Why Written and Spoken Vietnamese Don't Often Match

If you've studied the Vietnamese language for any amount of time, then you'll quickly notice that 1) there are three--or four, depending on who you ask--rather different accents (North, Central, and South), 2) there is only one alphabet despite these different accents, and, as a result, 3) what you say and how you spell what you say can be very difficult to memorize...even for native Vietnamese speakers.

For example: In the north, the "d," "gi," and "r" are all pronounced with an English "z" sound. However, in the south, the "d," the "gi," and even the "v" are pronounced with an English "y" sound, and the "r" is pronounced with an English "r" sound.

What in th-...What gives?

Many of my Vietnamese friends and Vietnamese teachers refer to the northern accent as the "most standard" accent--quotes intentional, as this is a contentious issue still open for debate. However, if the northern accent is the most standard, then why isn't the aforementioned "d," "gi," and "r" all just represented by one letter? The same thing goes for the "s/x" and the "ch/tr": These parings are pronounced exactly the same in the north, but they're pronounced differently the further south you travel.

If these individual letters exist within the Vietnamese alphabet, then there must be a reason why they exist. Otherwise, the "d/gi/r," the "s/x," and the "ch/tr" sounds would've each just been represented by one letter or pairing from the very beginning.

How does this make any sense? Well, after some deep investigation (i.e. reading a few Wikipedia pages and watching a few YouTube videos), it turns out that there's a decently plausible explanation for this discrepancy: Portuguese missionaries and one famous French missionary by the name of Alexandre de Rhodes.

Early 16th Century: Portuguese Missionaries Use Latin Alphabet to Transcribe Vietnamese

Source: www.iro.umontreal.ca

Trade between Europe and South, Southeast, and East Asia via the Indian Ocean and South China Sea was very common (There's plenty of history books and YouTube videos to explain the proliferation of international commerce by sea, and they're all worth checking out if you're interested in learning more about the topic).

In the interest of spreading the word of the Lord across the globe, Catholic missionaries from Europe sailed to far off lands, Asia being one of them because trade routes between western Europe and Asia were already established at that point in time. Once in Asia, these missionaries would invest the time and resources to learn the local language, both written and spoken, in order to proselytize out on the streets and translate the bible for locals to study.

Early Vietnam was no exception to both international trade and visits from these missionaries wanting to learn the language and spread Catholicism. It was during this period of the early to mid-16th century that Portuguese missionaries traveled to north Vietnam and began using the Latin alphabet to transcribe the Vietnamese language, thus creating the foundation for the Vietnamese written language we see today.

17th Century: Vietnamese Expands South and Clans Rule Different Territories

Between the 11th and 18th century, Vietnam gradually occupied lands south along the sea coast. During this geographical expansion, clans were formed, dynasties were created, and lords came into power. The two most notable ruling clans during the 17th Century were the Trịnh and Nguyễn clans. The Trịnh clan ruled the north region, and the Nguyễn clan rule the central region.

17th Century: Alexandre de Rhodes Arrives in Vietnam

If you've been to Ho Chi Minh City, then there's a good chance that you've traveled along a road called "Alexandre de Rhodes" and were confused as to why Vietnam named a street after a Westerner.

Alexandre de Rhodes was a French Jesuit Missionary who traveled to Vietnam to continue spreading Catholicism. Rhodes lived in the Trịnh-ruled northern region until the Trịnh lords, skeptical of the increasing presence of Catholicism, expelled him out of the country. He would later return to Vietnam, only this time to the Nguyễn-ruled central region. Once back in Vietnam, he built upon the linguistic foundation created by the Portuguese missionaries before him who lived in the north and published the Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum, a Vietnamese–Portuguese–Latin dictionary.

The Discrepancy Between Written and Spoken Vietnamese

Allow me to reiterate the above-mentioned point: In the early 16th century Portuguese missionaries started converting the Vietnamese written language to a Latin-based script in the Trịnh-ruled northern region, and in the early 17th century Rhodes finalized the conversion in the Nguyễn-ruled central region.

During these 100 years, a language can change a lot, and multiple accents of one language can emerge no mater how small a country is. Japan has two major accents and a bunch of smaller regional ones. England has a number of different accents on their island. America would eventually grow to have five or six major regional accents.

There are many reasons why a language can evolve: outside or foreign influences affect local language through the introduction of new words, natives of recently occupied areas change how the language is spoken through their own attempts to learn the language of their new rulers, and clans themselves change how they verbally communicate with one another in order to keep vital information (read: war strategies) secret from neighboring clans.

With all of this in mind, to give you a general idea on how much of an influence these starting (north) and ending (central) places can have on the Vietnamese writing system--not to mention the fact that creating the Vietnamese alphabet happened over the span of 100 years and included multiple people from two different countries and with different language skill sets, let's quickly revisit the "d/gi/r" letters and sounds, going in reverse order.

Central (and southern) Vietnamese accents actually pronounce the letter "r" in somewhat similar fashion to the Western letter "r." Hence, rồi actually sounds more like the boy's name "Roy" in the central and south than it does "zoy" as you'd hear it in the north.

Taking into consideration the linguistic influences of the French and Portuguese languages, then it stands to reason that the combination letters "gi" were assigned to central Vietnamese words that started with a soft "g" sound as you'd hear in French, or "j" as you'd hear in English. These central Vietnamese words probably sounded like the letter "z," but, once again, time, migration, war, and different foreign influences can quickly change a pronunciation.

As for the letter "d," I haven't been able to fully understand its history. Much of it had to do with Latin, which, of course, was the prominent language in the Catholic church. The closest I could find to explaining the letter and sound "d" was the below entry from Wikipedia on the quốc ngữ script:

"d: In most writing systems based on Latin alphabet, “d” is usually used to record the consonants /d/ or /d̪/. However those sounds don't exist in middle and modern Vietnamese, therefore “d” is used to represent /ð/, a similar sound in middle Vietnamese. /ð/ doesn't exist anymore in modern Vietnamese and has become /z/ in Northern dialect and /j/ in Southern dialect"

So, there you have it. This is my nascent understanding of why different letters exist for the same sound in the north, and for different sounds in central and south.

The en-...

Wait! What About the Tone Marks?!

The history behind why the north clearly enunciates six tones (a á à ả ã ạ), the central emphasizes one tone (ạ), and the south usually gets by with five tones (a á à ả/ã ạ) is still a bit of a mystery to me. However, if I had to make a bet and give an educated guess, then I'm inclined to believe that the pronunciation of the tones changed based on how well the original inhabitants of the lands being occupied during the Vietnamese southern expansion took to the Vietnamese language.

I based this off of a couple of notions.

First, to this day, Vietnam is still home to many indigenous ethnic minority villages, each with their own unique language (and culture and general way of life) that is very different from Vietnamese. I can imagine that these once predominate ethnic villages had their own way of learning and pronouncing the Vietnamese language after larger clans occupied their area.

Second, America itself experienced a change in spoken English as settlers migrated from east to west. When you add in a wide variety of cultural influences from Native Americans and immigrants from other parts of Europe, then you'll invariably see the English language evolve over time. I assume that this same kind of evolution took place in Vietnam as clans, perhaps with their own ways of speaking, fought for regional and national dominance.

As for actually assigning six distinct tone marks to words, I'm currently under the impression that this was done over time by the same combination of the foundational work done by the Portuguese missionaries in the north region and Alexandre de Rhodes in the central region.