Vietnamese language

Vietnamese ⁱ/ˌviɛtnəˈmiːz/ (tiếng Việt) is an Austroasiatic language that originated in the north of Vietnam and is the national and official language of the country. It is the native language of the Vietnamese (Kinh) people, as well as a first or second language for the many ethnic minorities of Vietnam. As the result of Vietnamese emigration and cultural influence, Vietnamese speakers are found throughout the world, notably in East and Southeast Asia, North America, Australia and Western Europe. Vietnamese has also been officially recognized as a minority language in the Czech Republic.

It is part of the Austroasiatic language family of which it has by far the most speakers (several times as many as the other Austroasiatic languages combined). Vietnamese vocabulary has borrowings from Chinese, and it formerly used a modified set of Chinese characters called chữ nôm given vernacular pronunciation. The Vietnamese alphabet (quốc ngữ) in use today is a Latin alphabet with additional diacritics for tones, and certain letters.

Tây Bồi Pidgin French

Tây Bồi, or Vietnamese Pidgin French, was a pidgin spoken by non-French-educated Vietnamese, typically those who worked as servants in French households or milieux during the colonial era. Literally, it means "French (Tây) [of- or spoken by] male servants (Bồi)". During the French colonization period, the majority of household servants for the French were male. The term is used by Vietnamese themselves to indicate that the spoken French language is poor, incorrect, and ungrammatical.

Tây Bồi may be related to "Français Tirailleur" - a pidgin language spoken by West African soldiers in the French colonial army approximately 1850-1960. This has not been investigated to a sufficient degree and therefore cannot be confirmed.

"Bồi" is not the Vietnamese phonetisation of the English word "boy", as customarily accredited to the word. It originated from the Sino-Vietnamese word "Bồi" (陪) which means "to serve" or "servant". As "Tây" (西) meant "West." Therefore, the compound Tây Bồi is a pure Sino-Vietnamese word (陪西-French servant) and not a mix of French and Vietnamese.