Vietnamese Alphabet and Orthography

The modern Vietnamese writing system is called quốc ngữ and is based on the Latin alphabet.

29 Letters

A Ă Â B C D Đ E Ê G H I K L M N O Ô Ơ P Q R S T U Ư V X Y

The standard English alphabet contains four letters that are not part of the official Vietnamese alphabet: F, J, W, Z. They can be found in foreign names, brands, abbreviations, and loanwords.

Special Letters

ă, â, ê, ô, ơ, ư, đ are not decorative variants of Latin letters, but independent elements of the system.

It is especially important to distinguish between:

• a, ă, â;
• e, ê;
• o, ô, ơ;
• u, ư;
• d, đ.

Two Layers of Diacritics

In Vietnamese, two different systems visually coexist:

1. marks that form a different letter or vowel quality: ă â ê ô ơ ư;
2. tone marks: ´, `, ̉, ~, . below the letter.

For example:

• a — base vowel;
• ă — different vowel;
• á — a with the sắc tone;
• ắ — ă with the sắc tone.

For the a group, this results in 3 vowels × 6 tones = 18 written forms: a á à ả ã ạ, ă ắ ằ ẳ ẵ ặ, â ấ ầ ẩ ẫ ậ.

Consonant Combinations

Knowing just the 29 letters is not enough for reading. You also need to know the main orthographic combinations: ch, gh, gi, kh, ng, ngh, nh, ph, qu, th, tr.

Links

Tone markings are covered in detail in Vietnamese Tones, letter pronunciation in Phonetics, and syllable assembly in Syllable Structure.

The main map is located in the main concept.