Vietnamese alphabet

The Vietnamese alphabet (chữ Quốc ngữ in Vietnamese) is a version of the Latin alphabet used to write the Vietnamese language. It uses all of the letters of the ISO Basic Latin Alphabet except for F, J, W, and Z (which are only found in loanwords). However, the alphabet has been changed heavily in order to accurately show Vietnamese pronunciation. Some letters and digraphs make very different sounds than what most readers of the Latin alphabet expect, such as D, R, and GI. One letter has been added, Đ, to show it is a completely different sound from D. Vowel markers are added in order to distinguish different vowel sounds like A, Â, and Ǎ. Tone markers are also added, because Vietnamese is a tonal language, such as Á, Ả, Ã, Ạ, and À. Some vowels have both a vowel marker and a tone marker. For example, the vowel Ǎ can be written as Ắ, Ẳ, Ẵ, Ặ, and Ằ. Sometimes, even non-speakers of Vietnamese can tell something is written in Vietnamese simply based on how many markings a word can have.


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