Vietnamese vowel letters and six tones

Spelling and status

The six tone categories are ngang, sắc, huyền, hỏi, ngã and nặng. Their spoken realization varies by dialect, so the symbols should not be reduced to one universal set of pitch curves. A vowel can carry a shape mark and a tone mark together, as in ấ or ự. Đ is a separate stroked letter, not a tone sign. [45], [3], [9]

Distinctions to preserve

A horn is different from a hook above: ơ and ở are not the same vowel form. Canonical ordering may put a dot below before a mark above in the decomposed string, regardless of which mark looks more prominent. This table lists encoded vowel forms; it does not decide the correct tone-bearing vowel in an arbitrary word. [45], [3], [9], [1], [2]

Typing and text forms

Copying is exact; preview circles are excluded. Compare normalization forms.

Word for Windows

Select a hex code, then Alt+X; repeat for each scalar.

Mac and mobile

Hold a letter for supported variants; use Character Viewer on Mac or a language keyboard on mobile.

HTML

Use UTF-8 text or the numeric references in Details, in order.

Full typing instructions ·HTML, CSS and JavaScript entry ·Verified Alt codes.

Sources and method

Usage statements link to the authority that supports their scope. Character names, categories, combining classes and normalization results come from the pinned Unicode data. A canonical decomposition does not establish language membership or spelling frequency.

Source access date: 2026-09-14.

• [45] Northern Illinois University: Vietnamese tones. Six Vietnamese tone categories and example spellings. Detailed pitch descriptions are not generalized across dialects.
• [3] Unicode 17: Latin, Greek and combining marks. Sections 7.1, 7.2, 7.8 and 7.9: encoded distinctions, script conventions and glyph variation, not a complete orthography.
• [9] CLDR 48.2 locale exemplars. Supplementary inventory checks against direct main and auxiliary exemplar sets. Exemplars do not establish full spelling or pronunciation rules.
• [1] Unicode Character Database 17.0.0.
• [2] Unicode normalization, UAX #15.
• [10] Microsoft: Unicode character entry in Word.
• [11] Apple: enter characters with accent marks.
• [12] Google: use Gboard.
• [13] Unicode: fonts and keyboards FAQ.
• [14] HTML numeric character references.

Read the editorial method and inspect the underlying datasets.