The
Vietnamese alphabet (; literally
national language script) is the modern writing system for the
Vietnamese language. It uses the
Latin script, based on its employment in the alphabets of
Romance languages, in particular the
Portuguese alphabet, with some
digraphs and the addition of nine accent marks or
diacritics – four of them to create additional sounds, and the other five to indicate the
tone of each word. The many diacritics, often two on the same letter, make written Vietnamese easily recognizable.