Name used by its speakers (Endonym): Tiếng Việt
Native speakers (estimated): 86 million
Total speakers, including second-language (estimated): 97 million
Where it’s spoken: Vietnamese is spoken primarily in Vietnam where it is the national language. It is a native language for the majority of ethnic Vietnamese, and a lingua franca for other linguistic and ethnic minorities within the country. Significant Vietnamese populations exist in the neighboring Southeast Asian nations. Due to emigration, especially during and after the Vietnam War, many speakers are also found in North America, Europe, and Australia. In France it is the most widely spoken Asian language; in Australia the fourth most spoken language; and in the United States the fifth most spoken (after English, Spanish, Chinese and Tagalog), with the highest numbers of Vietnamese-Americans living in California, Texas, Washington and Florida. Though the numbers are not necessarily higher there than other European countries, Vietnamese has been officially recognized as a minority language in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Language family: Austroasiatic family, Vietic branch. It is by far the largest member of the family, accounting for over two thirds of Austroasiatic language speakers.
Related languages: Only one other language within this family, Khmer in Cambodia, is an official national language. The closest relative to Vietnamese is Mường, whose dialects are spoken mostly in mountainous parts of northern Vietnam. Smaller regional Austroasiatic languages are spoken by minority groups in Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, India, and China.
Writing and pronunciation tips: The Vietnamese alphabet, based on the Latin alphabet, had been developed since the 17th century but was officially adopted only during French colonial rule in the early 20th century. Previously a writing system based on Chinese characters had been used. The alphabet includes 29 letters, including one additional consonant and 6 additional vowels formed by adding marks (diacritics) to a, e, o and u. It does not include F, J, W or Z. Additional marks indicate tone: Each syllable can be pronounced with six different tones (as compared to four in Mandarin Chinese, for example.) Though each syllable is separated by a space in written Vietnamese, words can be made up of one or multiple syllables.