Editing Vietnamese language (section)

===Consonants===
The consonants that occur in Vietnamese are listed below in the [[Vietnamese orthography]] with the phonetic pronunciation to the right.

:{| class=wikitable style=text-align:center
|-
! colspan=2|
! [[Labial consonant|Labial]]
! [[Dental consonant|Dental]]/<br />[[Alveolar consonant|Alveolar]]
! [[Retroflex]]
! [[Palatal consonant|Palatal]]
! [[Velar consonant|Velar]]
! [[Glottal consonant|Glottal]]
|-
! colspan=2| [[Nasal stop|Nasal]]
| m {{IPA|[m]}}
| n {{IPA|[n]}}
|
| nh {{IPA|[ɲ]}}
| ng/ngh {{IPA|[ŋ]}}
|
|-
! rowspan=3| [[Stop consonant|Stop]]
! <small>[[tenuis consonant|tenuis]]</small>
| p {{IPA|[p]}}
| t {{IPA|[t]}}
| tr {{IPA|[ʈ]}}
| ch {{IPA|[c]}}
| c/k/q {{IPA|[k]}}
|
|-
! <small>[[Aspirated consonant|aspirated]]</small>
|
| th {{IPA|[tʰ]}}
|
|
|
|
|-
! <small>[[Implosive consonant|implosive]]</small>
| b {{IPAblink|ɓ}}
| đ {{IPAblink|ɗ}}
|
|
|
|
|-
! rowspan=2| [[Fricative]]
! <small>[[Voicelessness|voiceless]]</small>
| ph {{IPA|[f]}}
| x {{IPA|[s]}}
| s {{IPA|[ʂ~s]}}
|
| kh {{IPA|[x~kʰ]}}
| h {{IPA|[h]}}
|-
! <small>[[Voice (phonetics)|voiced]]</small>
| v {{IPA|[v]}}
| d/gi {{IPA|[z~j]}}
|
|
| g/gh {{IPA|[ɣ]}}
|
|-
! colspan=2| [[Approximant]]
|
| l {{IPA|[l]}}
|
| y/i {{IPA|[j]}}
| u/o {{IPA|[w]}}
|
|-
! colspan=2| [[Rhotic consonant|Rhotic]]
|
| colspan=2| r {{IPA|[r]}}
|
|
|
|}

Some consonant sounds are written with only one letter (like "p"), other consonant sounds are written with a [[Digraph (orthography)|digraph]] (like "ph"), and others are written with more than one letter or digraph (the velar stop is written variously as "c", "k", or "q"). In some cases, they are based on their Middle Vietnamese pronunciation; since that period, ''ph'' and ''kh'' (but not ''th'') have evolved from aspirated stops into fricatives (like Greek [[phi]] and [[chi (letter)|chi]]), while ''d'' and ''gi'' have collapsed and converged together (into /z/ in the north and /j/ in the south).

Not all dialects of Vietnamese have the same consonant in a given word (although all dialects use the same spelling in the written language). See the [[#Language variation|language variation section]] for further elaboration.

Syllable-final orthographic ''ch'' and ''nh'' in Vietnamese has had different analyses. One analysis has final ''ch'', ''nh'' as being [[phoneme]]s {{IPA|/c/, /ɲ/}} contrasting with syllable-final ''t'', ''c'' {{IPA|/t/, /k/}} and ''n'', ''ng'' {{IPA|/n/, /ŋ/}} and identifies final ''ch'' with the syllable-initial ''ch'' {{IPA|/c/}}. The other analysis has final ''ch'' and ''nh'' as predictable [[allophonic]] variants of the velar [[phoneme]]s {{IPA|/k/}} and {{IPA|/ŋ/}} that occur after the upper front vowels ''i'' {{IPA|/i/}} and ''ê'' {{IPA|/e/}}; although they also occur after ''a'', but in such cases are believed to have resulted from an earlier ''e'' {{IPA|/ɛ/}} which diphthongized to ''ai'' (cf. ''ach'' from ''aic'', ''anh'' from ''aing''). (See [[Vietnamese phonology#Analysis of final ch.2C nh|Vietnamese phonology: Analysis of final ''ch'', ''nh'']] for further details.)