Like all languages, Vietnamese is a blend of several earlier languages. The basic vocabulary evolved from Mon-Khmer (ancient Cambodian). Chinese contributed much of the more advanced vocabulary (and the original writing system) and much of the grammar and pronunciation came from the ancient Tai people of south-western China (who were also the ancestors of today's Thai people).

DIALECTS

The two major Vietnamese dialects are those of the North and South. The differences between these are not as great as the Vietnamese would have you believe, although some regional dialects border on incomprehensibility for other Vietnamese. There are minor pronunciation, tone and vocabulary differences between the Hanoi and Saigon dialects, but they are comparable to the differences between mid-western American English and British "BBC" English

Vietnamese has nine vowel sounds represented by twelve characters. The Roman alphabet doesn't have enough vowel characters for all of these, so they make up the difference by modifying some letters with diacritics. They use all of the Roman consonants except for F, J, W and Z. P is only used with H to make the /f/ sound, and at the end of words. Y is always a vowel, making the /I/ sound. They have only one modified consonant, Ð, which produces a hard (/d/) sound