The national and official language of Vietnam is Vietnamese, a tonal langauge. It became the official language only in the 20th century. Before that, traditional Chinese was used for governing purposes while written Vietnamese mainly for literature and poetry.
The vocabulary of Vietnamese language has been largely adopted from the Chinese language especially words that signify abstract ideas. The current Vietnamese writing system makes use of the Latin alphabet, adding extra diacritics for specific letters and tones.
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| Vietnamese language guide |
Vietnamese language is difficult as there are six tones to each syllable, all with a different meaning. Some other languages spoken in Vietnam includes Chinese, Khmer, Cham, and others spoken by tribes in the mountains.
A number of older Vietnamese still speak French as their second language while the younger generations are picking up languages like English, Chinese, and Japanese in schools.
(Spainexchange, 2010)
(Asian Info, 2000)
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