờ	like “n” in “no”
O, o	o	like “o” in “hot”
Ô, ô	ô	like “o” in “go”
Ơ, ơ	ơ	like “u” in “huh” but longer
P, p	pê	like “p” in “pot”
Q, q	quy	like the English “q” and always paired with “u”
R, r	e-rờ	varies by region between “z” and soft “r”
S, s	ét-si	southern uses “s” as in “see”, northern uses “sh”
T, t	tê	like “t” in “top”
U, u	u	like “oo” in “boot”
Ư, ư	ư	say “ee” with flat lips
V, v	vê	like “v” in “very”
X, x	ích-xì	like “s” in “see”
Y, y	i dài	like “ee”

Vietnamese Letter Combinations

Letter	Pronunciation
Gi gi	same as a Vietnamese “d”: northern uses “z”, southern uses “y”
Kh kh	like “ch” in “loch”
Ng ng	like “ng” as in “ring”
Nh nh	like “ny” at the beginning of a word; and at the end of a word, northern uses “ng”, southern uses “n”
Ph ph	like “f” and only used at the beginning of a word
Qu qu	like “qu” in“quiet”
Th th	aspirated t
Tr tr	like “ch” in “chain”

Vietnamese Diacritics (sources: Vietnamese Typography, Preply, and Wikipedia):

Vowels

• Acute (’): makes a high, rising tone
• Breve (˘): shortens vowels
• Circumflex (ˆ): changes vowel sounds into more short, tense, or rounded pronunciations
• Grave (`): makes a low, falling tone
• Hook Above ( ̉ ): Mid, falling-rising tone
• Tilde (~): High, broken, rising tone
• Underdot (.): Low, heavy, dropping tone

Note: some diacritics can stack twice on letters, as in nhất which means “first.”

Consonants

• Stroke (đ): makes d into đ

Much of this blog is a place where I record things as references for myself as well as anyone who finds them interesting or useful, and this set of letters, diacritics, and letter combinations is something I’ve wanted to clarify in a way that’s easy for me to use for a while now. If you are a Vietnamese speaker, please let me know if you have any notes or additions to the above in the comments below.