Vietnamese is a language spoken prinarily in Vietnam and is one of the major languages of Southeast Asia, along with Thai and Cantonese. The primary influence on the Vietnamese language has almost certainly been Cantonese. Many people have historically moved back and forth between Vietnam and Southeastern China, and the cultural and linguistic influences are apparent.

The ancient Champa kingdom was also heavily influenced by frequent military encounters with the Khmer people of modern-day Thailand and Cambodia. The mekong delta area along with present-day Ho Chi Minh City are areas that still retain evidence of those repeated encursions.

With the rise of Chinese political dominance in the second century BCE came assimilation of Chinese vocabulary and grammatical influence. Chinese was the lingua franca of literature and government, and became the primary language of the ruling class in Vietnam. Today much of the Vietnamese lexicon still consists of Hán Việt (Sino-Vietnamese) words. Then as Vietnamese language grew in prestige toward the beginning of the second millennium, the Vietnamese language was written using Chinese characters, Chữ Nôm, adapted to write Vietnamese, in a similar pattern as used in Japan (kanji), Korea (hanja) and Asian countries.

As contact with the West grew, the Quốc Ngữ system of westernized writing was developed in the 17th century by Portuguese and other Europeans involved in proselytizing and commercial trade in Vietnam. France then invaded Vietnam in the late 19th century, and replaced Chinese as the official language of literature and government. Vietnamese adopted many French terms, such as đầm from dame, and búp bê (doll) from poupée.