Vietnamese teencode, decoded

Teencode grew up with SMS and Yahoo! Messenger in the 2000s. Texts had to be short, many phones made tone marks a pain to type, and teenagers liked a code their parents couldn't read. The result could be close to unreadable: pé iu for bé yêu (baby), wá for quá, and capitals scattered for looks, as in aNh nHớ eM.

Today's teencode is lighter. The heavy, decorative style looks dated now and mostly appears as a joke. What's left is practical: a set of abbreviations almost everyone uses, from students to their parents, plus a few cute spellings for flirting and fun.

These cover most everyday messages. Most are the first letters of each syllable (nt for nhắn tin) or a sound-alike letter (z for vậy). Start with the first ten: they turn up in almost every chat.

Vietnamese pronouns shrink to a letter or two in texts, but the rules don't change. M (mày) is still only for best friends, and you still write a or c to someone older. Here they are in real-style messages.

This is the playful part. Letters get swapped because it's quicker, looks cuter or matches how people speak: in the South vui sounds closer to dui, hence dzui.

The patterns are simple. Qu becomes w, ph becomes f, v or gi become z or dz, and vowels shrink: biết to bít, nhiều to nhìu, thôi to thui. The effect is cute and casual, a bit like sooo or luv in English. It's common between friends and in flirty chats (more in the dating phrasebook), and rare at work.

Vietnamese laughter in text has its own grammar. =)) is the classic: a face with a huge grin, and the more brackets, the harder the laugh (=)))))). :)) is similar, a touch softer. Many young people read a lone :) as cold or sarcastic, so add a bracket if you mean it.

:v is a cheeky, trolling face: Facebook chat once turned it into Pac-Man, and the meaning stuck. :3 is cute and pouty, ^^ is happy eyes, -_- is unimpressed and <3 is love. In words, haha is a laugh, hihi a shy giggle, hehe a cheeky one.

Social media English has moved in for good, usually shortened. You'll see these on Facebook shop pages, in Zalo groups and under every post. Selling and buying online has its own mini-language built on them: ib for the price, ad ơi to get the seller's attention.

Not every short text is teencode. Plenty of Vietnamese type không dấu, without tone marks, when rushing or on a keyboard without Vietnamese input. Dang lam gi do? is still easy to read as Đang làm gì đó?

Context usually saves the day, but not always: ban could be bạn (friend), bán (to sell), bàn (table) or bận (busy). If you're learning, type with the marks. Add a Vietnamese keyboard to your phone and use Telex, where letters add the marks: aa for â, dd for đ, s for the rising tone.

You'll also see crude abbreviations everywhere: vl and vcl as intensifiers (đẹp vl = damn gorgeous) and đm as an all-purpose curse. They hide swear words as strong as the f-word or worse, so recognise them but leave them out of messages to colleagues or anyone's parents. The Texting phrasebook explains each one, with its full form.