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lang: en
type: Profile
record_kind: entity-profile
title: Vietnamese
description: Vietnamese is the national language of Vietnam, belonging to the Mon-Khmer branch of Austroasiatic. Its six tones, analytic grammar, and Latin-based Quốc ngữ script reflect a unique Southeast Asian profile.
llms_summary: "Vietnamese. (Hanoi, Hanoi, Vietnam). Profile. Grammatical Typology SVO, Analytic, Tonal. L1 Native Speakers 76 M. Language Family Austroasiatic / Vietic / Vietnamese. Language Vitality Index 9 scale. Number of Countries 1 countries. Standard Script Latin (Quốc ngữ). Total Speakers 85 M. UNESCO Risk Category Safe. Web Domain Share (%) 10% %. Linguistics & Culture. Vietnamese is the national language of Vietnam, belonging to the Mon-Khmer branch of Austroasiatic. Its six tones, analytic grammar, and Latin-based Quốc ngữ script reflect a unique Southeast Asian profile.  canonical profile on Chrisyst Datasets"
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indexed_at: "2026-07-16T13:15:13.715Z"
license: citation-free
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    slug: vietnamese
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---
# Vietnamese

Vietnamese is the national language of Vietnam, belonging to the Mon-Khmer branch of Austroasiatic. Its six tones, analytic grammar, and Latin-based Quốc ngữ script reflect a unique Southeast Asian profile.

## Record

- **Title**: [Vietnamese](https://datasets.chrisyst.com/vietnamese/index.md)
- **Geo target**: Hanoi, Hanoi, Vietnam
- **Website**: https://vienngonngu.vass.vn/
- **Address**: Hanoi, Hanoi, Vietnam
- **Coordinates**: 21.0278, 105.8342

### Summary

Vietnamese is the national language of Vietnam, belonging to the Mon-Khmer branch of Austroasiatic. Its six tones, analytic grammar, and Latin-based Quốc ngữ script reflect a unique Southeast Asian profile.

### Description

## Historical Evolution
Vietnamese diverged from Viet-Muong, absorbing extensive Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary during millenniums of Chinese rule. French colonialism introduced romanization (Quốc ngữ), which replaced Chinese characters by the early 20th century. North–South political division left modest lexical and tonal differences still visible today.

## Phonology
Vietnamese has six tones (including ngang, huyền, sắc, hỏi, ngã, nặng) on syllables with rigid C(G)V(C) structure. Vowel quality and final consonants (/p t k m n ŋ/) interact with tone. Regional splits (Hanoi vs Saigon) affect consonant mergers and vowel height.

## Syntax
Vietnamese is SVO and analytic: no inflectional morphology for tense or number. Classifiers precede nouns in numeral phrases; serial verb constructions are common. Topic–comment organization and sentence-final particles encode aspect and stance.

### Attributes

- **Grammatical Typology**: SVO, Analytic, Tonal
- **L1 Native Speakers**: 76 M _(quality 76)_
- **Language Family**: Austroasiatic / Vietic / Vietnamese
- **Language Vitality Index**: 9 scale _(quality 9)_
- **Number of Countries**: 1 countries _(quality 1)_
- **Standard Script**: Latin (Quốc ngữ)
- **Total Speakers**: 85 M _(quality 85)_
- **UNESCO Risk Category**: Safe
- **Web Domain Share (%)**: 10% % _(quality 0)_