From: Philippe Verdy (verdy_p@wanadoo.fr)
Date: Sat Jun 03 2006 - 11:15:35 CDT
From: "Samuel Thibault" <samuel.thibault@labri.fr>
> IIRC the only needed letters (in addition to ASCII) are as follow:
>
> a A à À ả Ả ã Ã á Á ạ Ạ ă Ă ằ Ằ ẳ Ẳ ẵ Ẵ ắ Ắ ặ Ặ â Â ầ Ầ ẩ Ẩ ẫ Ẫ ấ Ấ ậ Ậ d D đ Đ Đ e E è È ẻ Ẻ ẽ Ẽ é É ẹ Ẹ ê Ê ề Ề ể Ể ễ Ễ ế Ế ệ Ệ i I ì Ì ỉ Ỉ ĩ Ĩ í Í ị Ị o O ò Ò ỏ Ỏ õ Õ ó Ó ọ Ọ ô Ô ồ Ồ ổ Ổ ỗ Ỗ ố Ố ộ Ộ ơ Ơ ờ Ờ ở Ở ỡ Ỡ ớ Ớ ợ Ợ u U ù Ù ủ Ủ ũ Ũ ú Ú ụ Ụ ư Ư ừ Ừ ử Ử ữ Ữ ứ Ứ ự Ự y Y ỳ Ỳ ỷ Ỷ ỹ Ỹ ý Ý ỵ Ỵ
It is much simpler to describe the Vietnamese alphabet as:
* the basic Latin letters (without any diacritic)
* only the following 6 extended vowels: ă â ê ô ơ ư (in addition to the 6 basic vowels: a e i o u y)
Then combine the basic or extended vowels optionally with onlyone of 5 tone marks (acute, grace, tilde, hook above, dot below), and you get the complete alphabet!
The uppercase variants are infered from the previous set. Then you just need to add the dong currency symbol (only in one letter case: a *small* case d with bar)
Vietnamese has two accents on some letters, because it was chosen to use accents to represent the 6 extended vowels. The alternative would have been to use other base letters, like greek alpha (or the ae letter/ligature), barred a, barred e, barred o (or open o), slashed o, slashed u (or barred u); the readability of multiple accents on letters would have been improved, and the uncommon hook above for marking tone would have been replaced by the circonflex as used in Pinyin for Chinese.
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