Vietnamese

Vietnamese Writing and Encoding

Western Alphabet

Although written in
the Roman alphabet Modern Vietnamese (tiếng Việt) the alphabet uses a large number of additional accents for marking tones. As a result, users must ensure they have access to fonts and keyboards needed for reading and inputting the tone marks.

Unicode

Alphabetic characters specific to Vietnamese are in the Latin Extended B block in Unicode. Any font supporting this block supports Vietnamese.

Chinese Script

Before the 20th century, Vietnamese (tiếng Việt) was written in both the Chinese script and adapted Chinese script called Chu Nom (Chữ-nôm) By 1920, the country had switched to a version of the Latin alphabet called Quoc Ngu (quốc ngữ).

Unicode

Some characters specific to Chu Nom may not yet be encoded in Unicode or available in a typical Chinese font.

Links

Test Web Site

If you have your browser configured correctly, the Web site below should display
the correct characters.

Kenh14 Ciné (Movies)

If this site is not displaying correctly, see the Browser Setup page for debugging information.

Fonts by Platform

Western

Windows/Mac

A large number of Western fonts such as Times New Roman, Helvetica, Comic Sans, Century Schoolbook, Palatino and more include the appropriate Vietnamese characters.

Check your font to see if the correct characters

Third Party Fonts

Many third party fonts for Phonetic Characters may also include Vietnamese characters (in the Latin Extended B block)

Chu Nom Fonts

Information about Chu Nom fonts can be found at these sources.

Activating Keyboards for Typing

In Windows, Macintosh/iOS and Droid, input options for the Western Vietnamese alphabet is available. See the links below for more information.

Windows

Vietnamese

Generic

Macintosh

Vietnamese

Generic

Mobile

Typing the Dong Currency Sign (₫)

If you are not familiar with any of the Vietnamese keyboard utilities, you may use the steps below to insert the Dong. Below are the codes for typing a Dong currency sign in different platforms.

Dong Currency Symbol Codes
Platform Description
Windows Within Microsoft Office, you can input Alt+8363. If this code does not work, then use the Character Map (the character is in the Currency block). If neccessary, switch the font to a Korean font or Arial Unicode MS.
Macintosh Activate the Unicode Hex Input keyboard, then input Option+20AB. The font may switch to a Korean font or Lucida Grande.
HTML Use the code ₫ or &#8363 to insert a Dong
symbol. See details on the Unicode Entity code
page. Information about other HTML codes for Vietnamese is listed below.

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Web Development

This section presents information specific to Vietnamese. For general information about developing non-English Web sites, see the Encoding Tutorial or the Web Layout sections.

Historical Encodings

Unicode (utf-8) is the preferred encoding for Web sites. However, the following historic encodings may still be encountered.

  • viscii
  • win-1258
  • vps
  • tcvn

Language Tags

Language Tags allow browsers and other software to process text more efficiently.

  • Language Code: vi not "vn" for Viet Nam

Unicode Entity Codes

See the Viet Unicode Chart for the specific codes. Note that codes are given in hexadecimal format, so require the &#x notation. For instance the Unicode value for a with breve and hook (Ẳ) is 1EB2. Therefore the entity code would be &‌#x1EB2;.

See the Unicode HTML Entity Codes page for additional details. Be sure the appropriate Encodings and Language Tags are used.

Windows

Macintosh

Mobile

Third Party Fonts

Western

Chu Nom Fonts

Information about Chu Nom fonts can be found at these sources.

Unicode Documents

 

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