Vietnamese ( tiếng Việt ) is an Austroasiatic language spoken primarily in Vietnam where it is the official language . Vietnamese is spoken natively by around 85 million people, several times as many as the rest of the Austroasiatic family combined. It is the native language of ethnic Vietnamese (Kinh), as well as the second or first language for other ethnicities of Vietnam , and used by Vietnamese diaspora in the world. It belongs to the Vietic subgroup of the Austroasiatic language family.
239-673: South Vietnam , officially the Republic of Vietnam ( RVN ; Vietnamese : Việt Nam Cộng hòa ; VNCH , French : République du Viêt Nam ), was a country in Southeast Asia from 1955 to 1975, with first international recognition in 1949 as the State of Vietnam . Its capital was located in Saigon , a city in Southern Vietnam . It was a member of the anti-communist and capitalist Western Bloc during
478-646: A Easter Offensive in South Vietnam in late March 1972 which was only finally repulsed by October with massive U.S air support. In accordance with the Paris Peace Accords signed on 27 January 1973 (taking effect January 28), US military forces withdrew from South Vietnam at the end of March 1973 while PAVN forces in the South were permitted to remain in place. According to Finnish historian Jussi Hanhimäki , due to triangular diplomacy which isolated it, South Vietnam
717-555: A land reform program restricting rice farm sizes to a maximum of 247 acres per landowner with the excess land to be sold to landless peasants. More than 1.8m acres of farm land would become available for purchase, the US would pay the landowners and receive payment from the purchasers over a six-year period. Land reform was regarded by the US as a crucial step to build support for the nascent South Vietnamese government and undermine communist propaganda. The North Vietnamese Communist Party approved
956-437: A logographic script using Chinese characters ( chữ Hán ) to represent Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary and some native Vietnamese words, together with many locally invented characters representing other words. Early linguistic work in the late 19th and early 20th centuries ( Logan 1852, Forbes 1881, Müller 1888, Kuhn 1889, Schmidt 1905, Przyluski 1924, and Benedict 1942) classified Vietnamese as belonging to
1195-636: A minor syllable occurred). These fricatives were not present in Proto-Viet–Muong, as indicated by their absence in Mường , but were evidently present in the later Proto-Vietnamese stage. Subsequent loss of the minor-syllable prefixes phonemicized the fricatives. Ferlus 1992 proposes that originally there were both voiced and voiceless fricatives, corresponding to original voiced or voiceless stops, but Ferlus 2009 appears to have abandoned that hypothesis, suggesting that stops were softened and voiced at approximately
1434-673: A "people's war" on the South at a session in January 1959 and this decision was confirmed by the Politburo in March. In May 1959, Group 559 was established to maintain and upgrade the Ho Chi Minh Trail , at this time a six-month mountain trek through Laos. About 500 of the "regroupees" of 1954 were sent south on the trail during its first year of operation. Regarding the relations with communist North Vietnam, Diệm maintained total hostility and never made
1673-550: A 1961 US intelligence estimate reported that "one-half of the entire rural region south and southwest of Saigon, as well as some areas to the north, are under considerable Communist control. Some of these areas are in effect denied to all government authority not immediately backed by substantial armed force. The Việt Cộng's strength encircles Saigon and has recently begun to move closer in the city." The report, later excerpted in The Pentagon Papers , continued: Support for
1912-415: A National Assembly would be elected first, but Diem went ahead with the plebiscite, which meant that he would have total power if he deposed Bảo Đại before a legislature was formed. U.S. diplomats were concerned that the move would be seen as a power grab, as Diem was organising and driving an electoral process in which he was a candidate. The Americans felt that a legislature should be formed first and that
2151-421: A constitution on 26 October 1956. After a 1963 coup , Diệm was killed and his dictatorship was overthrown in a CIA -backed military rebellion on November 2, and a series of short-lived military governments followed. General Nguyễn Văn Thiệu then led the country after a civilian presidential election from 1967 until 1975. During 1949-1975, both Saigon and communist governments coexisted, both claimed to be
2390-630: A constitution to establish a republic, but not in time due to the progress of the war. However, South Vietnam under Diệm held parliamentary elections and subsequently promulgated a constitution on 26 October 1956. The Geneva Accords promised elections in 1956 to determine a national government for a united Vietnam. In 1957, independent observers from India, Poland, and Canada representing the International Control Commission (ICC) stated that fair, unbiased elections were not possible, reporting that neither South nor North Vietnam had honored
2629-455: A coup and killed him in 1963. However the coup seriously weakened the regime. The military held a brief interim military government until General Nguyễn Khánh deposed Minh in a January 1964 coup. Until late 1965, multiple coups and changes of government occurred, with some civilians being allowed to give a semblance of civil rule overseen by a military junta. In 1965, the feuding civilian government voluntarily resigned and handed power back to
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#17328373687282868-702: A defence and counterattack but had few reserve forces, as well as a shortage of spare parts and ammunition. As a consequence, Thiệu ordered a withdrawal of key army units from the Central Highlands, which exacerbated an already perilous military situation and undermined the confidence of the ARVN soldiers in their leadership. The retreat became a rout exacerbated by poor planning and conflicting orders from Thiệu. PAVN forces also attacked south and from sanctuaries in Laos and Cambodia capturing Huế and Da Nang and advanced southwards. As
3107-618: A failing colonial government and, in any case, contained loopholes that could have been exploited by landlords. Under increasing financial pressure and European defense commitments, on 3 July 1953, the French government issued a declaration of its intention to complete the independence of three Indochinese associated countries (Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia). After the decisive defeat of the French Union in Điện Biên Phủ , France decided to give in to Saigon's desire for complete independence. On 4 June 1954,
3346-543: A frame showing a naked blonde performing an erotic dance for the head of state. Aside from painting Bảo Đại as a sexually insatiable glutton, Diem's campaign also attacked the head of state's nationalist credentials. They criticised him as being too soft in his dealings with French colonial authorities, and for serving as the head of state of the Empire of Vietnam , a puppet regime set up by Imperial Japan after they invaded during World War II. They also accused him of ceding half
3585-461: A legal basis for usurping the head of state's power. On 6 October 1955, Diem announced the referendum would be held on 23 October. The election was open to men and women aged 18 or over, and the government arranged to have a polling station set up for every 1,000 registered voters. The poll was contested by Bảo Đại, who had spent much of his time in France and advocated a monarchy, and Diem, who ran on
3824-426: A maid, before claiming the maid's son, by another man, as his own. The paper claimed Bảo Đại was "big like a lubber, had many children, and was very fond of women" while Khải Định was uncomfortable with females, hinting that the different personalities were inconsistent with a common biological lineage. Capitalising on anti-French sentiment, the paper went on to discuss Bảo Đại's upbringing in France, claiming that he
4063-447: A main vowel component followed by a shorter semivowel offglide /j/ or /w/ . There are restrictions on the high offglides: /j/ cannot occur after a front vowel (i, ê, e) nucleus and /w/ cannot occur after a back vowel (u, ô, o) nucleus. The correspondence between the orthography and pronunciation is complicated. For example, the offglide /j/ is usually written as i ; however, it may also be represented with y . In addition, in
4302-709: A million South Vietnamese soldiers and 500,000 US soldiers in South Vietnam. In 1969, the North Vietnam-controlled Việt Cộng established the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam (PRG) to challenge the legitimacy of the South Vietnamese government. What started as a guerrilla war eventually turned into a more conventional fight as the balance of power became equalized. An even larger, armored attack from
4541-545: A national referendum would be held to determine the future of the country. On 16 July, Diem publicly announced his intention to not take part in the reunification elections: "We will not be tied down by the [Geneva] treaty that was signed against the wishes of the Vietnamese people." Diem contended that the Communists would never allow free elections in the north, so therefore South Vietnam must strike out on its own and establish
4780-493: A new hero of the "free world". Senator Mike Mansfield (D-Mont.) claimed the referendum "was a reflection of their [the Vietnamese people's] search for a leader who would respond to their needs ... they sensed that Diem could provide that kind of leadership." Mansfield had been a professor of Asian history before entering politics; as a result his opinions about Vietnam were more influential and held in high regard by his fellow senators. Archives of policy discussions show that
5019-743: A new strategy, hammered out at a series of meetings in Hanoi in March 1973, according to the memoirs of Trần Văn Trà . As the Việt Cộng's top commander, Trà participated in several of these meetings. A plan to improve logistics was prepared so that the PAVN would be able to launch a massive invasion of the South, projected for 1976. A gas pipeline would be built from North Vietnam to the Việt Cộng provisional capital in Lộc Ninh , about 60 mi (97 km) north of Saigon. On 15 March 1973, US President Richard Nixon implied that
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#17328373687285258-553: A nominal republic and he was an ally of the US. Based on mass-organizations and secret networks as effective instruments, the Cần Lao Party with the Person Dignity Theory played a considerable role in creating a political groundwork for the power of Diệm's family and helped them to control all political activities in South Vietnam. Throughout this period, the level of US aid and political support increased. In spite of this,
5497-448: A paper published in 1856. Later, in 1920, French-Polish linguist Jean Przyluski found that Mường is more closely related to Vietnamese than other Mon–Khmer languages, and a Viet–Muong subgrouping was established, also including Thavung , Chut , Cuoi , etc. The term "Vietic" was proposed by Hayes (1992), who proposed to redefine Viet–Muong as referring to a subbranch of Vietic containing only Vietnamese and Mường . The term " Vietic "
5736-516: A patriotic and nationalist anti-communist, proclaiming "To kill communists, depose the king, [and] struggle against colonialists is a citizen's duty in Free Vietnam." Diem's government-controlled press overwhelmed Bảo Đại with endless personal propaganda attacks, with special editions of newspapers being devoted to polemical biographical accounts of the former emperor. This allowed Diem's campaign to condemn Bảo Đại with much more salacious detail than
5975-532: A plebiscite to remove Bảo Đại, claiming he was motivated by these "legitimate and democratic" sentiments. U.S. officials advised Diem to claim 60% and 70% of the vote to make the election look plausible. Under the Elysee Accords and the subsequent legislation that created the State of Vietnam in 1949, Bảo Đại's position as head of state was neither permanent nor indefinite. Sovereignty was presumed to rest solely upon
6214-563: A policy of Vietnamization to reduce US combat involvement and began negotiations with the North Vietnamese to end the war. Thiệu used the aftermath of the Tet Offensive to sideline Kỳ, his chief rival. The Land to the Tiller project carried out in South Vietnam from 1970 to 1973 was based on a proposal by Roy Prosterman , a prominent American "land-rights activist", who the US government of
6453-455: A politically heterogeneous South Vietnam. Corruption and intimidation must have played a significant role." Buttinger said that while the monarchy was "another rotten relic of Vietnam's past" and Bảo Đại "its last, unworthy representative", fraud and intimidation were unnecessary as Diem would have won easily in any event. Historian David Anderson said the victory "was not a true representation of Diem's power or popularity. The emperor's weakness,
6692-461: A pressure of the domestic left , the French government of Prime Minister Paul Ramadier agreed that it would give a non-communist Vietnam independence and unification. With co-operation between indigenous anti-communists and France, two preliminary treaties at Ha Long Bay recognizing Vietnam's independence and unity were signed between ex-emperor Bao Dai (representative of the anti-communist faction) and France on 7 December 1947 and 5 June 1948, and
6931-532: A process of tonogenesis , in which distinctions formerly expressed by final consonants became phonemic tonal distinctions when those consonants disappeared. These characteristics have become part of many of the genetically unrelated languages of Southeast Asia; for example, Tsat (a member of the Malayo-Polynesian group within Austronesian ), and Vietnamese each developed tones as a phonemic feature. After
7170-626: A representative on the Government Council for Nationalities, an advisory body of the Czech Government for matters of policy towards national minorities and their members. It also grants the community the right to use Vietnamese with public authorities and in courts anywhere in the country. Vietnamese is taught in schools and institutions outside of Vietnam, a large part contributed by its diaspora . In countries with Vietnamese-speaking communities Vietnamese language education largely serves as
7409-452: A republican platform. According to historian Jessica Chapman, it was a choice between "the country's obsolete emperor and its far-from-popular prime minister, Ngo Dinh Diem". In announcing the referendum, Diem portrayed his decision as being motivated by a love of democracy and popular discontent with the rule of Bảo Đại. The prime minister cited a plethora of petitions from various social, religious, and political groups calling on him to stage
South Vietnam - Misplaced Pages Continue
7648-481: A role to link descendants of Vietnamese immigrants to their ancestral culture. In neighboring countries and vicinities near Vietnam such as Southern China, Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand, Vietnamese as a foreign language is largely due to trade, as well as recovery and growth of the Vietnamese economy. Since the 1980s, Vietnamese language schools ( trường Việt ngữ/ trường ngôn ngữ Tiếng Việt ) have been established for youth in many Vietnamese-speaking communities around
7887-451: A separate, non-Communist state. This was echoed by the Saigon press, which ran articles assailing communist elections as shambolic, rigged, and meaningless; at the time, the northern half of Vietnam had a greater population than the south. A month earlier, North Vietnamese Prime Minister Phạm Văn Đồng wrote to Saigon asking to begin negotiations over the specific details of the elections. While
8126-465: A series of hills from communist North Vietnam in the Battle of Phú Lộc , but this was the army's last victory before suffering repeated defeats and collapse. On 12 December 1974, the PAVN attacked at Phuoc Long as the beginning of the 1975 spring offensive to test the South Vietnamese combat strength and political will and whether the US would respond militarily. With no US military assistance forthcoming,
8365-569: A serious effort to establish any relations with it. Diệm attempted to stabilise South Vietnam with defending against communist activities by both propaganda and force ( Tố Cộng diệt Cộng ). He also launched military campaigns against three powerful group – the Cao Đài , Hòa Hảo and the Bình Xuyên organised crime syndicate whose military strength combined amounted to approximately 350,000 fighters (see also: Battle of Saigon (1955) ). By 1960
8604-514: A signal that the United States would be the only Western power in South Vietnam. Some felt that this would enable Diem to rule effectively without French hindrance, while others felt that this would leave too much of a burden on the American government. The French media and diplomatic corps viewed the result as a humiliation. Before the poll, French officials had privately predicted Diem would dissolve
8843-511: A stage commonly termed Middle Vietnamese ( tiếng Việt trung đại ). The pronunciation of the "rime" of the syllable, i.e. all parts other than the initial consonant (optional /w/ glide, vowel nucleus, tone and final consonant), appears nearly identical between Middle Vietnamese and modern Hanoi pronunciation. On the other hand, the Middle Vietnamese pronunciation of the initial consonant differs greatly from all modern dialects, and in fact
9082-576: A statement protesting against the referendum. He urged the governments of France, the United Kingdom, the United States, India and even the Soviet Union not to recognise Diem, asserting that he was an obstacle to the reunification of Vietnam under the Geneva Accords. He accused Diem's poll of being "a governmental activity which conforms neither to the profound sentiment of the Vietnamese people nor to
9321-489: A strong-willed leader". Reader's Digest called it an "overwhelming endorsement" and dubbed Diem a "beacon of light, showing the way to free people". Diem's victory was seen as a blow to French stature in Vietnam, as the former colonial power had helped to set up Bảo Đại's State of Vietnam in 1949. They consistently opposed Diem and his policies, and unsuccessfully tried to impede him. The U.S. media regarded Diem's victory as
9560-546: A third of the Vietnamese lexicon in all realms, and may account for as much as 60% of the vocabulary used in formal texts. Vietic languages were confined to the northern third of modern Vietnam until the "southward advance" ( Nam tiến ) from the late 15th century. The conquest of the ancient nation of Champa and the conquest of the Mekong Delta led to an expansion of the Vietnamese people and language, with distinctive local variations emerging. After France invaded Vietnam in
9799-450: A vote for Diem would be a vote for democracy, stating "I depose Bảo Đại and recognise Ngo Dinh Diem as Head of State, charged with the commission of setting up a democratic regime." Bảo Đại's ballot read "I do not depose Bảo Đại and do not regard Ngo Dinh Diem as the Head of State charged with the commission of setting up a democratic regime." The voters would place the red or green ballot into
South Vietnam - Misplaced Pages Continue
10038-413: A whole new era for the future of our country." Diem reiterated that he would not partake in national reunification elections, saying that they would be futile unless "true liberty" came about in the communist North Vietnam, which impressed American observers, who feared a total communist takeover. Having claimed the election was entirely without irregularities, the United States government hailed Diem as
10277-435: Is tonal . It has head-initial directionality, with subject–verb–object order and modifiers following the words they modify. It also uses noun classifiers . Its vocabulary has had significant influence from Middle Chinese and loanwords from French . Although it is often mistakenly thought as being an monosyllabic language, Vietnamese words typically consist of from one to many as eight individual morphemes or syllables;
10516-460: Is also spoken by the Jing people traditionally residing on three islands (now joined to the mainland) off Dongxing in southern Guangxi Province , China . A large number of Vietnamese speakers also reside in neighboring countries of Cambodia and Laos . In the United States, Vietnamese is the sixth most spoken language , with over 1.5 million speakers, who are concentrated in a handful of states. It
10755-441: Is associated with good luck and prosperity, whereas green is often associated with a cuckold and bad luck. Diem's red ballots pictured him with youthful and modern-looking people, while Bảo Đại's photo was placed in old-fashioned robes, which he never wore. In addition, Bảo Đại's portrait showed him to appear dazed and bloated, while Diem and those surrounding him were smiling and appeared to be energetic. The ballot claimed that
10994-465: Is gratified that according to reports the referendum was conducted in such an orderly and efficient manner and that the people of Viet-Nam have made their choice unmistakably clear ... we look forward to a continuation of the friendly relations between the Government of Viet-Nam and the United States." Reaction to Diem's victory among the American press varied with geographic location. Newspapers in
11233-468: Is not the slightest doubt that this plebiscite was only a shade more fraudulent than most electoral tests under a dictatorship". The American journalist Stanley Karnow cited the dubious plebiscite as evidence of Diem's "mandarin mentality". Chapman wrote that "... no amount of unilateral campaigning, anti-Bảo Đại sentiment, or Confucian political restraint could explain Diem's 98 percent margin of victory in
11472-415: Is notated i or y (with the difference between the two often indicating differences in the quality or length of the preceding vowel), and after /ð/ and /β/ , where it is notated ĕ . This ĕ , and the /j/ it notated, have disappeared from the modern language. Note that b [ɓ] and p [p] never contrast in any position, suggesting that they are allophones. The language also has three clusters at
11711-472: Is often mistaken for a tilde in modern reproductions of early Vietnamese writing. As a result of emigration , Vietnamese speakers are also found in other parts of Southeast Asia , East Asia , North America , Europe , and Australia . Vietnamese has also been officially recognized as a minority language in the Czech Republic . As the national language, Vietnamese is the lingua franca in Vietnam. It
11950-462: Is pronounced with one of six inherent tones , centered on the main vowel or group of vowels. Tones differ in: Tone is indicated by diacritics written above or below the vowel (most of the tone diacritics appear above the vowel; except the nặng tone dot diacritic goes below the vowel). The six tones in the northern varieties (including Hanoi), with their self-referential Vietnamese names, are: 1955 State of Vietnam referendum A referendum
12189-410: Is significantly closer to the modern Saigon dialect than the modern Hanoi dialect. The following diagram shows the orthography and pronunciation of Middle Vietnamese: ^1 [p] occurs only at the end of a syllable. ^2 This letter, ⟨ ꞗ ⟩ , is no longer used. ^3 [j] does not occur at the beginning of a syllable, but can occur at the end of a syllable, where it
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#173283736872812428-460: Is the first language of the majority of the Vietnamese population, as well as a first or second language for the country's ethnic minority groups . In the Czech Republic , Vietnamese has been recognized as one of 14 minority languages, on the basis of communities that have resided in the country either traditionally or on a long-term basis. This status grants the Vietnamese community in the country
12667-634: Is the third-most spoken language in Texas and Washington; fourth-most in Georgia, Louisiana, and Virginia; and fifth-most in Arkansas and California. Vietnamese is the third most spoken language in Australia other than English, after Mandarin and Arabic. In France, it is the most spoken Asian language and the eighth most spoken immigrant language at home. Vietnamese is the sole official and national language of Vietnam. It
12906-413: Is used, among others, by Gérard Diffloth , with a slightly different proposal on subclassification, within which the term "Viet–Muong" refers to a lower subgrouping (within an eastern Vietic branch) consisting of Vietnamese dialects, Mường dialects, and Nguồn (of Quảng Bình Province ). Austroasiatic is believed to have dispersed around 2000 BC. The arrival of the agricultural Phùng Nguyên culture in
13145-446: Is written with two Chinese characters or in a composite character made of two different characters. This conveys the transformation of the Vietnamese lexicon from sesquisyllabic to fully monosyllabic under the pressure of Chinese linguistic influence, characterized by linguistic phenomena such as the reduction of minor syllables; loss of affixal morphology drifting towards analytical grammar; simplification of major syllable segments, and
13384-521: The 16th parallel north , while a British-led force occupied the south in September. The British-led force facilitated the return of French forces who started to fight the Viet Minh for control of the south on 23 September 1945, because French sovereignty over French Indochina (including Vietnam) got a legal recognition of the victorious Allies that France was their member. The young Vietnamese state itself
13623-510: The Buddhist crisis , provoking widespread protests and civil resistance . The situation came to a head when the Special Forces were sent to raid Buddhist temples across the country , leaving a death toll estimated to be in the hundreds. However, the people who support Diem's regime claim he sponsored and supported many Buddhist organizations, and Buddhism flourished under his regime. Before Diệm
13862-550: The Cold War . With the division of Vietnam on 21 July 1954, South Vietnam was bordered by North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and Thailand across the Gulf of Thailand to the southwest. In 1975, it was succeeded by the Republic of South Vietnam , which was de facto controlled by the communist North. On 2 July 1976, South Vietnam and North Vietnam merged to form
14101-643: The Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV), known as "North Vietnam", in Hanoi on 2 September 1945. The French returned to French Indochina (including Vietnam) to re-establish their colonial rule here on 23 September 1945. French army later clashed with the Việt Minh in Hanoi on 19 December 1946, leading to the First Indochina War . The Viet Minh government then had to withdraw to the North . On 8 March 1949,
14340-550: The French Army at Điện Biên Phủ in 1954, followed by the Geneva Accords , led to a divided Vietnam. The French-backed State of Vietnam , led by former Emperor Bảo Đại , provisionally held control south of the 17th parallel. Hồ Chí Minh 's Viet Minh held the north under the Democratic Republic of Vietnam , which Hồ Chí Minh had proclaimed in 1945. The agreements stated that nationwide elections were to be held in 1956 to unify
14579-562: The French National Assembly on 29 January 1950 and were signed by French President Vincent Auriol on 2 February 1950. The State of Vietnam was not completely a sovereign state but an associated state of France. However, in theory, the autonomy of the State of Vietnam within the French Union was still higher than that of Malaya within the British Commonwealth from 1948 to 1957. Former emperor Bảo Đại temporarily accepted
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#173283736872814818-504: The French National Assembly ; but unlike Algeria , it was not part of France. The northern part of Vietnam or Tonkin ( Bắc Kỳ ) was under a French resident general ( thống sứ ). Between Tonkin in the north and Cochinchina in the south was Annam ( Trung Kỳ ), under a French resident superior ( khâm sứ ). The Nguyễn dynasty emperors of Vietnam, residing in Huế , since the Treaty of Huế (1883) had been
15057-503: The French Union by the Élysée Accords signed at the Élysée Palace by Bảo Đại (under the name of Vietnamese emperor) and French President Vincent Auriol on 8 March 1949. Its capital was in Saigon , Southern Vietnam . This agreement clearly stated that Vietnam included Cochinchina, which had been under direct French rule since 1862, but the merger of Cochinchina into Vietnam still needed to go through legal procedures. On 23 April 1949,
15296-693: The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere . After the Japanese emperor claimed to surrender to the Allies on the radio on August 15, with the August Revolution of different political organizations led by communists, Emperor Bảo Đại abdicated on 25 August 1945 and Việt Minh leader Hồ Chí Minh proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) in Hanoi ( Northern Vietnam ) on September 2. While
15535-511: The Kuomintang 's government (Republic of China) that was pro-Western later had to withdraw to Taiwan . The victory of Chinese communists was a turning point in the First Indochina War . In 1950; communist countries such as China , the Soviet Union, East Germany , North Korea , Hungary, Mongolia, Albania, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Bulgaria recognised the Việt Minh's state (DRV). As of early 1950, there were 35 non-communist countries recognizing
15774-450: The Mekong Delta and the areas west of Saigon , respectively. The Bình Xuyên was an armed, organised crime empire that controlled much of Saigon with a 40,000 strong private army, while the Vietminh still controlled much of the rural area. Diem's Vietnamese National Army (VNA) was led by General Nguyễn Văn Hinh , a French citizen who loathed and frequently disobeyed him. Bảo Đại sold
16013-576: The Mekong Delta . South Vietnam's time zone was one hour ahead of North Vietnam, belonging to the UTC+8 time zone with the same time as the Philippines , Brunei , Malaysia , Singapore , China , Taiwan and Western Australia . South Vietnam went through many political changes during its short life. Initially, former Emperor Bảo Đại served as Head of State of the State of Vietnam and Emperor of its Domain of
16252-953: The Mon–Khmer branch of the Austroasiatic language family (which also includes the Khmer language spoken in Cambodia , as well as various smaller and/or regional languages , such as the Munda and Khasi languages spoken in eastern India, and others in Laos , southern China and parts of Thailand). In 1850, British lawyer James Richardson Logan detected striking similarities between the Korku language in Central India and Vietnamese. He suggested that Korku , Mon , and Vietnamese were part of what he termed "Mon–Annam languages" in
16491-513: The Nguyễn Dynasty and a source of support for Bảo Đại. He stifled this support by ordering the police to arrest 1,200 people for political reasons in the week leading up to the vote. In the city of Hội An , several people were killed in election violence on the day of the poll. Voting started at 07:00 and ended at 17:00. Diem's government formulated procedural regulations ostensibly designed to ensure results and ballots were correctly accounted for and to prevent election fraud. In reality however,
16730-492: The North . As part of decolonization , after World War II ended on 2 September 1945, France returned to Vietnam (Tonkin and Annam) but no longer recognized this place as normal colonies but the territories having a high autonomy and democracy. France and the United Kingdom two colonial superpowers won World War II but were seriously weakened while the United States and the Soviet Union opposing colonialism and being two main victors became new superpowers and self-determination
16969-427: The Provisional Central Government of Vietnam was established on 27 May 1948 as a transitional government partly replacing the French protectorates of Tonkin (Northern Vietnam) and Annam (Central Vietnam), until French Cochinchina (southern part) could be reunited with the rest of the country under a unified French-associated administration. The State of Vietnam was created as an independent and unified country within
17208-587: The Red River Delta at that time may correspond to the Vietic branch. This ancestral Vietic was typologically very different from later Vietnamese. It was polysyllabic, or rather sesquisyllabic , with roots consisting of a reduced syllable followed by a full syllable, and featured many consonant clusters. Both of these features are found elsewhere in Austroasiatic and in modern conservative Vietic languages south of
17447-617: The Socialist Republic of Vietnam . At the end of the Second World War , the communist Việt Minh of Hồ Chí Minh , started the August Revolution against the Nguyễn dynasty and its Japanese puppet state on 16 August 1945. On August 19, the Việt Minh took control of Hanoi ( Northern Vietnam ). On August 25, the Nguyễn dynasty collapsed. The Revolution ended when the Việt Minh formed
17686-692: The South China Sea , taking control of the islands. Saigon later objected diplomatically. North Vietnam recognized Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea because China was one of two main allies in the Vietnam War. The "Operation Tran Hung Dao 48" was a campaign conducted by the South Vietnamese Navy in February 1974 to station troops on unoccupied islands to assert Vietnam's sovereignty over
17925-610: The Soviet Union nor the People's Republic of China overtly objected to Diem's actions in creating a new state in the southern half of Vietnam. Nevertheless, by the time of Diem's deposal and assassination in 1963, France bought 46.3% of South Vietnam's exports and accounted for most of the foreign investment in the country. French cultural influences and the language remained prevalent. In January 1956, with no legislature and constitution in place, Diem used his absolute power to dissolve
18164-626: The Spratly archipelago after the Battle of the Paracel Islands. After communist reunification in 1976, Hanoi started to carefully praised the South Vietnamese forces that took part in the battle, while trying to avoid praising the Saigon regime as always to keep the image of their regime. After the battle, the US refused Saigon's requests for assistance because the US signed the Paris Peace Accords and
18403-521: The Trotskyists competed for control. Since its establishment, the Viet Minh had never publicized it as a communist organization but as a neutral and nationalist one to attract or cooperate with non-communists and receive support from the people, however the communists sought to suppress politicians and political organizations who did not submit to them with the goal of establishing a future communist state for Vietnam. The communist Việt Minh even oppressed
18642-414: The Trotskyists , who shared their Marxist ideological background. The Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng was considered biggest enemy by the communists. On 11 November 1945, the communists issued a communique to dissolve their party, but only in name. Nguyen Van Thieu , the future president of anti-communist South Vietnam, joined the Việt Minh in 1945 but quickly left the organization a year later after realizing it
18881-597: The Vietnamese orthography with the phonetic pronunciation to the right. Some consonant sounds are written with only one letter (like "p"), other consonant sounds are written with a digraph (like "ph"), and others are written with more than one letter or digraph (the velar stop is written variously as "c", "k", or "q"). In some cases, they are based on their Middle Vietnamese pronunciation; since that period, ph and kh (but not th ) have evolved from aspirated stops into fricatives (like Greek phi and chi ), while d and gi have collapsed and converged together (into /z/ in
19120-499: The yellow flag of the old regime was started to be banned by the communist regimes in Vietnam but was started to be used in anti-communist Vietnamese overseas communities (but not all Vietnamese dissidents ) and started to be recognized by many places in Australia , the US , and Canada . The South was divided into coastal lowlands, the mountainous Central Highlands (Cao-nguyen Trung-phan) and
19359-470: The "Government of Vietnam", or simply "Vietnam". Before World War II , the southern part of present-day Vietnam ( Nam Kỳ ) had been taken over and administered as a complete colony of France since the Treaty of Saigon (1862) between France and the Vietnamese Nguyễn dynasty , it was Cochinchina . It had been directly ruled by France and a French governor ( thống đốc ) and even elected a deputy to
19598-554: The 1930 Yên Bái mutiny of the Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng led by Nguyễn Thái Học failed; in the long run, it allowed the communists of Hồ Chí Minh to inherit the status of this organization as the leading anti-colonial revolutionary movement. Communist rebellions against the French colonialists also failed in the 1930-1931 uprising of the Nghệ-Tĩnh soviets and the 1940 Cochinchina uprising . During World War II , French Indochina
19837-514: The ARVN were unable to hold and the PAVN successfully captured many of the districts around the provincial capital of Phuoc Long, weakening ARVN resistance in stronghold areas. President Thiệu later abandoned Phuoc Long in early January 1975. As a result, Phuoc Long was the first provincial capital to fall to the PAVN. In 1975, the PAVN launched an offensive at Ban Me Thuot in the Central Highlands . The South Vietnamese unsuccessfully attempted
20076-465: The Americans were concerned more about the negative image created by Diem's autocratic and antidemocratic style among the international community, rather than its possible effects on national cohesion. The US State Department spokesman said "the people of Viet-Nam have spoken, and we, of course, recognise their decision". An official congratulatory statement from the department said "The Department of State
20315-418: The Americans were happy to avoid elections because of fears of a communist victory, they hoped that Diem would enter the dialogue over planning matters and wait for North Vietnam to object to a proposal, and thus use it to blame the communists for violating the Geneva Accords. The Americans had earlier advised Diem, who had been acting in defiance of Bảo Đại, that continued aid was contingent on Diem establishing
20554-513: The Bình Xuyên were crushed. Diem had regained both U.S. confidence and control of the police. Jubilant crowds lauded Diem and denounced Bảo Đại, who had tried to dismiss him in the middle of the battle to prevent him from quelling the Bình Xuyên. In addition, General Paul Ely, the head of the French presence in Vietnam, tried to impede Diem; his troops put road blocks against the VNA and gave intelligence to
20793-453: The Bình Xuyên. Buoyed by his successes, and fueled by increased hatred of both the French and Bảo Đại after their attempts to prevent him from dismantling the Bình Xuyên, Diem became more confident as he went about consolidating his hold on power. On 15 May, Diem abolished Bảo Đại's Imperial Guard; its 5,000 men became the 11th and 42nd Infantry Regiments of the VNA. Diem then stripped Bảo Đại of his extensive crown lands. On 15 June, Diem had
21032-521: The Chinese army. The Việt Minh also tried to make peace with France and France recognized the Việt Minh's state as a " Free State " within the French Union with an agreement on 6 March 1946. In June 1946, France declared Cochinchina an autonomous republic, separate from the northern and central parts. The French Indochina War began on 19 December 1946, the French defeated the Việt Minh in Hanoi on 18 February 1947. The Viet Minh government had to withdraw to
21271-711: The Cochinchinese assembly approved the merger with Vietnam (State of Vietnam), and its decision was in turn approved by the French National Assembly on 20 May 1949. On 4 June 1949, Cochinchina and Vietnam were formally merged. The Élysée Accords took effect when Bao Dai and the French High Commissioner in Indochina Léon Pignon exchanged letters at City Hall in Saigon on 14 June 1949. The Accords were completed when they received final ratification by
21510-555: The Council of the Royal Family at Huế declare that Bảo Đại be stripped of his powers, and that he, Diem, be made president. Bảo Đại's relatives condemned him for abdicating as head of state, and for his links with France and the Bình Xuyên. Historians have speculated that the royals agreed to turn on Bảo Đại so Diem would not seize their assets. On 7 July 1955, the first anniversary of his installation as prime minister, Diem announced that
21749-448: The Crown . He was unpopular dictator however, largely because monarchical leaders were considered collaborators during French rule and because he had spent his reign absent in France. In 1955, Prime Minister Ngô Đình Diệm held a referendum to decide whether the State of Vietnam would remain a monarchy or become a republic. Under the Elysee Accords and the subsequent legislation that created
21988-493: The French High Command and use any victory as justification for scrapping the national reunification elections. The French media viewed the poll as undemocratic and a plot by the Americans to sabotage any prospect of national reunification, but France recognised the Republic of Vietnam soon after. Diem severed economic relations with France on 9 December 1955, and withdrew from the French Union shortly afterwards. Neither
22227-512: The French colonial era. The following diagram shows the phonology of Proto–Viet–Muong (the nearest ancestor of Vietnamese and the closely related Mường language ), along with the outcomes in the modern language: ^1 According to Ferlus, * /tʃ/ and * /ʄ/ are not accepted by all researchers. Ferlus 1992 also had additional phonemes * /dʒ/ and * /ɕ/ . ^2 The fricatives indicated above in parentheses developed as allophones of stop consonants occurring between vowels (i.e. when
22466-550: The French formed the State of Vietnam with the Élysée Accords , it was a rival state of anti-communist Vietnamese politicians in Saigon, led by former Nguyễn emperor Bảo Đại . With this event as part of decolonization , the French abolished the old-style colonial regime in Vietnam, France recognized the independence and unification of Vietnam within the French Union ; but Vietnam still depended on France as an associated state like other two countries within Indochina. The state
22705-566: The French government of Prime Minister Joseph Laniel signed the Matignon Accords with the State of Vietnam government of Prime Minister Nguyễn Phúc Bửu Lộc in the Hôtel Matignon to recognize Vietnam as a sovereign state within the French Union . However, the Accords had never been completed because they had never been ratified by the heads of both countries. While the US provided aid to
22944-612: The French: 75% support for the NLF, 20% trying to remain neutral and only 5% firmly pro-Saigon government". However, the land reform in communist North Vietnam was also a serious disaster. The Diệm government lost support among the populace, and from the Kennedy administration , due to its repression of Buddhists and military defeats by the Việt Cộng. Notably, the Huế Phật Đản shootings of 8 May 1963 led to
23183-577: The Matignon Accords on 4 June 1954, however they were never nominally completed. After the Việt Minh with the aid of China defeated the French Union in the First Indochina War; an armistice and an accompanying declaration were made in the Geneva Conference on 21 July 1954, taking effect at 24:00 on July 22. The State of Vietnam was forced to abandon its claims to the North while the Việt Minh's state
23422-465: The Midwest hailed Diem's win as a triumph for democracy and extolled the new president as a champion of democracy. However, The New York Times said that the extreme margin of victory made "Diem's administrative control look more pervasive than is thought to be the case by a number of observers here." However, the paper also obligingly claimed the poll a "sound democratic procedure" and a "public tribute to
23661-588: The North Vietnam-controlled Viet Cong (NLF/VC) was driven by resentment of Diem's reversal of Viet Minh land reforms in the countryside. The Viet Minh had confiscated large private landholdings, reduced rents and debts, and leased communal lands, mostly to poorer peasants. Diem brought the landlords back, people who had been farming land for years had to return it to landlords and pay years of back rent. Marilyn B. Young wrote that "The divisions within villages reproduced those that had existed against
23900-468: The North commenced during the 1972 Easter Offensive following US ground-forces withdrawal . Under the support of the US air force, the South Vietnamese army successfully stopped the communist attack. In the Second Battle of Quảng Trị , the South Vietnamese army (ARVN) successfully recaptured part of Quang Tri territory from the enemy. However, the Saigon government still lost about 10% of its territory to
24139-450: The North on 4 February 1977. Non- communist party members of the Việt Cộng became dissatisfied with Hanoi after the fall of Saigon due to its conservative and harsh policies in managing the country and treating those who had worked for the old regime. Although the communistization of South Vietnam had taken place before; Vietnamese communists only publicly announced the implementation of communism nationwide on 20 December 1976, after Vietnam
24378-419: The North. This army would become the Republic of Vietnam Military Forces on 26 October 1955 after Vietnam was divided, when the State of Vietnam in the South became a republic. In 1953, Bảo Đại responded to the communist Việt Minh program of land redistribution and rent reduction with a decree declaring that rents for land should not exceed 15 percent of the crop. The decree was unenforceable and rendered null by
24617-710: The Red River Delta and into the adjacent uplands, possibly to escape Chinese encroachment. The oldest layer of loans from Chinese into northern Vietic (which would become the Viet–Muong subbranch) date from this period. The northern Vietic varieties thus became part of the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area , in which languages from genetically unrelated families converged toward characteristics such as isolating morphology and similar syllable structure. Many languages in this area, including Viet–Muong, underwent
24856-519: The Red River area. The language was non-tonal, but featured glottal stop and voiceless fricative codas. Borrowed vocabulary indicates early contact with speakers of Tai languages in the last millennium BC, which is consistent with genetic evidence from Dong Son culture sites. Extensive contact with Chinese began from the Han dynasty (2nd century BC). At this time, Vietic groups began to expand south from
25095-455: The South Vietnamese constitution considering Vietnam a unified country, he advocated a two-state solution with North Vietnam to join the United Nations together and co-exist peacefully to wait for the day of democratic unification. The Parliamentary election took place on 22 October 1967. On 31 January 1968, the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) of North Vietnam and its Việt Cộng broke
25334-403: The South, and Vietnam would be temporarily divided at 17th parallel north and State of Vietnam would rule the territory south of the 17th parallel, pending unification on the basis of supervised elections in 1956. France also re-recognised complete independence of Vietnam with these agreements. Hanoi , the de jure capital of the Viet Minh communist government (DRV) in the war, was taken over by
25573-455: The State of Vietnam and France met in Pau (France) to discuss the transfer of management functions on immigration, diplomatic relations, foreign trade, customs and finance for the State of Vietnam. Finance was the most controversial issue including controlling profits from foreign exchange operations. As a result, all of the above functions were transferred to the State of Vietnam by France. According to
25812-425: The State of Vietnam and France, China provided massive and abundant aid to the Viet Minh and this was the main factor leading to France's defeat in Indochina. On 21 July 1954, the war ended, France and the Việt Minh (DRV) agreed at the Geneva Conference with an armistice effective at 24:00 on July 22 accompanied by a declaration that the Viet Minh army withdrew all to the North and the French Union army withdrew all to
26051-421: The State of Vietnam in 1949, Bảo Đại's position as head of state was neither permanent nor indefinite. Sovereignty was presumed to rest solely upon the people, with Bảo Đại being a mere conduit. As a result, the referendum itself was within the law. This referendum was blatantly rigged in favor of a republic. Not only did an implausible 98% vote in favor of deposing Bảo Đại, but over 380,000 more votes were cast than
26290-577: The State of Vietnam; among them were the United States, South Korea , Thailand, Iran, Belgium, New Zealand, Australia , Greece , Spain, and countries in South America. The First Indochina War of France itself was also similar to the Malayan Emergency (1948-1960) of the British . The French arrangement on 8 March 1945 afforded Vietnam a limited degree of internal and external sovereignty (for example, it
26529-596: The US and South Vietnam had no mutual defense treaty. In August 1974, Nixon was forced to resign as a result of the Watergate scandal , and the US Congress voted to reduce assistance to South Vietnam from $ 1 billion a year to $ 700 million. By this time, the Ho Chi Minh trail, once an arduous mountain trek, had been upgraded into a drivable highway with gasoline stations. On 10 December 1974, South Vietnam did recapture
26768-469: The US defense attaché to leave South Vietnam to create conditions for negotiations with Hanoi. The communist North, however, was not interested in negotiations to create a coalition government in the South with anti-communists and neutrals, and its forces attacked Saigon . Minh did not want to evacuate the Saigon government to the Mekong Delta to continue military resistance against the communist faction. Minh unconditionally surrendered to North Vietnam on
27007-520: The US would intervene militarily if the communist side violated the ceasefire. Public reaction was unfavorable, and on 4 June 1973 the US Senate passed the Case–Church Amendment to prohibit such intervention. The oil price shock of October 1973 caused significant damage to the South Vietnamese economy. A spokesman for Thiệu admitted in a TV interview that the government was being "overwhelmed" by
27246-461: The VNA or disbanding, threatening to crush them if they refused. He bribed Hòa Hảo and Cao Đài commanders into joining the VNA, gradually resulting in the defection of some commanders and their units, while others continued to lead their forces against Saigon. The Bình Xuyên defied Diem's ultimatum. On 27 April, the VNA initiated the Battle for Saigon . After a brief but violent battle that left between 500 and 1,000 people dead and about 20,000 homeless,
27485-402: The Viet Minh forcing people to vote for them was discovered. The ballot was not secret and ballot papers were filled out in the presence of aides who were "to help comrades who had difficulty in making out their ballots". There was minimal campaigning and most voters had no idea who the candidates were. In many districts, a single candidate ran unopposed. The French army then moved north to replace
27724-406: The Viet Minh on 10 October 1954 after the withdrawal of French Union troops. At the time of the conference, it was expected that the South would continue to be a French dependency. However, South Vietnamese Premier Ngô Đình Diệm , who was an anti-communist conservative preferred American sponsorship to French, rejected the agreement. As a rigid nationalist, he strongly opposed French colonialism and
27963-586: The armistice agreement: "The elections were not held. South Vietnam, which had not signed the Geneva Accords, did not believe the Communists in North Vietnam would allow a fair election. In January 1957, the ICC agreed with this perception, reporting that neither South nor North Vietnam had honored the armistice agreement. With the French gone, a return to the traditional power struggle between north and south had begun again." In October 1956, Diệm, with US prodding, launched
28202-412: The army of this state was established before. According to the national defense decree of the State of Vietnam dated April 13, 1949; a national military force named the "National Guard" established on the basis of the pro-French autonomous military forces of the Vietnamese in the North and Central and South, including the paramilitary organization of the right-wing Nationalist Party of Greater Vietnam in
28441-408: The army to launch coups and counter-coups against one another, making leadership very tumultuous. The situation within the ranks of the military stabilised in mid-1965 when the Republic of Vietnam Air Force chief Nguyễn Cao Kỳ became Prime Minister, with General Nguyễn Văn Thiệu as the figurehead chief of state. As Prime Minister, Kỳ consolidated control of the South Vietnamese government and ruled
28680-423: The beginning of syllables, which have since disappeared: Most of the unusual correspondences between spelling and modern pronunciation are explained by Middle Vietnamese. Note in particular: De Rhodes's orthography also made use of an apex diacritic, as in o᷄ and u᷄ , to indicate a final labial-velar nasal /ŋ͡m/ , an allophone of /ŋ/ that is peculiar to the Hanoi dialect to the present day. This diacritic
28919-541: The body should oversee the referendum, but Diem ignored their advice. Ambassador G. Frederick Reinhardt informed Washington that Diem had no intention of allowing a level playing field for the opposition, and that the foreign press had already made much of Diem's democratic pronouncements being a facade. The Department of State agreed and opted to avoid trumpeting the referendum as an exercise in democracy for fear of attracting negative reactions to their foreign policy. Nevertheless, U.S. officials in Vietnam were pleased with
29158-461: The box, according to their preference, while discarding the other, which meant the voting was actually not secret. The logistics of the referendum were organised and supervised by Diem's brother and confidant, Ngô Đình Nhu , who was the leader of the family's secret Personalist Labor Revolutionary Party , which supplied the Ngôs' electoral base. Reports of violence and intimidation were widespread. During
29397-546: The cadre of military advisors guiding the Southern armed forces . North Vietnam was also helped by foreign armies, mostly Chinese. A regular bombing campaign over North Vietnam was conducted by offshore US Navy airplanes, warships, and aircraft carriers joined by the South Vietnamese and American Air Force squadrons from 1965 to 1968. Fighting peaked up to that point during the Tet Offensive of February 1968, when there were over
29636-458: The campaign was used to extol Diem and his allies. After explaining what democracy was, a pamphlet outlined why Deposing a chief-of-state is a vital act. After elaborating on the powers of the head of state, the pamphlet went on to champion Diem as an anti-communist who could defend people's freedom, while explaining why Bảo Đại was unfit to lead, saying that he did not have respect among the international community. On 15 October, Bảo Đại issued
29875-488: The change of suprasegment instruments. For example, the modern Vietnamese word "trời" (heaven) was read as *plời in Old/Ancient Vietnamese and as blời in Middle Vietnamese. The writing system used for Vietnamese is based closely on the system developed by Alexandre de Rhodes for his 1651 Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum . It reflects the pronunciation of the Vietnamese of Hanoi at that time,
30114-447: The common cause of peace". On 18 October, he made the token gesture of formally dismissing Diem. The following day, he denounced "the police methods" of Diem's "dictatorship" and warned the Vietnamese populace "against a regime that was bound to lead them to ruin, famine, and war". Bảo Đại accused Diem of trying to foment conflict between the French and the Americans. On the eve of the poll, Bảo Đại stated "I can even tell you that I know
30353-454: The communist Khmer Rouge , an ally of North Vietnam. South Vietnam's ally here collapsed. With Operation Babylift from 3 April to 26 April 1945; over 3,300 South Vietnamese infants and children had been airlifted by the United States and other Western countries (including Australia , France , West Germany , and Canada ), although the actual number has been variously reported. Morale
30592-411: The communist government in the North created conditions that made a fair election impossible in that region. Dennis J. Duncanson described the circumstances prevailing in 1955 and 1956 as "anarchy among sects and of the retiring Việt Minh in the South, the 1956 campaign of terror from Hanoi's land reform and resultant peasant uprising around Vinh in the North". A victory for communist Ho Chi Minh in
30831-432: The communists. Although the coup was successful in overthrowing the dictatorship; Diệm's removal set off a period of political instability and declining legitimacy of the Saigon government, Saigon's ability to fight communism as well as build and govern the country was seriously weakened after the fall of his dictatorship to the point that the communists themselves felt happy. General Dương Văn Minh became president, but he
31070-482: The communists. Despite a truce agreement under the Paris Peace Accords , signed on 27 January 1973 and taking effect at 8:00 on January 28 after five years of on-and-off negotiations, fighting continued almost immediately afterwards. The regular North Vietnamese army (PAVN) and their Viet Cong auxiliaries launched a major second combined-arms conventional offensive in 1975 . Communist forces overran Saigon and South Vietnamese president unconditionally surrendered on
31309-588: The communists. US and South Vietnamese forces launched a series of attacks on PAVN/VC bases in Cambodia in April–July 1970. South Vietnam launched an invasion of North Vietnamese bases in Laos in February/March 1971 and were defeated by the PAVN in what was widely regarded as a setback for Vietnamization. Thiệu was reelected unopposed in the Presidential election on 2 October 1971. North Vietnam launched
31548-429: The communists. The radio was used to verbally abuse Bảo Đại, who was accused of treason and corruption in these broadcasts. On the other hand, the bachelor Diem was described as the "hero of the people" and "father of all children". The slogans exhorted the populace to vote for the prime minister because "To vote for the revolutionary man Ngo Dinh Diem is to build a society of welfare and justice". They portrayed Diem as
31787-435: The country by mid-1955. Emboldened by his success, Diem began to plot Bảo Đại's downfall. He scheduled a referendum for 23 October 1955 and pushed Bảo Đại out of the political scene, hindering the former emperor's attempts to derail the poll. In the period leading up to the vote, campaigning for Bảo Đại was banned, while Diem's election campaign focused on personal attacks against Bảo Đại. These included pornographic cartoons of
32026-450: The country to the communists. The communists had already captured more than half the country on the battlefield, and Bảo Đại claimed he had no choice, but Diem's campaign portrayed him as incompetent and unwilling to take the blame. Diem used the Ministry of Information's electoral education campaign as a partisan political tool. Instead of using it purely to explain the democratic process,
32265-426: The country under a common government. In July 1954, during the transition period, Bảo Đại appointed Diem as Prime Minister of the State of Vietnam. On 11 October 1954, the border was closed by the International Control Commission , after a period of 300 days during which free passage between both halves of Vietnam had been allowed. Under the Geneva Accords, anti-communist military personnel were obliged to evacuate to
32504-447: The country with an iron fist. In June 1965, Kỳ's influence over the ruling military government was solidified when he forced civilian prime minister Phan Huy Quát from power. Often praising aspects of Western culture in public, Ky was supported by the United States and its allied nations, though doubts began to circulate among Western officials by 1966 on whether or not Ky could maintain stability in South Vietnam. A repressive leader, Ky
32743-466: The daughter languages from distinctions in the initial and final consonants. Vietnamese tones developed as follows: Glottal-ending syllables ended with a glottal stop /ʔ/ , while fricative-ending syllables ended with /s/ or /h/ . Both types of syllables could co-occur with a resonant (e.g. /m/ or /n/ ). At some point, a tone split occurred, as in many other mainland Southeast Asian languages . Essentially, an allophonic distinction developed in
32982-442: The diphthongs [āj] and [āːj] the letters y and i also indicate the pronunciation of the main vowel: ay = ă + /j/ , ai = a + /j/ . Thus, tay "hand" is [tāj] while tai "ear" is [tāːj] . Similarly, u and o indicate different pronunciations of the main vowel: au = ă + /w/ , ao = a + /w/ . Thus, thau "brass" is [tʰāw] while thao "raw silk" is [tʰāːw] . The consonants that occur in Vietnamese are listed below in
33221-400: The disarray of the political opposition, and other such factors explain his triumph". Three days after the vote, Diem proclaimed the creation of the Republic of Vietnam, naming himself as its president. He said "The October 23rd plebiscite in which [the people of South Vietnam] took such an enthusiastic part, constitutes an approval of the policies pursued thus far and at the same time augurs
33460-450: The division of Vietnam. North Vietnam of the Việt Minh itself was also forced to sign the agreement under Chinese pressure. When Vietnam was divided, about 1.2 million North Vietnamese went to the South with Operation Passage to Freedom . About 90,000 Việt Minh were evacuated to the North while 5,000 to 10,000 cadre remained in the South, most of them with orders to refocus on political activity and agitation. The Saigon-Cholon Peace Committee,
33699-449: The evacuees were taken directly by helicopter to multiple aircraft carriers waiting off the coast. Following the surrender of Saigon to North Vietnamese armed forces on 30 April 1975; South Vietnam was de facto overthrown, while the communists took power throughout Vietnam and there was no place for neutrals and anti-communists. A big campaign of historical and cultural revision began by the communists in South Vietnam, such as abandoning
33938-409: The first communist front, was founded in 1954 to provide leadership for this group. Operation Passage to Freedom was marked by an American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)-backed propaganda campaign on behalf of South Vietnam's Roman Catholic Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem . The campaign was usually viewed to exhort Catholics to flee "impending religious persecution" under communism, and around 60% of
34177-459: The free general election was certain because Ho hid in the name of nationalism and neutrality to fight against the French by force although in the Saigon regime Ngo Dinh Diem had more prestigious than Bao Dai , however the International Control Commission (ICC) held that both North and South Vietnam did not comply with the Geneva armistice agreement (although South Vietnam did not sign it) and neither
34416-537: The global Cold War between the United States and Soviet Union with the communist Việt Minh (DRV) being part of the communist Eastern Bloc and the State of Vietnam being part of the anti-communist and capitalist Western Bloc . This state was proclaimed on 2 July 1949. France itself was also part of the Western Bloc led by the US. On 1 October 1949, China became a communist state after the Chinese Civil War ,
34655-416: The head of state and unverified rumours claiming he was illegitimate and linking him to various mistresses. The government-controlled media launched polemical attacks on Bảo Đại, and police went door-to-door, warning people of the consequences of failing to vote. After his brother Ngô Đình Nhu had rigged the referendum, Diem proclaimed himself president of the newly created Republic of Vietnam. The defeat of
34894-411: The head of state, for whom campaigning was prohibited. The army and national police went about enforcing the ban on pro-Bảo Đại and anti-Diem activities. Police went from door to door, explaining the consequences of failing to vote. They organized conferences in rural villages and addressed the populace with loudspeakers. In general, Diem's line of attack was to portray Bảo Đại as a drunken womanizer who
35133-480: The inflation caused by the oil shock, while an American businessman living in Saigon stated after the oil shock that attempting to make money in South Vietnam was "like making love to a corpse". One consequence of the inflation was the South Vietnamese government had increasing difficulty in paying its soldiers and imposed restrictions on fuel and munition usage. After two clashes that left 55 South Vietnamese soldiers dead, President Thiệu announced on 4 January 1974 that
35372-440: The land reform process had stalled. Diệm had never truly supported reform because many of his biggest supporters were the country's largest landowners. While the US threatened to cut aid unless land reform and other changes were made, Diệm correctly assessed that the US was bluffing. Like Bảo Đại , the Saigon regime under Ngô Đình Diệm was a dictatorship but not a liberal democracy ; although Diệm overthrew Bảo Đại to establish
35611-446: The late 19th century, French gradually replaced Literary Chinese as the official language in education and government. Vietnamese adopted many French terms, such as đầm ('dame', from madame ), ga ('train station', from gare ), sơ mi ('shirt', from chemise ), and búp bê ('doll', from poupée ), resulting in a language that was Austroasiatic but with major Sino-influences and some minor French influences from
35850-573: The latter's ability to attract U.S. support and funding. During the transition period, the French Expeditionary Corps maintained a presence in South Vietnam. This led to tension between France and the State of Vietnam. Diem, a passionate nationalist, detested the French, who reciprocated, hoping he would fail, even calling for his removal on occasions. Diem faced challenges to his authority from four more groups. The Hòa Hảo and Cao Đài religious sects had private armies that controlled
36089-472: The legislature in 1967. The Senate election took place on 2 September 1967. The Presidential election took place on 3 September 1967, Thiệu was elected president with 34% of the vote in a widely criticised poll. Like Diệm, Thiệu was among the hardline anti-communists and did not accept a political alliance with the South Vietnamese communists ( de facto controlled by the North ); however, despite
36328-427: The main syllable). When a minor syllable occurred, the main syllable's initial consonant was intervocalic and as a result suffered lenition , becoming a voiced fricative. The minor syllables were eventually lost, but not until the tone split had occurred. As a result, words in modern Vietnamese with voiced fricatives occur in all six tones, and the tonal register reflects the voicing of the minor-syllable prefix and not
36567-461: The majority of Vietnamese vocabulary are disyllabic and trisyllabic words. Vietnamese is written using the Vietnamese alphabet ( chữ Quốc ngữ ). The alphabet is based on the Latin script and was officially adopted in the early 20th century during French rule of Vietnam . It uses digraphs and diacritics to mark tones and some phonemes . Vietnamese was historically written using chữ Nôm ,
36806-416: The methods used to influence the poll were "outrageous". Donald Lancaster, a journalist who covered the poll, said "Whereas Bảo Đại was given no opportunity to defend himself, the government-controlled press proceeded to overwhelm him with scurrilous abuse." Diem later banned Bảo Đại from entering the State of Vietnam. Diem's advertising included the parading of giant pageant-style floats of Bảo Đại through
37045-559: The military situation deteriorated, ARVN troops began deserting. By early April, the PAVN had overrun almost 3/5th of the South. Thiệu requested aid from US President Gerald Ford , but the US Senate would not release extra money to provide aid to South Vietnam, and had already passed laws to prevent further involvement in Vietnam. In desperation, Thiệu recalled Kỳ from retirement as a military commander, but resisted calls to name his old rival prime minister. On 17 April 1975, Cambodia fell to
37284-488: The mother of Bảo Đại, although Diem had ordered the military to confiscate her family's property and evict her from the land. The near unanimous voter turnout and support for Diem was replicated in Central Highlands and Mekong Delta swamp areas, which were not even under the control of the government and its Vietnamese National Army . In some districts of the Mekong Delta, overwhelming tallies for Diem in excess of 90% of
37523-482: The name of an envoy of the South Vietnamese president. He nominated his Vice President Trần Văn Hương as his successor. When Thiệu resigned, he accused the U.S. of betrayal in a TV and radio address: At the time of the peace agreement the United States agreed to only replace equipment on a one-by-one basis. But the United States did not keep its word. Is an American's word reliable these days? The United States did not keep its promise to help us fight for freedom and it
37762-405: The nation's military, in the hope this would bring stability and unity to the nation. An elected constituent assembly including representatives of all the branches of the military decided to switch the nation's system of government to a semi-presidential system. Military rule initially failed to provide much stability however, as internal conflicts and political inexperience caused various factions of
38001-592: The nation's official name was changed back to "Vietnam" by the government of Bảo Đại . The name is also sometimes rendered as "Viet Nam" in English. The term "South Vietnam" became common usage in 1954, when the Geneva Conference provisionally partitioned Vietnam into communist and capitalist parts, one year before the republic was proclaimed in the southern part. Other names of this state were commonly used during its existence such as "Free Vietnam", "Free South", "Republican South", "National Government", "National side",
38240-490: The new front as the Việt Minh. Later, after communists took power in North Vietnam, the United Front (Việt Minh) changed into the current communist Vietnam Fatherland Front ( Mặt trận Tổ quốc Việt Nam ) on 10 September 1955. Before that, in 1951, Vietnamese communists de jure restored their party ; with the 1959 Constitution of North Vietnam (DRV), Vietnamese communists formalized their rule and implementation of communism in
38479-606: The nominal rulers of Annam and Tonkin protectorates , which were French colonies like Cochinchina but had parallel French and Vietnamese systems of administration. French political power in Tonkin was stronger than in Annam. A French governor-general ( toàn quyền ) administered all the five parts of French Indochina (Tonkin, Annam, Cochinchina, Laos , and Cambodia ). Under French rule, nationalist movements and armed uprisings of Vietnamese people (both communists and non-communists) emerged. After
38718-497: The north and /j/ in the south). Not all dialects of Vietnamese have the same consonant in a given word (although all dialects use the same spelling in the written language). See the language variation section for further elaboration. Syllable-final orthographic ch and nh in Vietnamese has had different analyses. One analysis has final ch , nh as being phonemes /c/, /ɲ/ contrasting with syllable-final t , c /t/, /k/ and n , ng /n/, /ŋ/ and identifies final ch with
38957-466: The north's 1.14 million Catholics immigrated. However, the communist Viet Minh also tried to forcefully prevent would-be refugees from leaving, especially in rural areas where there were no French or American military forces. About the communist Việt Minh, on 7 March 1951, it and the communist National United League of Vietnam ( Hội Liên Việt ) merged to form the communist Vietnamese United Front ( Mặt trận Liên Việt ). Nonetheless, people continued to call
39196-506: The operating license of the national police to the Bình Xuyên, effectively putting administrative control of the police in the hands of a crime syndicate. Amid growing French and US skepticism of his ability to provide stable rule, Diem forced the matter to a head in April 1955. He ordered the Bình Xuyên to relinquish control of the National Police and submit to his command by integrating into
39435-415: The people celebrated their victory in the north, the communist Việt Minh faced various problems in the south, which was politically more diverse than the north. The communist Việt Minh had been unable to establish the same degree of control in the south as in the north. There were serious divisions in the independence movement in the south, where the Việt Minh, Cao Đài , Hòa Hảo , other nationalist groups and
39674-399: The people, with Bảo Đại being a mere conduit. As a result, the referendum itself was within the law. Diem had not been elected to his post, so he saw the referendum as an opportunity to rebuff opponents, who claimed that he was undemocratic and autocratic. The event also gave Diem an opportunity to boost his prestige by defeating Bảo Đại in a head-to-head contest. It was previously agreed that
39913-448: The percentage of favourable votes that Mr. Diem has decided to obtain." The staging of the election was subsidised by foreign funding. The United States government and a combination of American Roman Catholic charities contributed US$ 2 million each. Ba Cụt , a leader of an anti-government Hòa Hảo religious sect, distributed a pamphlet condemning Diem as an American puppet, citing the funding as proof and further asserting that Diem
40152-405: The plain-voiced stops became voiceless and the allotones became new phonemic tones. The implosive stops were unaffected, and in fact developed tonally as if they were unvoiced. (This behavior is common to all East Asian languages with implosive stops.) As noted above, Proto-Viet–Muong had sesquisyllabic words with an initial minor syllable (in addition to, and independent of, initial clusters in
40391-409: The poll, Diem said: "This 23 October, for the first time in our country's history, our men and women will exercise one of many basic civil rights of a democracy, the right to vote." A government proclamation four days before the poll said: "Dear compatriots, proclaim your will forcefully! Go forward firmly in the path of Freedom, Independence and Democracy!" Diem ran a personal attack campaign against
40630-405: The position of chief of state ( quốc trưởng ) before it could become a complete republic. In its Domain of the Crown , he was still officially titled as the "Emperor of the Nguyễn dynasty". This was known as the "Bảo Đại Solution" of France, supported by native anti-communists who wanted to seek an independent and unified Vietnam without communism. The colonial war of France in Vietnam became part of
40869-457: The president of the newly proclaimed Republic of Vietnam. South Vietnam withdrew from the French Union on 9 December 1955. The French, who needed troops to fight in Algeria (then French internal part ) and were increasingly sidelined by the United States, completely withdrew from Vietnam by April 1956. Under Bảo Đại , the State of Vietnam planned to organize parliamentary elections and promulgate
41108-462: The radio at 10:24 on 30 April 1975, leading to the end of the Vietnam War and more than 26 years of existence of the Saigon regime. During the hours leading up to the surrender, the United States undertook a massive evacuation of US government personnel as well as high-ranking members of the ARVN and other South Vietnamese who were seen as potential targets for persecution by the Communists. Many of
41347-558: The radio on 30 April 1975, marking the end of capitalist South Vietnam and the Vietnam War. In 1976, the North Vietnam-controlled Republic of South Vietnam (PRG) and North Vietnam merged to form the communist Socialist Republic of Vietnam . The official name of the South Vietnamese state was the "Republic of Vietnam" (Vietnamese: Việt Nam Cộng hòa ; French: République du Viêt Nam ). The "State of Vietnam" (Vietnamese: Quốc gia Việt Nam ; French: État du Viêt Nam )
41586-419: The referendum as a first step in nurturing democracy. His support base was to use this as a means of justifying the deposal of Bảo Đại, citing past decisions that according to them, were pro-communist. One of Diem's main themes was that the referendum would usher in a new era of unprecedented democracy: "This shall be but the first step made by our people in the free use of our political rights." The day before
41825-444: The referendum illegal. He invited "friendly countries and the people of Vietnam to distrust this political maneuver". Diem had earlier told a cabinet minister that there was only one political party and went about eradicating opposition by force. Opponents claimed Diem's declarations about the value of democracy were hollow. Lansdale advised Diem to print his ballots in red, while those of Bảo Đại were printed in green. In Vietnam, red
42064-414: The referendum, Nhu's staff told voters to throw away the green ballots. Those who disobeyed were often chased down and beaten, with pepper sauce and water sometimes being forced into their nostrils. The violations were particularly flagrant in central Vietnam, a region over which another of Diem's younger brothers, Ngô Đình Cẩn , ruled. Cẩn was based in the former imperial capital city of Huế , home of
42303-438: The referendum, as they saw it as an opportunity to strengthen South Vietnam and avoid defeat to the communists, as they saw a republican model as being more robust. Having declared his disdain for the 1956 reunification elections, Diem saw the referendum as the first step in creating a long-term state to rule over South Vietnam. He repeatedly said that the creation of a legislature and a constitution for his new state would follow
42542-451: The referendum. Diem reportedly saw the poll as an opportunity to legitimise him as a symbol of Vietnamese democracy, so that he could frame and justify his refusal to participate in national elections as a struggle between freedom and communist authoritarianism. Diem asserted that South Vietnam would eventually reunify the nation under a democratic administration and liberate their northern compatriots from communist oppression, and championed
42781-469: The registered voters were recorded, even though the Hòa Hảo warlord Ba Cụt and his army had prevented voting. The referendum was widely condemned for being fraudulent. Historian and writer Jessica Chapman said "Even Diem apologists like Anthony Trawick Bouscaren and American CIA officer Edward Lansdale concur with the prime minister's harshest critics on the conclusion that the South Vietnamese government
43020-421: The representative of Vietnam; the communists accused Saigon of being puppet government ( ngụy quyền ) of France then the US to disguise foreign rule, while Saigon accused its enemy of being anti-free and spreading communism under nationalist guise. The Vietnam War , a Cold War military conflict between North and South Vietnam, started on 1 November 1955 and escalated in March 1959 when North Vietnam accepted
43259-499: The rest had boycotted the election, implying that more than 60% of the votes in the capital were not authentic. Defenders of Diem claim this was due to recently arrived, mostly Catholic, refugees from North Vietnam who voted without being enrolled, rather than large-scale ballot stuffing . Diem's regime had announced that 5,335,668 people were eligible to vote, but when the results were declared, there were 5,784,752 ballots. Diem's government claimed his candidacy had been endorsed by
43498-546: The same except that ơ [əː] is of normal length while â [ə] is short – the same applies to the vowels long a [aː] and short ă [a] . The centering diphthongs are formed with only the three high vowels (i, ư, u). They are generally spelled as ia, ưa, ua when they end a word and are spelled iê, ươ, uô, respectively, when they are followed by a consonant. In addition to single vowels (or monophthongs ) and centering diphthongs, Vietnamese has closing diphthongs and triphthongs . The closing diphthongs and triphthongs consist of
43737-465: The same time, according to the following pattern: ^3 In Middle Vietnamese , the outcome of these sounds was written with a hooked b (ꞗ), representing a /β/ that was still distinct from v (then pronounced /w/ ). See below. ^4 It is unclear what this sound was. According to Ferlus 1992, in the Archaic Vietnamese period (c. 10th century AD, when Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary
43976-404: The south, but the Chinese also put pressure to prevent the Viet Minh from monopolizing the new Vietnamese state. National Assembly elections were held in areas controlled by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) but not controlled by France on 6 January 1946. Held under its 1946 constitution that was "democratic", they resulted in a victory for the communist Việt Minh (who de facto ruled
44215-510: The south, many of them Catholics. At the start of 1955, French Indochina was dissolved, leaving Diem in temporary control of the south. At the time, Diem had little authority beyond the gates of his own palace. Bảo Đại had little confidence in him and gave him meagre support—the pair had clashed in the past, with Diem resigning as Bảo Đại's Interior Minister two decades earlier, believing the head of state to be weak and ineffective. Many historians believe that Bảo Đại may have selected Diem for
44454-465: The south, while communist forces were to be moved north. Civilians were free to move to whichever zone they preferred. The issue was a topic of concern for either side throughout the course of the 300 days: Operation Freedom Passage followed with transportation options for civilians to move to the south, and Diem authorizing U.S. CIA adviser Colonel Edward Lansdale to stage campaign intended to convince more people to move to South Vietnam. The campaign
44693-488: The spirit of "freedom, equality and brotherhood". In 1947, Nguyễn Văn Xuân who was a Vietnamese anti-communist became Prime Minister of the autonomous republic of French Cochinchina , he renamed the "Provisional Government of the Autonomous Republic of Cochinchina" as the "Provisional Government of Southern Vietnam", suggesting that his aim was to reunite all of Vietnam under a non-communist regime. Also in 1947, under
44932-484: The split from Muong around the end of the first millennium AD, the following stages of Vietnamese are commonly identified: After expelling the Chinese at the beginning of the 10th century, the Ngô dynasty adopted Classical Chinese as the formal medium of government, scholarship and literature. With the dominance of Chinese came wholesale importation of Chinese vocabulary. The resulting Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary makes up about
45171-460: The state and did not say they were communist), which won 182 of the 302 seats, although the distribution of seats between parties had been decided publicly before the elections by the Việt Minh themselves due to Chinese pressure and former emperor Bao Dai himself was also given a seat in the National Assembly by the communist Viet Minh. Most Vietnamese people at that time were illiterate and even
45410-476: The streets of Saigon, depicted with bags of money on his shoulders, a deck of cards in his hands, and with naked blonde women and bottles of cognac in his arms. This was a reference to the head of state's reputation for opulence, gambling and womanising. In particular, the blonde hair referred to Bảo Đại's purported penchant for European mistresses with whom he liaised on the French Riviera. Bảo Đại's dummy
45649-505: The syllable-initial ch /c/ . The other analysis has final ch and nh as predictable allophonic variants of the velar phonemes /k/ and /ŋ/ that occur after the upper front vowels i /i/ and ê /e/ ; although they also occur after a , but in such cases are believed to have resulted from an earlier e /ɛ/ which diphthongized to ai (cf. ach from aic , anh from aing ). (See Vietnamese phonology: Analysis of final ch , nh for further details.) Each Vietnamese syllable
45888-475: The teaching of Chinese characters in schools despite Vietnam being part of the Sinosphere . The Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam (PRG) of the Việt Cộng ( de facto controlled by the North) officially became the government of South Vietnam, which merged with North Vietnam to create the communist Socialist Republic of Vietnam on 2 July 1976. The North's flag, national anthem, capital, and constitution were still chosen. Saigon
46127-506: The territories they controlled. In July 1955, Diệm announced in a broadcast that South Vietnam would not participate in the elections specified in the Geneva Accords. As Saigon's delegation did not sign the Geneva Accords, it was not bound by it, despite having been an associated state but not sovereign state of the French Union , which was itself bound by the Accords because the Matignon Accords that made Saigon gain complete independence from France never took effect legally. He also claimed
46366-399: The time recruited within its efforts against communists. Drawing on experiences in other countries (particularly in Latin America), Prosterman proposed a "land-to-the-tiller" program to compete with the communists for the allegiance of the peasants. The plan mimicked the communists' land expropriation strategy, coupled with monetary compensation to the former landowners. On 26 March 1970, with
46605-462: The tones, whereby the tones in syllables with voiced initials were pronounced differently from those with voiceless initials. (Approximately speaking, the voiced allotones were pronounced with additional breathy voice or creaky voice and with lowered pitch. The quality difference predominates in today's northern varieties, e.g. in Hanoi , while in the southern varieties the pitch difference predominates, as in Ho Chi Minh City .) Subsequent to this,
46844-448: The total number of registered voters; in Saigon , for instance, Diệm was credited with 133% of the vote. Diệm proclaimed himself the president of the newly formed Republic of Vietnam. Despite successes in politics, economics and social change in the first 5 years, Diệm quickly became a dictatorial leader even more than Bảo Đại. With the support of the United States government and its CIA , ARVN officers led by General Dương Văn Minh staged
47083-408: The traditional truce accompanying the Tết (Lunar New Year) holiday. The Tet Offensive failed to spark a national uprising and was militarily disastrous. By bringing the war to South Vietnam's cities, however, and by demonstrating the continued strength of communist forces, it marked a turning point in US support for the government in South Vietnam. The new administration of Richard Nixon introduced
47322-476: The use of force in the South. North Vietnam de facto established the National Liberation Front for South Vietnam (Việt Cộng) the next year. North Vietnam was aided mainly from China and the Soviet Union while South Vietnam was aided mainly from the US. Larger escalation of the insurgency occurred in 1965 with foreign intervention to help South Vietnam ( mostly the U.S. ) and the introduction of regular forces of Marines , followed by Army units to supplement
47561-422: The voicing of the main-syllable stop in Proto-Viet–Muong that produced the fricative. For similar reasons, words beginning with /l/ and /ŋ/ occur in both registers. (Thompson 1976 reconstructed voiceless resonants to account for outcomes where resonants occur with a first-register tone, but this is no longer considered necessary, at least by Ferlus.) Old Vietnamese/Ancient Vietnamese was a Vietic language which
47800-552: The vote, the referendum was widely marred by electoral fraud . In the capital, Saigon , Diem was credited with more than 600,000 votes, although only 450,000 people were on the electoral roll, while Diem was also credited with receiving the votes of over 90% of registered voters in rural regions where opposition groups had prevented voting. The referendum was the last phase in the power struggle between Bảo Đại and his prime minister. Bảo Đại disliked Diem and had frequently attempted to undermine him, having appointed him only because he
48039-409: The votes were counted without independent supervision, which resulted in Diem being credited with 98.9% of the vote. The prime minister tallied 605,025 votes in Saigon, although only 450,000 voters were registered in the capital. Diem's tally also exceeded the registration numbers in other districts. French newspapers claimed that only half of the registered voters in Saigon had actually voted, and that
48278-409: The war had restarted and that the Paris Peace Accord was no longer in effect. There were over 25,000 South Vietnamese casualties during the ceasefire period. In reality, fighting began almost immediately after the agreement took effect, due to a series of mutual retaliations, and by March 1973, full-fledged war had resumed. The same month, China attacked South Vietnamese forces in the Paracel Islands on
48517-446: The war still underway, the government of South Vietnam began implementation of the Land-to-the-Tiller program following Prosterman's model. In total, the United States financed 339 million US dollars of the reform's 441 million dollars of expenses. Individual holdings were limited to 15 hectares. Legal titles were extended to peasants in areas under control of the Republic of Vietnam government to whom land had previously been distributed by
48756-452: The world such as in the United States , Germany and France . Vietnamese has a large number of vowels . Below is a vowel diagram of Vietnamese from Hanoi (including centering diphthongs ): Front and central vowels (i, ê, e, ư, â, ơ, ă, a) are unrounded , whereas the back vowels (u, ô, o) are rounded. The vowels â [ə] and ă [a] are pronounced very short, much shorter than the other vowels. Thus, ơ and â are basically pronounced
48995-458: The Élysée Accords, France gradually transferred management functions to Bao Dai's government. On 8 December 1950, the State of Vietnam and France signed a military agreement to establish the Vietnamese National Army by placing a number of Vietnamese military units established by France under the command of the State of Vietnam. It was expected that this army would include 120,000 soldiers and 4,000 officers. All officers had to be Vietnamese. However,
49234-418: Was ousted in January 1964 by General Nguyễn Khánh . Phan Khắc Sửu was named head of state, but power remained with a junta of generals led by Khánh, which soon fell to infighting. Meanwhile, the Gulf of Tonkin incident of 2 August 1964 led to a dramatic increase in direct US-allied participation in the war in South Vietnam, with nearly 200,000 American troops deployed by the end of the year. North Vietnam
49473-435: Was "pressurized into accepting an agreement that virtually ensured its collapse". North Vietnam violated the Paris Peace Accords first on the evening of January 29 when they counterattacked at Cửa Việt Base with the goal of retaking this place from South Vietnam. North Vietnamese leaders had expected that the ceasefire terms would favour their side. As Saigon began to roll back the Việt Cộng, they found it necessary to adopt
49712-419: Was a conduit to American aid. At the time, the country was going through a period of insecurity, as Vietnam had been temporarily partitioned as a result of the 1954 Geneva Accords that ended the First Indochina War . The State of Vietnam controlled the southern half of the country, pending national elections that were intended to reunify the country under a common government. Still, the Vietnamese National Army
49951-731: Was accompanied by that of a Frenchman putting gold into his pockets, thereby questioning his nationalist credentials. Posters and effigies associating Bảo Đại with a pig's head were disseminated, while a prominent newspaper composed and encouraged the people to sing insulting songs about Bảo Đại. Walls and public transport vehicles were plastered with slogans, including "Beware of the evil king Bảo Đại's preference for gambling, women, wine, milk, and butter. Those who vote for him betray their country." Aside from referring to his opulent lifestyle, other slogans such as "Bao Dai, puppet king selling his country", and "Bao Dai, master keeper of gambling dens and brothels", referred to his alleged softness towards
50190-425: Was administered by Vichy France and occupied by Japan in September 1940. The communist Việt Minh was formed as one of nationalist groups of Vietnam in 1941. After Japanese troops overthrew the Vichy administration on 9 March 1945, Nguyễn Emperor Bảo Đại proclaimed his Vietnam independent and to regain Cochinchina to establish the Empire of Vietnam on 11 March 1945. However, it was a puppet state of Japan within
50429-450: Was allowed to enter into diplomatic relations with a small number of countries), but for the most part reserved for France effective control over foreign relations, as well as military, judicial, administrative, and economic activities. The French army remained to fight in the ongoing war but no longer in the name of a colonial army but a part of the French Union to help another independent member of this organization. From June to October 1950,
50668-447: Was already womanising as a teenager because of his European upbringing. Bảo Đại later married an ethnic Vietnamese French citizen, who became Empress Nam Phương , who had been raised Catholic. The editorials accused her of being a French agent and claimed she had treated the queen mother badly, a serious character flaw as Confucianism strongly emphasized respect for elders. Hong Van went on to claim that Bảo Đại's sequence of Gallic lovers
50907-531: Was also helped by foreign armies, mostly Chinese. Khánh sought to capitalize on the crisis with the Vũng Tàu Charter , a new constitution that would have curtailed civil liberties and concentrated his power, but was forced to back down in the face of widespread protests and strikes. Coup attempts followed in September and February 1965 , the latter resulting in Air Marshal Nguyễn Cao Kỳ becoming prime minister and General Nguyễn Văn Thiệu becoming nominal head of state. A regular bombing campaign over North Vietnam
51146-531: Was an indication that colonial officials were successfully using sex to turn the head of state into a puppet of France. The culmination of the newspaper campaign was a satirical pornographic cartoon, entitled "The Story of Bảo Đại". It summarized the scandalous depictions of the head of state made by Thoi Dai in the preceding weeks and was published on 19 October, four days before the referendum. The pictures featured full frontal nude depictions of Bảo Đại and his mistresses, with genitalia clearly visible, including
51385-430: Was borrowed) it was * r̝ , distinct at that time from * r . The following initial clusters occurred, with outcomes indicated: A large number of words were borrowed from Middle Chinese , forming part of the Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary . These caused the original introduction of the retroflex sounds /ʂ/ and /ʈ/ (modern s , tr ) into the language. Proto-Viet–Muong did not have tones. Tones developed later in some of
51624-505: Was clearly written in the United Nations Charter as an international legal right, leading to original foundation for the possibility of gaining complete independence from colonial empires in peace after the War. While the British empire preferred an indirect rule system, which did not mix the colonized people with the colonists, the French state theoretically chose an integration system and considered parts of its colonial empire as France itself and its population as French people to spread
51863-440: Was communist. In Paris 1946, asked by Daniel Guerin about the fate of Trotskyist leader Tạ Thu Thâu (executed in September), Hồ Chí Minh, while allowing that "Thâu was a great patriot", replied: "All those who do not follow the line which I have laid down will be broken." At his direction, the Việt Minh broke or substantially weakened all rival anti-colonial forces. A Chinese Kuomintang army arrived to occupy Vietnam's north of
52102-426: Was conducted by offshore US Navy airplanes, warships, and aircraft carriers joined by the South Vietnamese and American Air Force squadrons from 1965 to 1968. Kỳ and Thiệu functioned in those roles until 1967, bringing much-desired stability to the government. They imposed censorship and suspended civil liberties, and intensified anticommunist efforts. Under pressure from the US, they held elections for president and
52341-415: Was credited with 98 percent of the votes. In many districts, there were more votes to remove Bảo Đại than there were registered voters (e.g., in Saigon, 133% of the registered population reportedly voted to remove Bảo Đại). His American advisors had recommended a more modest winning margin of "60 to 70 percent". Diệm, however, viewed the election as a test of authority. On 26 October 1955, Diệm declared himself
52580-515: Was effectively public. Reinhardt cabled Washington, saying that the "referendum proved [a] resounding success for [the] Diem government". He indicated that the poll results were not necessarily a reflection of reality by adding that the result did not show that Diem had majority support but that he was able to control the country, effectively unchallenged. The U.S. government was heartened by Diem's apparent ability to negate communist and other opposition. The scholar Bernard B. Fall stated that "there
52819-409: Was either incapable of or unwilling to hold a truly free, representative plebiscite". A CIA report written in 1966 adjudged the poll to be the most heavily manipulated in the first 11 years of South Vietnam's history. The U.S. government privately concluded that the monopoly Diem had on the media and the election campaign was a greater factor in the victory than intimidation and the fact that the voting
53058-456: Was eligible to hold a free general election for Vietnam. The communist Viet Minh still kept a large number of its cadres in the South while the population of the North itself was larger than the population of the South. Diệm held a referendum on 23 October 1955 to determine the future of the country. He asked voters to approve a republic, thus removing Bảo Đại as head of state. The poll was supervised by his younger brother, Ngô Đình Nhu . Diệm
53297-418: Was going to "Catholicize" the country. The Vietnamese Socialist Party, which was affiliated to the Hòa Hảo, claimed Diem had "bribed the world of laborers and young students to petition in support of Diem's rise to chief-of-state and to petition in favor of deposing Bao Dai", using the American election funding. Another Hòa Hảo rebel leader, General Trần Văn Soái, assailed Diem's undemocratic regime and declared
53536-418: Was greatly despised by his fellow countrymen. In early 1966, protesters influenced by popular Buddhist monk Thích Trí Quang attempted an uprising in Quang's hometown of Da Nang. The uprising was unsuccessful and Ky's repressive stance towards the nation's Buddhist population continued. Vietnamese language Like many languages in Southeast Asia and East Asia , Vietnamese is highly analytic and
53775-404: Was held in the State of Vietnam (South Vietnam) to determine whether the country was a republic or monarchy. It was primarily a contest between Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem , who proposed a republic , and former emperor Bảo Đại , who had abdicated in 1945 and at the time of the referendum held the title of head of state. Although published counts showed Diem winning the election with 98.9% of
54014-442: Was in the same fight that the United States lost 50,000 of its young men. After only one week in office, the South Vietnamese national assembly voted to hand over the presidency to General Dương Văn Minh . Minh was seen as a more conciliatory figure toward the North, and it was hoped he might be able to negotiate a more favourable settlement to end the war. After that, on 28 April 1975, South Vietnamese president Minh immediately asked
54253-406: Was low in South Vietnam as the PAVN advanced. A last-ditch defense was made mostly by the ARVN 18th Division led by Brigadier General Lê Minh Đảo at the Battle of Xuân Lộc from 9–21 April. The North Vietnamese communists demanded that Thieu resign so peace negotiations could take place; under pressure from within the country, Thiệu was forced to resign on 21 April 1975, and fled to Taiwan under
54492-407: Was not in full control of southern Vietnam; the Cao Đài and Hòa Hảo religious sects ran their own administrations in the countryside supported by private armies, while the Bình Xuyên organised crime syndicate controlled the streets of Saigon. Despite interference from these groups, Bảo Đại, and even French officials, Diem managed to subdue the private armies and consolidate government control over
54731-452: Was overthrown, on 3 September 1963, South Vietnamese army (ARVN) also defeated communists in a small battle at Go Cong . Diệm feared the escalation of American military personnel in South Vietnam, which threatened his nationalist credentials and the independence of his government. In 1963, Diệm's government secretly discussed with North Vietnam on the issue of peace and reunification between the two sides and reached an important consensus with
54970-403: Was particularly focused on Vietnam's Catholics, who were to provide Diem's power base in his later years, with the use of slogans such as "God has gone south", while the Viet Minh attempted to prevent the transport in rural areas, and spread rumours of its own considering the threats of moving south, and Task Force 90 in particular. In the end, between 800,000 and 1,000,000 people migrated to
55209-441: Was possible through mere slogans. This started in August when the daily newspaper Thoi Dai started a three-week series that disseminated unsubstantiated and scandalous details about Bảo Đại's life. These were written by editorialist Hong Van, who called Bảo Đại a "dung beetle who sold his country for personal glory". Van claimed Bảo Đại was the illegitimate son of Emperor Khải Định , alleging Khải Định had been infertile and married
55448-405: Was preoccupied with immoral pleasures and unconcerned with the problems of the populace. Vietnam's monarchic tradition was built on Confucianism and the emperor's Mandate of Heaven , and Diem's campaign claimed Bảo Đại had lost this mandate through his debauched lifestyle. According to Joseph Buttinger , who was based in Vietnam as the second in command at the International Rescue Committee ,
55687-430: Was proclaimed on 2 July 1949. The formation of the State of Vietnam on 8 March 1949 made this French colonial war part of the Cold War between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union , culminating in the American recognition of Saigon regime in February 1950 and subsequent aid to the French in the war against the communist Việt Minh. The French government agreed to give the State of Vietnam complete independence with
55926-482: Was recognized by the French and took power in the North. With the American support, a 1955 referendum on the state's future form of government was widely marred by electoral fraud and resulted in the deposal of Bảo Đại by Prime Minister Ngô Đình Diệm , who proclaimed himself president of the new republic on 26 October 1955. South Vietnam also withdrew from the French Union on 9 December 1955. South Vietnam then held parliamentary elections and subsequently promulgated
56165-401: Was renamed Ho Chi Minh City to honor Ho Chi Minh , the Vietnamese communist leader who died 7 years earlier in Hanoi. After reunification, Hanoi abandoned the policy of neutrality in its relations with the Soviet Union and China to choose to be pro-Soviet, leading to escalating tensions in Indochina. The North Vietnam-controlled Việt Cộng was merged with the Vietnamese Fatherland Front of
56404-427: Was reunited. Many South Vietnamese had to leave the country by boat because they could not stand the harsh conditions of Vietnam under the new regimes, especially since September 1978. With the 1988-1991 revolutions leading to the fall of most communist states and a good relationship with the US, Vietnamese communist government became opener when talking about the old regime. With the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975,
56643-592: Was separated from Viet–Muong around the 9th century, and evolved into Middle Vietnamese by 16th century. The sources for the reconstruction of Old Vietnamese are Nom texts, such as the 12th-century/1486 Buddhist scripture Phật thuyết Đại báo phụ mẫu ân trọng kinh ("Sūtra explained by the Buddha on the Great Repayment of the Heavy Debt to Parents"), old inscriptions, and a late 13th-century (possibly 1293) Annan Jishi glossary by Chinese diplomat Chen Fu (c. 1259 – 1309). Old Vietnamese used Chinese characters phonetically where each word, monosyllabic in Modern Vietnamese,
56882-428: Was still weak and not recognized by any country. While the Chinese soldiers occupied northern part of Vietnam, the Việt Minh tried to appease the Chinese soldiers. They even had welcome parades in Hanoi and Haiphong, while reassuring the Vietnamese people that China supported Vietnam's independence. The Chinese occupation forces allowed the Viet Minh's state more influence than the British Army occupation authorities in
57121-436: Was the official name of its predecessor state from 1949 to 1955. The communist North was known as the " Democratic Republic of Vietnam ". Việt Nam ( Vietnamese pronunciation: [vjə̀tnam] ) was the name adopted by Emperor Gia Long in 1804. It is a variation of " Nam Việt " ( 南 越 , Southern Việt ), a name used in ancient times. In 1839, Emperor Minh Mạng renamed the country Đại Nam ("Great South"). In 1945,
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