Their language, Vietnamese, is a language of the Austroasiatic family, related to the Khmer spoken in neighbouring Cambodia, though it is the only one in the language family to be tonal (that is, changing your pitch when you say a word often alters its meaning). Through the centuries, they slowly expanded and consolidated their territorial gains, such that modern day Vietnam stretches from the capital Hanoi in the north, to Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon, in the south. The Vietnamese people first inhabited a land called Van Lang, located in the north-eastern corner of the Indochinese peninsula. To understand why Vietnamese is written in a way that seems peculiar to Western eyes, we must delve into the rich social and linguistic history of Vietnam and its relationship with the world at large. Vietnam through the centuries: Chinese influence You scurry away and resolve never to eat delicious Vietnamese food again until you’ve mastered the vagaries of the Vietnamese writing system. The lady finally says “ah, you want phở!” She scoops you a generous helping.
You repeat yourself, saying the word “pho” louder. You ask the nice Vietnamese lady for a bowl, and she looks at you quizzically. After an hour of trying to make sense of the script, you give up and decide to treat yourself to some piping hot pho. The Ds seem to have extra lines in them, the Os have little tendrils snaking out of one side and the As are balancing bowls on their heads. Amidst the usual Bs and Hs, other strange letters pop out. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of trying to decipher something written in Vietnamese, you might soon come to realise that while it may look familiar at first glance, it begins to descend into incomprehensibility the more you look at it.
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