Main Content
Heritage Language
The Vietnamese language is spoken by over 95 million people in Vietnam and four million people around the world, including more than 1.5 million people in the US. In Hawaii, Vietnamese are among the state’s fastest-growing ethnicities. There are more than 9,000 Vietnamese living in Honolulu alone.
Literature & Culture
Vietnam has a rich history and culture. Vietnamese classical literature has a history of more than a thousand years. Modern Vietnamese literature reflects centuries of Chinese occupation, eighty years of French rule, and America’s presence during the conflict between North and South Vietnam.
Romanized Script
Quốc ngữ, the romanized Vietnamese alphabet was developed in the 17th century replacing the Chinese characters that hitherto were used for Vietnamese writing. With the same script that is used for writing English, Vietnamese is much easier to learn than Chinese, Thai, or Japanese.