Vietnamese Language
The origins and affinities of the Vietnamese language are complex and have long been debated by scholars. The language now appears to have developed from the Mon Khmer family within the larger Austroasiatic language group. There are indications of influence from Tai languages, especially the use of tones. It also seems to exhibit some Austronesian influence, perhaps from ancient relatives of the Cham and Ede (Rhade) in prehistoric times.
In historical times there has been a very strong Chinese influence, especially in vocabulary. The word Viet comes from the Chinese word yue, which was used broadly to refer to non-Chinese ethnic groups south of the Chang (Yangtze) River. Nam, or nan in Chinese, means "south" or "southern." Some terms have been thoroughly Vietnamized and now are no longer perceived as foreign terms. Examples would include the word for "citizen," which is cong dan, and the word for "virtue" or "morality," which is dao duc. But other terms and phrases are still considered to be Sino-Vietnamese. These expressions are still heard, but not as much as they used to be.
More recently some French words have come into common use, with some of them becoming what now seem to be purely Vietnamese words. For example, the Vietnamese word for "station," ga, comes from the French gare. Similarly, the word for "doll," bup be comes from the French poupée. The word for "pump" (bom) comes from pompe; the word for "chocolate" (so co la) from chocolat. English vocabulary has even more recently been entering the language, but to a much lesser extent than Chinese or even French words. Many English-language words have appeared quite recently and have not yet been Vietnamized. One occasionally sees in Vietnam today words like club, or computer, or video, even though Vietnamese already have words that mean exactly or much the same thing.
Because each syllable is written separately and usually has a meaning (as in Viet Nam), Vietnamese seems to be, and is often called, a monosyllabic language. But compound and psuedocompound words are quite common. The words for "citizen," "virtue," and "Viet Nam" are compound words in Vietnamese. The Vietnamese word for "airplane," for example, is may bay. May means "machine" and bay means "to fly."
Vietnamese is also uninflected. There are no endings to distinguish tense or number or gender, subject from object, and so on. But future tense can be indicated by adding se in front of the verb. Thus "will fly" would be se bay. The past tense of "fly," "flew," would be da bay. Vietnamese speakers, however, use se and da sparingly, usually adding them only when necessary to avoid misunderstanding. Whether some action has already happened or will happen in the future is usually quite clear from context.
Vietnamese is also a tonal language. There are six distinct tones in the north and five in the south. In the example given above, the syllable may, which with a high rising tone means "to fly," would mean "eyebrow" with a low falling tone, or "lucky" with a level tone. The tone is thus an integral part of the word.
For many centuries, Vietnamese used the Chinese writing system. Classical Chinese was the official language of government and a common vehicle for literary expression. A system of writing called Nom, which recombined elements of Chinese characters to represent Vietnamese words, gradually evolved. By the thirteenth century it had begun to take shape as a useful system of writing and by the fifteenth century it had become a respectable and thoroughly adequate means of writing prose and poetry of the highest order. In the seventeenth century, Christian missionaries developed a phonetic, Romanized alphabet for writing Vietnamese. Early in the twentieth century this alphabet came into popular use. It soon replaced both Nom and Chinese characters. This writing system is now known as the "national language" (quoc ngu). Very few Vietnamese can now read Chinese characters and Nom can now be read only by a few dozen professional scholars.
In Vietnamese a person's family name (ho) comes first, and one's given name (what is often called the "first name" in English) comes last. Vietnamese are known mainly by their given names rather than by their family name. Let us take, for example, a Mr. Nguyen Van Ba. Nguyen would be his family name, Van his middle name, and Ba his given name. He would typically introduce himself and be addressed and referred to by others as "Mr. Ba" (Ong Ba). One reason for this may be that some family names (like Nguyen) are so common that most people would know many men with the family name of Nguyen but far fewer with the given name of Ba.
A final aspect of the language worth noting is the way Vietnamese address and refer to others and refer to themselves. The first person singular pronoun, "I" or "me" in English, toi in Vietnamese, is not often used in daily speech by native speakers of Vietnamese. There is not even a single word like the all-purpose pronoun "you" to use to address the person to whom one is speaking in Vietnamese. Instead of using somewhat neutral and impersonal pronouns like "I" or "me" or "you," Vietnamese usually use terms of kinship that express a relationship they have to the person to whom they are speaking.
In English, a child will address his or her mother as "mother." A Vietnamese child will not only do this, but will also refer to himself or herself (replacing both "I" and "me") as "child" (con). Even when speaking with people who are not relatives, kin terms are normally used, both for address and for self-reference. For example, older men are often addressed by one of several terms Vietnamese have for what we call "uncle." Depending on relative age, status, and degree of intimacy, a young Vietnamese may address an older man as "father's older brother" (bac) or "father's younger brother" (chu). He or she would then refer to himself or herself as chau, which can mean "niece" or "nephew" or "grandchild." Other common forms of address that take the place of "you" are "older brother" (anh), "older sister" (chi), and "father's sister" (co). The speaker would refer to himself or herself as em (meaning "younger sibling") or chau. Children are taught to make fine distinctions when using such terms with a wide variety of people as they are learning to talk.
As these examples clearly show, there are different terms for mother's relatives and father's relatives, and for older and younger siblings in the speaker's generation and his parents' generation. People also always take account of the relative age and status of the people to whom they are speaking. The Vietnamese language is thus hierarchical in nature. The English terms "I" and "you" imply a relationship of relative independence and equality, while Vietnamese speak in ways that express inequality and relationship. For some time, the Communist Party in Vietnam tried to introduce the use of the word "comrade" (dong chi) to reduce the sense of hierarchy in Vietnamese interpersonal relationships, but today the word is hardly ever spoken outside of party circles.
Further Reading
Herbert, Patricia, and Anthony Milner. (1989) South-East Asia Languages and Literatures: A Select Guide. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press.
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