and Thái. Language Vietnamese is the official language of the country. It belongs to the Austroasiatic language family, which also includes languages such as Khmer and Mon. Vietnamese was spoken by 85-90 million people in Vietnam at the 1999 census. In the early 21st century, around another four million Vietnamese speakers are found outside of Vietnam, mostly refugees from the Vietnam-American War. Thus Vietnamese is the most spoken language of the Austroasiatic family, being spoken by three times more people than the second most spoken language of the family, Khmer. Both languages, however, are extremely different: Vietnamese is a tonal, monosyllabic language while Khmer has remained non-tonal. Vietnamese was heavily influenced by Chinese, with up to around 50-70% words having Chinese origins, whilst Khmer was heavily influenced by Sanskrit and Pali, uses a abugida writing system, and has a great part of its vocabulary originating from Indian languages. Since the early 20th century, the Vietnamese have used a Romanized script introduced by the French, developed by Jesuit missionaries led by Alexandre de Rhodes and later on, refined by Vietnamese scholars to produce what is now known as the Vietnamese alphabet. Religions According to the 2019 Census, the religious demographics of Vietnam are as follows: 86.32% Vietnamese folk religion or non religious 6.1% Catholicism 4.79% Buddhism (mainly Mahayana) 1.02% Hoahaoism 1% Protestantism <1% Caodaism 0.77 Others It is worth noting here that the data is highly skewered, as a large majority of Vietnamese may declare themselves atheist yet practice forms of traditional folk religion or Mahayana Buddhism. Estimates for the year 2010 published by the Pew Research Center: Vietnamese folk religion, 45.3% Unaffiliated, 29.6% Buddhism, 16.4% Christianity, 8.2% Other, 0.5% CIA World Factbook demographic statistics The following demographic statistics are from the CIA World Factbook, unless otherwise indicated. Sex ratio at birth: 1.07 male(s)/female under 15 years: 1.08 male(s)/female 15–64 years: 0.98 male(s)/female 65 years and over: 0.63 male(s)/female total population: 0.98 male(s)/female (2008 est.) Source: Statista etc. Life expectancy Source: UN World Population Prospects Literacy definition: age 15 and over can read and write total population: 95.6% (2014 census); 95.8% (2019 census) male: 96.9% (no records); 97% (2019 census) female: 91.9% (2012); 94.6% (2019 census) Source: The Worldbank Database etc. See also Racism in Vietnam List of ethnic groups in Vietnam Overseas Vietnamese Sources 2006 Vietnam's population estimates 1999 Census results Socioeconomic Atlas of Vietnam References