Editing Demographics of Vietnam (section)

== Languages ==

[[Vietnamese language|Vietnamese]] is the national language.<ref name="constitution_of_vietnam">[[Constitution of Vietnam]] Article 5</ref> It belongs to the [[Austroasiatic]] language family, which also includes languages such as [[Khmer language|Khmer]] and [[Mon language|Mon]]. Vietnamese was spoken by 85–90 million people in Vietnam at the 1999 census. In the early 21st century, around another four million Vietnamese speakers are found outside of Vietnam, mostly refugees from the Vietnam-American War. Thus Vietnamese is the most spoken language of the Austroasiatic family, being spoken by three times more people than the second most spoken language of the family, Khmer. Both languages, however, are extremely different: Vietnamese is a tonal, monosyllabic language while Khmer has remained non-tonal. Vietnamese was heavily influenced by Chinese, with up to around 50–70% words having Chinese origins, whilst Khmer was heavily influenced by [[Sanskrit]] and [[Pāli|Pali]], uses a abugida writing system, and has a great part of its vocabulary originating from Indian languages. Since the early 20th century, the Vietnamese have used a Romanized script introduced by the French, developed by Jesuit missionaries led by [[Alexandre de Rhodes]] and later on, refined by Vietnamese scholars to produce what is now known as the [[Vietnamese alphabet]].