We are discussing only a minor detail here. The difference in use of loose letters such as in Latin scripture and characters like in Chinese scripture is more immense. Usually little attention is paid to this.
In one of the intensively used study books, "An Introduction to Language" (Fromkin & Rodman, Harcourt Brace College Publishers 9780030753794) we read: "Human memory is short-lived, and the brain's storage capacity is limited. Writing overcame such problems and allowed communication across the miles and through the centuries. Writing permits a society to permanently record its literature, its history and science, and its technology. The creation and development of writing systems is therefore one of the greatest of human achievements". This book focuses on the diversity of scriptures but neglects the consequences caused by the use of a particular system. I think that is a pity because how we fix information in writing has a huge relevance.

Remarkable about Vietnamese language is that the present scripture was used long after its founding development form. From the contemporary scripture we can not deduct how the language was constructed essentially. In able to understand this we have to go back in time hundreds of years when we discover the Chinese scripture to be its original form. The Vietnamese version is called "chữ nôm"

About the influence of the Chinese writing system

Vietnam is a tall shaped, relatively small country with the Mekong river in the South and the Red river in the North. Around both rivers rich civilizations evolved. The North was home to the Dong Song civilization which extended into Myanmar (Burma) till around 200 BC. Then the Chinese invasion radically ended this situation from which moment we speak about the people (Viet) living South (Nam) of China. They were since raised in a Chinese fashion. Same education, management and philosophy. Before Le Roi put an end to the Chinese occupation in the 15th century there were several uprisings. Accordingly each village has a Le Roi street which often houses a Ho Chi Minh museum as Vietnamese highly value their heros. Long after the Chinese invaders were driven out the Chinese language remained in use and left a profound imprint on the Vietnamese language. The Chinese scripture consists of characters. A language using characters is a totally different language to one using letters.

Understanding Vietnamese will be faster and more fun when essential differences in writing between both systems will be studied because several language twists originate from the way of writing. I will present an example. The Vietnamese verb for going đ, has only one character. There are no characters for all verb forms, the character is never adapted to the verb. A grammar particle is put in front in able to express past and future. Sẽ for future and đã for past. Đang can be possibly used for when we are on the going. Because of the use of Chinese scripture Vietnamese doesn't recognize any conjugations. There is more though. Within Latin scripture all words are build from a limited amount of letters. A plural form is easily constructed. In this line we should create constantly new characters.

This is impossible to do so one also uses a particle in front of the letter. Plural forms are still unknown even though Vietnam uses the Latin alphabet. Many diversions are used, based from the use of characters in Vietnamese which are unusual to us. In the character language each word has its own character which results in ten thousands of characters, even without all verbs and plural forms. Because there was such a large quantity of characters it seemed useful to classify these. Each class received its own depicting character. This aspect returns in all diverse languages influenced by Chinese such as Japanese and Thai. In ancient times the Thai lived in the North of Vietnam from where they moved down to present day Thailand. We can still find a substantial ethnic Thai population living in Northern Vietnam today.

Thai language also consists of classifiers as in Vietnamees. Some of these classifiers one can learn easily. Xe for instance is the classifier for transportation vehicles. . Xe đạp is a bicycle. . Xe máy a motor sycle, xe buýt a bus etc.
Con is used for animals. So when one reads something in the menu with "con" in front it will definitely not be vegetarian. For meat lovers: con gà is chicken, con bò is beef, con heo.is pig and con chó is dog.

Another effect of the Chinese scripture origin is the absence of long words in Vietnamese. Words were also constructed out of different characters. A good example is the very well know Chinese greeting 'Ni Hao', The character for 'feeling good' is a combination of the character representing woman and the character representing child.
In Vietnamese this works out exactly the same: they remain two different characters but in Latin scripture they became two separate words. Example wise: there is a character for flying which is in Vietnamese "bay" and a character for machine which is in Vietnamese 'máy'. An airplane becomes 'máy bay'. In ancient China flying machines were unknown but one tied an inmate on a kite which was flown. The inmate had to report what he saw up there after he managed to survive and land.

Many weird grammar twists are more understandable and easier to learn once you kno wit originated from Chinese scripture. One has to think a bit in characters. We will focus on the usefulness of present day Vietnamese scripture in a next episode. Useful to know is that 50% of the Vietnamese vocabulary originates from Chinese but for these same words original Vietnamese words are used which makes the language very rich but also often confusing.

Roby bellemans
(English translation: Gerard Mosterd)