Vietnamese is the official language of Vietnam and is spoken by about 66 million people there and another 1.6 million elsewhere in the world, mostly in USA.

About 60-70% of the vocabulary has come from Chinese and the language used to be written in the Chinese way but since the Catholic missionaries used Latin to translate the scriptures in the 17^th century it is now written in a similar style to the Latin alphabet.

Up until the 20^th century classical Chinese was used for administrative matters and written Vietnamese was used for poetry and literature. There is a lot of French influence due to the French colonisation 1874 - 1945.

Now that the political situation is Vietnam has stabilised, the country is increasingly becoming a populat tourist destination. Even though the French and to some degree American, influences on the country still exist, a knowledge of the Vietnamese language, especially for business is very helpful.

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