According to official figures, 86.2% of the population speak Vietnamese as a native language. In its early history, Vietnamese writing used Chinese characters. In the 13th century, the Vietnamese developed their own set of characters called Chữ nôm. The celebrated epic Đoạn trường tân thanh (Truyện Kiều or The Tale of Kieu) by Nguyễn Du was written in Chữ nôm. During the French colonial period, Quốc ngữ, the romanised Vietnamese alphabet representation of spoken Vietnamese, which was developed in 17th century by Jesuit Alexandre De Rhodes and several other catholic missionaries, became popular and brought literacy to the masses.
Various other languages are spoken by the several minority groups in Vietnam. The most common of these are Tày, Mường, Khmer, Chinese, Nùng, H'Mông. The French language, a legacy of colonial rule, is still spoken by some older Vietnamese as a second language, but is losing its popularity. Russian — and to a much lesser extent Czech or Polish — is sometimes known among those whose families had ties with the Soviet bloc. In recent years, Chinese, Japanese and English have become the most popular foreign languages, with English study being obligatory in most schools.
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam
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