Vietnamese is a member of the Austroasiatic language family, which comprises a total of around 169 languages in South and Southeast Asia. Emerging from Mon-Khmer linguistic roots, Vietnamese underwent significant transformations influenced by millennia of Chinese rule and as such contains a lot of words adopted from the languages of China.

There are some who believe that there is a close affiliation of Vietnamese and Cantonese. The region in which Cantonese is spoken was called Viet Bei, meaning the northern Viet. Viet was the Chinese term for people to the south of China. Viet Nam meant southern Viet.

Vietnamese is a tonal language, consisting of six different tones. It used to rely on the Chinese script for writing, but Vietnam replaced that system with the Latin alphabet in the 20th century, adding several diacritical marks (which is why Vietnamese looks somewhat similar to English, but with more squiggly marks attached to the letters).

In addition to Chinese rule, the Vietnamese language was shaped by periods of independence and French colonization, evolving into the modern language spoken by over 85 million people worldwide today.

Where In the World Is Vietnamese Spoken?

In addition to the population of Vietnam, it’s estimated that there are approximately 4.5 million Vietnamese people living outside of Vietnam, many of whom continue to speak Vietnamese as their first or second language. Sources vary, but Ethnologue lists Vietnamese as the 21st most spoken language in the world with 86 million speakers.

There is only one country with Vietnamese as the official language, and that is Vietnam. It is spoken in other countries as the native language of smaller Vietnamese communities including the United States, Canada, Australia and Cambodia.

As well as being officially recognized as a minority language in the Czech Republic, Vietnamese is also spoken by the Jing people traditionally residing on three islands (now joined to the mainland) off Dongxing in southern Guangxi Province, China.

How Many People In Vietnam Speak Vietnamese?

Vietnam has a population of 98 million people, and the language is spoken natively by around 82.1 million people. As mentioned, it’s the official language of the country.

How Many People Speak Vietnamese In The United States?

Large numbers of Vietnamese migrated to the US after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. According to the latest U.S. Census, the estimated number of people of Vietnamese descent is 2.3 million. The Vietnamese language is the sixth most spoken language in the United States, with over 1.5 million speakers. More than half of Vietnamese Americans reside in California and Texas.

San Francisco recently made Vietnamese one of their official languages, with 6,791 native speakers in the city. It is the fourth largest language population in the city (after English, Chinese and Spanish).

How Many People Speak Vietnamese In The Rest Of The World?

There are many countries with a notable Vietnamese population, including Canada which is estimated to be around 240,000. Most Vietnamese Canadians reside in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.

You will find over half of the Vietnamese population of Europe living in France. Vietnam has historical ties with France due to its colonial past, and this history is reflected in the Vietnamese community in France. The largest influx of Vietnamese people arrived there as refugees after the Fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. According to the census in 2017, there are approximately 400,000 people of Vietnamese descent living in France, primarily in Paris and its suburbs. Vietnamese is the eighth most spoken language of immigrant origin in France and there has been an increase in Vietnamese-language schools serving both the community and local French in recent years.

Other European countries where Vietnamese is prolific are Germany (111,000 speakers), and the Czech Republic (57,400 speakers), where it is an officially recognised language. This stems from the 1980s when the Communist Party of Vietnam established strong trade links with the then-communist Czech Republic, the legacy of which is that the Vietnamese surname Nguyen is listed as the ninth most common surname in the Czech Republic.

Australia also has a significant Vietnamese community, with around 281,810 people of Vietnamese heritage, and 321,000 people speaking it according to the country’s 2021 census.

Why Learn Vietnamese?

The good news is you don’t need to learn a new alphabet as you do for Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, etc. However, it is worth bearing in mind that the grammar and sentence structure differ significantly from English and other Western languages in addition to factoring in learning the different tones. But think of the travel opportunities! Learning this language will allow you to connect with a rich culture, engage in deeper conversations and build meaningful relationships with native speakers.