Writing systems abjads alphabets syllabic alphabets ... Language index Vietnamese is an Austroasiatic language spoken by about 82 million people mainly in Vietnam. There are also Vietnamese speakers in the USA, China, Cambodia, France, Australia, Laos, Canada and a number of other countries. Vietnamese has been the official language of Vietnam since the country gained independence from France in 1954. Vietnamese was originally written with a Siniform (Chinese-like) script known as or . At first most Vietnamese literature was essentially Chinese in structure and vocabulary. Later literature developed a more Vietnamese style, but was still full of Chinese loan words. The greatest literary work in Vietnamese is Kim Van Kieu , the 'Tale of Kieu', a romance written by Nguyen-Du (1765-1820). was used until the 20th century. Courses in the script were available at Ho Chi Minh University until 1993, but since then knowledge of and interest in the script has died out. During the 17th century, Roman Catholic missionaries introduced a Latin-based orthography for Vietnamese, (national language),which has been used ever since. Until the early 20th century | |
|
