Vietnamese language in the context of Later Trần dynasty

The Red River Delta or Hong River Delta (Vietnamese: Đồng bằng sông Hồng) is the flat low-lying plain formed by the Red River and its distributaries merging with the Thái Bình River in Northern Vietnam. Hồng (紅) is a Sino-Vietnamese word for "red" or "crimson". The delta has the smallest area but highest population and population density of all regions in Vietnam. The region, measuring some 15,000 square kilometres (6,000 sq mi) is well protected by a network of dikes. It is an agriculturally rich and densely populated area. Most of the land is devoted to rice cultivation.

Eight provinces, together with two municipalities (the capital Hanoi, and the port of Haiphong) form the delta. It had a population of almost 23 million in 2019.

Ch is a digraph in the Latin script. It is treated as a letter of its own in the Chamorro, Old Spanish, Czech, Slovak, Igbo, Uzbek, Quechua, Ladin, Guarani, Welsh, Cornish, Breton, Ukrainian Latynka, and Belarusian Łacinka alphabets. Formerly, ch was also considered a separate letter for collation purposes in Modern Spanish, Vietnamese, and sometimes in Polish; now the digraph ch in these languages continues to be used, but it is considered as a sequence of letters and sorted as such.

Amitābha (Sanskrit pronunciation: [ɐmɪˈtaːbʱɐ], "Measureless" or "Limitless" Light), also known as Amituofo in Chinese, Amida Butsu in Japanese, Amita-bul in Korean, A Di Đà Phật in Vietnamese, and Öpakmé in Tibetan, is one of the main Buddhas of Mahayana Buddhism and the most widely venerated Buddhist figure in East Asian Buddhism. Amitābha is also known by the name Amitāyus ("Measureless Life").

Amitābha is the main figure in two influential Indian Buddhist Mahayana Scriptures: the Sutra of Measureless Life and the Amitābha Sūtra. According to the Sutra of Measureless Life, Amitābha established a pure land of perfect peace and happiness, called Sukhāvatī ("Blissful"), where beings who mindfully remember him with faith may be reborn and then quickly attain enlightenment. The pure land is the result of a set of vows Amitābha made long ago. As his name means Limitless Light, Amitābha's light is said to radiate throughout the cosmos and shine on all beings. Because of this, Amitābha is often depicted radiating light, a symbol for his wisdom. As per the name Amitāyus, this Buddha is also associated with infinite life, since his lifespan is said to be immeasurable. Amitābha's measureless life is seen as being related to his infinite compassion.

The Bouyei (also spelled Puyi, Buyei and Buyi; Bouyei: Buxqyaix, [puʔjai] or "Puzhong", "Burao", "Puman"; Chinese: 布依族; pinyin: Bùyīzú; Vietnamese: người Bố Y) are an ethnic group living in Southern Mainland China. Numbering 3.5 million, they are the 10th largest of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China. Some 3,000 Bouyei also live in Northern Vietnam, where they are one of that nation's 54 officially recognized ethnic groups.

The Nguyễn dynasty (Vietnamese: Nhà Nguyễn or Triều Nguyễn, chữ Nôm: 茹阮, chữ Hán: 朝阮) was the last Vietnamese dynasty, preceded by the Nguyễn lords and ruling unified Vietnam independently from 1802 until the start of the French protectorate in 1883. Its emperors were members of the House of Nguyễn Phúc. During its existence, the Nguyễn empire expanded into modern-day Southern Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos through a continuation of the centuries-long Nam tiến and Siamese–Vietnamese wars. With the French conquest of Vietnam, the Nguyễn dynasty was forced to give up sovereignty over parts of Southern Vietnam to France in 1862 and 1874, and after 1883 the Nguyễn dynasty only nominally ruled the French protectorates of Annam (Central Vietnam) as well as Tonkin (Northern Vietnam). Backed by Imperial Japan, in 1945 the last Nguyễn emperor Bảo Đại abolished the protectorate treaty with France and proclaimed the Empire of Vietnam for a short time until 25 August 1945.

The House of Nguyễn Phúc established control over large amounts of territory in Southern Vietnam as the Nguyễn lords (1558–1777, 1780–1802) by the 16th century before defeating the Tây Sơn dynasty and establishing their own imperial rule in the 19th century. The dynastic rule began with Gia Long ascending the throne in 1802, after ending the previous Tây Sơn dynasty. The Nguyễn dynasty was gradually absorbed by France over the course of several decades in the latter half of the 19th century, beginning with the Cochinchina Campaign in 1858 which led to the occupation of the southern area of Vietnam. A series of unequal treaties followed; the occupied territory became the French colony of Cochinchina in the 1862 Treaty of Saigon, and the 1863 Treaty of Huế gave France access to Vietnamese ports and increased control of its foreign affairs. Finally, the 1883 and 1884 Treaties of Huế divided the remaining Vietnamese territory into the protectorates of Annam and Tonkin under nominal Nguyễn Phúc rule. In 1887, Cochinchina, Annam, Tonkin, and the French Protectorate of Cambodia were grouped together to form French Indochina.

A pitch-accent language is a type of language that, when spoken, has certain syllables in words or morphemes that are prominent, as indicated by a distinct contrasting pitch (linguistic tone) rather than by volume or length, as in some other languages like English. Pitch-accent languages also contrast with fully tonal languages like Vietnamese, Thai and Standard Chinese, in which practically every syllable can have an independent tone. Some scholars have claimed that the term "pitch accent" is not coherently defined and that pitch-accent languages are a sub-category of tonal languages in general.

Languages that have been described as pitch-accent languages include: most dialects of Serbo-Croatian, Slovene, Baltic languages, Ancient Greek, Vedic Sanskrit, Tlingit, Turkish, Japanese, Limburgish, Norwegian, Swedish of Sweden, Western Basque, Yaqui, certain dialects of Korean, Shanghainese, and Livonian.

The phonology of Vietnamese features 19 consonant phonemes, with 5 additional consonant phonemes used in Vietnamese's Southern dialect, and 4 exclusive to the Northern dialect. Vietnamese also has 14 vowel nuclei, and 6 tones that are integral to the interpretation of the language. Older interpretations of Vietnamese tones differentiated between "sharp" and "heavy" entering and departing tones. This article is a technical description of the sound system of the Vietnamese language, including phonetics and phonology. Two main varieties of Vietnamese, Hanoi and Saigon, which are slightly different from each other, are described below.

Chữ Hán (Vietnamese: 𡨸漢 [t͡ɕɯ˦ˀ˥ haːn˧˦] , lit. 'Han characters') are the Chinese characters that were used to write Literary Chinese (Hán văn; 漢文) and Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary in Vietnamese. They were officially used in Vietnam after the Red River Delta region was incorporated into the Han dynasty and continued to be used until the early 20th century.

The Red River or the Hong River (traditional Chinese: 紅河; simplified Chinese: 红河; pinyin: Hóng Hé; Vietnamese: Sông Hồng; Chữ Nôm: 瀧紅), also known as the Sông Cái (lit. "Main River"; Chữ Nôm: 瀧丐) in Vietnamese and the Yuan River (元江, Yuán Jiāng) in Chinese, is a 1,149-kilometer (714 mi)-long river that flows from Yunnan in Southwest China through northern Vietnam to the Gulf of Tonkin. According to C. Michael Hogan, the associated Red River Fault was instrumental in forming the entire South China Sea at least as early as 37 million years before present. The name red and southern position in China are associated in traditional cardinal directions. The river is relatively shallow, and carries a lot of reddish silt along its way, appearing red brown in colour.

Thái Bình river (Vietnamese: Sông Thái Bình) is the name of the Thái Bình river system's main river in Northern Vietnam. This river system joins with the Red River system and brings alluvium to create Red River Delta.

Thái Bình river starts in the area of Đồng Phúc commune, Yên Dũng District, Bắc Giang Province – where the Thuong River and Cầu River join with each other. It then flows to Hải Dương Province and becomes the boundary between Bắc Giang and Hải Dương. After flowing through the area of Hải Dương, it enters Thái Bình Province and flows to the South China Sea at Ba Lat river mouth.

Northern Vietnam or Tonkin (Vietnamese: Bắc Bộ) is one of three geographical regions in Vietnam. It consists of three geographic sub-regions: the Northwest (Vùng Tây Bắc), the Northeast (Vùng Đông Bắc), and the Red River Delta (Đồng Bằng Sông Hồng). It is near China. Unlike tropical Central and Southern Vietnam, Northern Vietnam has a subtropical climate.

It has a total area of about 109,942.9 km. The region's largest city, Hanoi, serves as the country's capital. Among the three geographical regions, the oldest is Northern Vietnam. Vietnamese culture originated in the Red River Delta and the Kinh Vietnamese eventually spread south into the Mekong Delta.

Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary (Vietnamese: từ Hán Việt (IPA: [tɯ̀ hǎn viə̂ˀt]), Chữ Hán: 詞漢越, 'Chinese-Vietnamese words') is a layer of about 3,000 monosyllabic morphemes of the Vietnamese language borrowed from Literary Chinese with consistent pronunciations based on Middle Chinese. Compounds using these morphemes are used extensively in cultural and technical vocabulary. Together with Sino-Korean and Sino-Japanese vocabularies, Sino-Vietnamese has been used in the reconstruction of the sound categories of Middle Chinese. Samuel Martin grouped the three together as "Sino-Xenic". There is also an Old Sino-Vietnamese layer consisting of a few hundred words borrowed individually from Chinese in earlier periods, which are treated by speakers as native words. More recent loans from southern Chinese languages, usually names of foodstuffs such as lạp xưởng 'Chinese sausage' (from Cantonese 臘腸; 腊肠; laahpchéung), are not treated as Sino-Vietnamese but more direct borrowings.

Estimates of the proportion of words of Sinitic origin in the Vietnamese lexicon vary from one third to half and even to 70%. The proportion tends towards the lower end in speech and towards the higher end in technical writing. In the famous Từ điển tiếng Việt [vi] dictionary by Vietnamese linguist Hoàng Phê [vi], about 40% of the vocabulary is of Sinitic origin.

Vietnam is divided into 34 first-level subdivisions, comprising 28 provinces (tỉnh) and six municipalities under the command of the central government (Vietnamese: thành phố trực thuộc trung ương).

Municipalities are the highest-ranked cities in Vietnam. Municipalities are centrally-controlled cities and have special status equal to that of the provinces.

Hanoi (/hæˈnɔɪ/ han-OY; Vietnamese: Hà Nội [hàː nôjˀ] ) is the capital and second-most populous city of Vietnam. The name "Hanoi" translates to "inside the river" (Hanoi is bordered by the Red and Black Rivers). The city encompasses an area of 3,358.6 km (1,296.8 sq mi), and as of 2025 has a population of 8,807,523. Hanoi had the second-highest gross regional domestic product of all Vietnamese provinces and municipalities at US$48 billion in 2023, behind only Ho Chi Minh City.

In the third century BCE, the Cổ Loa Capital Citadel of Âu Lạc was constructed in what is now Hanoi. Âu Lạc then fell under Chinese rule for a thousand years. In 1010, under the Lý dynasty, Vietnamese emperor Lý Thái Tổ established the capital of the imperial Vietnamese nation Đại Việt in modern-day central Hanoi, naming the city Thăng Long [tʰɐŋ loŋ], 'ascending dragon'). In 1428, King Lê Lợi renamed the city to Đông Kinh [ɗoŋ kīŋ̟], 'eastern capital'), and it remained so until 1789. The Nguyễn dynasty in 1802 moved the national capital to Huế and the city was renamed Hanoi in 1831. It served as the capital of French Indochina from 1902 to 1945 and French protectorate of Tonkin from 1883 to 1949. After the August Revolution and the fall of the Nguyễn dynasty, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) designated Hanoi as the capital of the newly independent country. From 1949 to 1954, it was part of the State of Vietnam. It was again part of the DRV ruling North Vietnam from 1954 to 1976. In 1976, it became the capital of the unified Socialist Republic of Vietnam. In 2008, Hà Tây Province and two other rural districts were annexed into Hanoi, almost tripling Hanoi's area.

Haiphong or Hai Phong (Vietnamese: Hải Phòng, pronounced [hǎːj fɔ̀ŋ͡m] ) is the third-largest city in Vietnam and is the principal port city of the Red River Delta. The municipality has an area of 1,526.52 km (589.39 sq mi). The city includes Bạch Long Vĩ and Cát Hải islands in the Gulf of Tonkin. It has a population of 2,130,898 in 2023. The city's economy has strength in manufacturing, as evidenced by large industrial parks and numerous smaller traditional handicraft villages. Historically, Haiphong was the first place in Vietnam and Mainland Southeast Asia to get electricity.

In the imperial era of Đại Việt, the Bạch Đằng River in Haiphong was a place of many legendary victories, led by now-legendary commanders Ngô Quyền and Trần Hưng Đạo. In the 16th century, Mạc dynasty promoted the coastal settlement as a secondary capital, growing to become an important port town of Đàng Ngoài. After the French conquest of Vietnam, in 1888, the president of the French Third Republic, Sadi Carnot, promulgated a decree to establish Haiphong as one of the principal cities of French Indochina. From 1954 to 1975, Haiphong served as the most important maritime city of North Vietnam. It was one of the directly controlled municipalities of a reunified Vietnam with Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in 1976.

Empress dowager (also dowager empress or empress mother; Chinese and Japanese: 皇太后; pinyin: huángtàihòu; rōmaji: Kōtaigō; Korean: 황태후 (皇太后); romaja: Hwang Tae Hu; Vietnamese: Hoàng Thái Hậu (皇太后)) is the English language translation of the title given to the mother or widow of a monarch, especially in regards to Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Vietnamese monarchs in the Chinese cultural sphere. The term however, is applied well beyond just East Asia.

The title was also given occasionally to another woman of the same generation, while a woman from the previous generation was sometimes given the title of grand empress dowager (Chinese and Japanese: 太皇太后; pinyin: tàihúangtàihòu; rōmaji: Taikōtaigō; Korean: 태황태후 (太皇太后); romaja: Tae Hwang Tae Hu; Vietnamese: Thái Hoàng Thái Hậu (太皇太后)). An empress dowager wielded power over the harem and imperial family. Numerous empress dowagers held regency during the reign of underage emperors. Many of the most prominent empress dowagers also extended their control for long periods after the emperor was old enough to govern. This was a source of political turmoil according to the traditional view of Chinese history.

Grand empress dowager (also grand dowager empress or grand empress mother) (Chinese and Japanese: 太皇太后; pinyin: tàihuángtàihòu; rōmaji: taikōtaigō; Korean: 태황태후 (太皇太后); romaja: Tae Hwang Tae Hu; Vietnamese: Thái Hoàng thái hậu (太皇太后) was a title given to the grandmother, or a woman from the same generation, of a Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Vietnamese emperor in the Chinese cultural sphere.

Some grand empresses dowager held regency during the emperor's childhood. Some of the most prominent empress dowagers extended their regencies beyond the time when the emperor was old enough to govern alone. This was seen as a source of political turmoil, according to the traditional views of Chinese historians.

Literary Chinese (Vietnamese: Hán văn, văn ngôn; chữ Hán: 漢文, 文言) was the medium of all formal writing in Vietnam for almost all of the country's history until the early 20th century, when it was replaced by vernacular writing in Vietnamese using the Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet. The language was the same as that used in China, as well as in Korea and Japan, and used the same standard Chinese characters. It was used for official business, historical annals, fiction, verse, scholarship, and even for declarations of Vietnamese determination to resist Chinese invaders.

The Vietnamese people (Vietnamese: người Việt, lit. 'Việt people') or the Kinh people (Vietnamese: người Kinh, lit. 'Metropolitan people'), also known as the Viet people or the Viets, are a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to modern-day northern Vietnam and southern China who speak Vietnamese, the most widely spoken Austroasiatic language.

Vietnamese Kinh people account for 85.32% of the population of Vietnam in the 2019 census, and are officially designated and recognized as the Kinh people (người Kinh) to distinguish them from the other minority groups residing in the country such as the Hmong, Cham, or Mường. The Vietnamese are one of the four main groups of Vietic speakers in Vietnam, the others being the Mường, Thổ, and Chứt people. Diasporic descendants of the Vietnamese in China, known as the Gin people, are one of 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China, residing in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.