quốc ngữ

noun  

• National language

• Quốc Ngữ (national language) resided in borrowing the Latin to transcribe the Vietnamese. In the 17th century, the Western evangelists came to Vietnam to preach Christianism and used the Latin alphabet to transcribe the Vietnamese. In 1651, Alexandre Rhodes published An Nam Portuguese and Latin Dictionary. In the early 19th century, Pigneau de Béhaine and Taberd published An Nam -Latin Dictionary. Step by step, Quốc Ngữ replaced Hán (Chinese) and nôm languages to become the Vietnamese official language