See parent article Vietnamese language for more information about Vietnamese.

This article is an attempt at describing the Vietnamese sound system, including phonetics and phonology.

In addition, information concerning the correspondence between Vietnamese sounds and the Vietnamese writing system (i.e. the orthography) is also noted here. This is done so that this page may be a helpful pedagogical tool. Further information is on Vietnamese alphabet.

Phonology

Consonants

Inventories

Two main varieties of Vietnamese, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, are described below.

Hanoi

The 19 consonants of the Hanoi variety:

• Implosives: A more accurate description of the implosives [ʔɓ] & [ʔɗ] is that they are preglottalized voiced stops (i.e., the glottis is always closed before the oral closure). This glottal closure is often not released before the release of the oral closure, resulting in the characteric implosion. However, sometimes the glottal closure is released prior to the oral release in which case the stops are pronounced as [ʔb] & [ʔd]. Therefore, the primary characteristic is preglottalization with implosion being secondary.
• /p/ is a nonnative borrowed phoneme. It occurs only in vocabulary derived from French.
• Apicals: [t̺ʰ], [l̺], [t̺], [ɗ̺], [n̺] are apical.
• Laminals: [s̻], [z̻], [c̻], and [ɲ̻] are laminal.

Ho Chi Minh City

The 21 consonants of the Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) variety (a.k.a. Saigon variety):

The HCMC Vietnamese variety is essentially the same as the Hanoi with the following exceptions:

• /v/ is not present in HCMC (except as a spelling pronunciation in which case it always occurs palatalized with a [j] following it: [vʲj]).
• Hanoi /z/ is not present in HCMC.
• HCMC /l/ is generally slightly more palatalized than the Hanoi variety: [lʲ].
• Apicals: [t̺ʰ], [t̺], [ɗ̺], [s̺], [ʃ̺], [ʒ̺], and [n̺] are all apical. (Unlike the Hanoi variety, HCMC [l] is laminal.)
• Laminals: [l̻ʲ], [c̻], and [ɲ̻] are laminal.

Phonological processes

Vowels

Monophthongs

The IPA vowel chart of monophthongs (i.e., simple vowels) below is a composite of the phonetic descriptions of Nguyễn (1997), Thompson (1965), and Han (1966). (See the endnotes for comments on their respective descriptions.) ¹ This is a vowel description of Hanoi Vietnamese (i.e., other regions of Viet Nam may have different inventories).

• All vowels are unrounded except for the three back vowels: /u/, /o/, and /ɔ/.
• /ɜ/ and /ɐ/ are pronounced very short, shorter than the other vowels.
• Short /ɐ/ and long /ɐː/ are different phonemic vowels, differing in duration only (and not quality). (The [ː] symbol indicates length.) There seems to be a question of whether /əː/ and /ɜ/ differ in quality and length or in length only. This description takes the stance that there is also a difference in quality (following Thompson 1965).
• /ɨ/ (orthographic ư) is a close central unrounded vowel. Some descriptions (such as Thompson 1965, Nguyễn 1997), consider this vowel to be a close back unrounded vowel [ɯ]. However, instrumental studies seem to indicate that it is more centralized than back (Han 1966). (Brunelle 2003 also transcribes this vowel as close central, and Pham 2003 describes it as central.) Additionally, /ɨ/ is slightly lower than /u/.

Diphthongs and Triphthongs

In addition to monophthongs, Vietnamese has many diphthongs and triphthongs. Most of these consist of a vowel followed by /j/ or /w/. (Phonologically speaking, it is best to consider these as a sequence of a vowel and a consonant.) Below is a chart (Nguyễn 1997) listing the diphthongs & triphthongs of the Hanoi dialect.

• /j/ never follows front vowels (which are /i/, /e/, /ɛ/).
• /w/ never follows rounded vowels (which are /u/, /o/, /ɔ/).

Some notes about dialectal variation:

Thompson (1965) says that in Hanoi words spelled with ưu and ươu are pronounced as /iw/ and /iɜw/, respectively, whereas other dialects in the Tonkin delta pronounce them as /ɨw/ and /ɨɜw/. Hanoi speakers that do pronounce these words with /ɨw/ and /ɨɜw/ are using a spelling pronunciation. (Nguyễn 1997 does not mention this.)

Thompson also notes that in Hanoi the diphthongs, iê /iɜ/, ươ /ɨɜ/, uô /uɜ/, may be pronounced as /ie/, /ɨəː/, and /uo/, respectively (as the spelling suggests), but before /k/ and /ŋ/ these are always pronounced /iɜ/, /ɨɜ/, /uɜ/. Nguyễn merely says that they are always pronounced: /iɜ/, /ɨɜ/, /uɜ/.

Tone

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