Vietnamese alphabet
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The Vietnamese alphabet is the modern writing script for Vietnamese. It uses the Latin script based on Romance languages originally developed by Portuguese missionary Francisco de Pina (1585–1625).
A page from Alexandre de Rhodes' 1651 dictionary
Vietnamese language
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Vietnamese is an Austroasiatic language spoken primarily in Vietnam where it is the national and official language. Vietnamese is spoken natively by around 85 million people,
several times as many as the rest of the Austroasiatic family combined. It is the native language of the Vietnamese (Kinh) people, as well as a second or first language for other ethnic groups in Vietnam.
An Nam quốc dịch ngữ 安南國譯語 recorded the pronunciations of 15th century Vietnamese, such as for 天 (sky) - 雷 /luei/ representing blời (Modern Vietnamese: trời).
In the bilingual dictionary Nhật dụng thường đàm (1851), Chinese characters (chữ Nho) are explained in chữ Nôm.
Jean-Louis Taberd's dictionary Dictionarium anamitico-latinum (1838) represents Vietnamese (then Annamese) words in the Latin alphabet and chữ Nôm.
A sign at the Hỏa Lò Prison museum in Hanoi lists rules for visitors in both Vietnamese and English.