UniKey is the most popular Vietnamese keyboard for Windows. The core UniKey Vietnamese Input Method is also the engine for many Vietnamese keyboards in Linux, macOS and iOS.UniKey is free of charge. Source code for the UniKey Vietnamese Input Method is distributed under the GNU General Public License.

Vietnamese Alphabet. Learning the Vietnamese alphabet is very important because its structure is used in every day conversation. Without it, you will not be able to say words properly even if you know how to write those words. The better you pronounce a letter in a word, the more understood you will be in speaking the Vietnamese language. Vietnamese Alphabet Today I will teach you the Vietnamese alphabet. If you follow everything provided in this page, you will be able to read, write and pronounce the Vietnamese letters quickly and easily. I'm providing the sound so that you can hear the pronunciation of the characters. Vietnamese contains 26 letters (consonants and vowels). At first I thought typing in Vietnamese would be considerably easier since the language at first blush appeared to use the Roman alphabet, just as English does. Therefore, I expected it to be as simple as “Select the Vietnamese keyboard and start typing”. As I started researching however, I found this was not the case at all. Vietnamese Language is very ambiguous without accent marks: please use accent marks. This program helps you insert accent marks for texts without them: Enter a text and click Insert Accents. To correct an insertion error, click on the word and select the correct option.

Please note: unikey.org is the only official website of UniKey. The author is not responsible for any other websites providing UniKey software.

News

October 15, 2020:
- Released UniKey 4.3 RC5, with better support for the new Edge browser.
July 14, 2018:
- Released UniKey 4.3 RC4, which allows typingVietnamese in some special kinds of apps (console, game, UWP). Bug fix for Opera browser.
July 2, 2018:
- Released UniKey 4.3 RC3 withbug fixes for Excel and browsers (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Internet Explorer).
- Note: This version also fixed a serious bug in 4.3 RC2 released on July 1, 2018.
June 23, 2018:
- Released UniKey 4.3 RC1
- From version 4.3, all UniKey releases will be digitally signed. See UniKey’s signature.

Overview

UniKey supports:

Many Vietnamese character sets/encodings:
- TCVN3 (ABC), VN Unicode, VIQR
- VNI, VPS, VISCII, BK HCM1, BK HCM2, etc.
- Unicode UTF-8, Unicode NCR Decimal/Hexadecimal for Web editors.
All 3 popular input methods: TELEX, VNI and VIQR.
All Win32 platforms: Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista, 2000, XP, 9x/ME.

UniKey is very small, does not need any additional library. No installation is required.

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Vietnamese alphabet (chữ Quốc ngữ in Vietnamese) is a version of the Latin alphabet used to write the Vietnamese language. It uses the all the letters of the ISO Basic Latin Alphabet expect for F, J, W, and Z (which are only found in loanwords). However, the alphabet has been changed heavily in order to accurately show Vietnamese pronunciation. Some letters and digraphs make very different sounds than what most readers of the Latin alphabet expect, such as D, R, and GI. One letter has been added, Đ, to show it is a completely different sound from D. Vowel markers are added in order to distinguish different vowels sounds like A, Â, and Ǎ. Tone markers are also added because Vietnamese is a tonal language, like Á, Ả, Ã, Ạ and À. Some vowels have both a vowel marker and a tone marker. For example, the vowel Ǎ can be written as Ắ, Ẳ, Ẵ, Ặ, and Ằ. Sometimes, even non-speakers of Vietnamese can tell something is written in Vietnamese because of how many markings a word can have.

History[change | change source]

Unlike many other Asian languages that are mainly written using an Asian-made writing system, Vietnamese is mainly written using the Latin alphabet, which came from Europe. Before the Vietnamese used the Latin alphabet, they used a writing system based on the Chinese character system called chữ nôm. Chineseloanwords we written the same as they were in Chinese, but thousands more characters were invented write native Vietnamese words. Due to the amount of time it took to learn the system, the literacy rate in Vietnam was low when this system was used.

In the 17th century, PortugueseCatholicmissionaries created a writing system based on their own Latin alphabet to translate Vietnamese and to make it easier to learn for Europeans.^[1] When Vietnam first became a Frenchcolony, the Vietnamese alphabet and 'chữ nôm' were used alongside each other. Today, however, only the Vietnamese alphabet is used in Vietnam, and very few Vietnamese can read 'chữ nôm.'

Letters of the alphabet[change | change source]

Vietnamese characters[change | change source]

Here is the total set of characters for the lowercase letters:

The little ₫ is just the Dong (Dollar) sign - most people just write VND for Vietnamese Dong - the currency of Vietnam.

ồ

ớ

ấ

ắ

ề

ụ

ứ

ộ

ờ

ầ

ằ

ế

ừ

ỳ

ổ

ở

ẫ

ẵ

ễ

ẽ

ữ

ỷ

ỏ

ỗ

ợ

ả

ẩ

ẳ

ể

ẻ

ủ

ử

ỉ

ỹ

₫

ọ

ố

ỡ

ạ

ậ

ặ

ệ

ẹ

ự

ị

ỵ

This makes the useful alphabet 89+ letters.^[2]
I.e.This letter is a word: 'ở, it means at (or where, place).

The Latin alphabet[change | change source]

The main letters from the Latin alphabet:

a, b, c, d, e, g, h, i, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, x, y, qu

The first set of changed letters[change | change source]

ô, ơ, â, ă, ê, ư, đ

This changed set of characters makes new alphabet letters for use in the Vietnamese language. They are an extension to the set of Latin characters already used. English doesn't extend the alphabet. English just uses the same written characters over again, to denote different (letter) sounds. For example: ape, angry, all, art, aorta, and apple. For the Vietnamese language, sounds are split up with their own letter/character changes.

'đ' is makes the same sound as the English d.
'd'

Vietnamese Alphabet Keyboard