When the Avignon-born Jesuit Alexandre de Rhodes published the first Portuguese-Vietnamese-Latin dictionary under his own name in 1651, it was primarily intended for missionaries wishing to spread ...

The French then spread the Latin alphabet while training the civil servants who helped them govern Indochina, explained Khanh-Minh Bui, a doctoral student at the University of California, Berkeley ...

The French then spread the Latin alphabet while training the civil servants who helped them govern Indochina, explained Khanh-Minh Bui, a doctoral student at the University of California, Berkeley ...

At a calligraphy class in Hanoi, Hoang Thi Thanh Huyen slides her brush across the page to form the letters and tonal marks of Vietnam's unique modern script, in part a legacy of French colonial rule.

The history of romanised Vietnamese, or "Quoc Ngu", links the arrival of the first Christian missionaries, colonisation by the French and the rise to power of the Communist Party.