VNI

VNI Software Companyis a developer of various education, entertainment, office, and utilitysoftwarepackages. They are known for developing anencoding(VNI encoding) and a popularinput method(VNI Input) forVietnameseon for computers. VNI is often available on computer systems to type Vietnamese, alongsideTELEXinput method as well. The most common pairing is the use of VNI on keyboard and computers, whilst TELEX is more common on phones or touchscreens.

History

The VNI company is a family-owned company and based inWestminster, California.It was founded in 1987 byHồ Thành Việtto develop software that easesVietnamese languageuse on computers. Among their products were the VNI Encoding and VNIInput Method.The VNI Input Method has since grown to become the top two most popular input methods for Vietnamese, alongside TELEX which is more advantageous for phones and touchscreens whilst VNI has found more use on keyboard computer systems.

VNI vs. Microsoft

In the 1990s,Microsoftrecognized the potential of VNI's products and incorporated VNI Input Method intoWindows 95Vietnamese Edition andMSDN,in use worldwide.

Upon Microsoft's unauthorized use of these technologies, VNI took Microsoft to court over the matter. Microsoft settled the case out of court, withdrew the input method from their entire product line, and developed their own input method. It has, although virtually unknown, appeared in everyWindowsrelease sinceWindows 98.^[1]

Starting withWindows 10 version 1903,the VNI Input Method (as "Vietnamese Number Key-based" ), along with theTelexinput method, are now natively supported.^[2]

Unicode

Despite the growing popularity ofUnicodein computing, theVNI Encoding(seebelow) is still in wide use by Vietnamese speakers both inVietnamand abroad. All professional printing facilities in theLittle Saigonneighborhood ofOrange County, Californiacontinue to use the VNI Encoding when processing Vietnamese text. For this reason,print jobssubmitted using the VNI Character Set are compatible with local printers.

Input methods

VNI invented, popularized, and commercialized an input method and an encoding, theVNI Character Set,to assist computer users entering Vietnamese on their computers. The user can type using onlyASCIIcharacters found on standard computerkeyboard layouts.Because theVietnamese Alpha betuses a complex system ofdiacriticsfor tones and other letters of the Vietnamese Alpha bet, the keyboard would need 133 Alpha numeric keys and aShift keyto cover all possible characters.^[3]

VNI Input Method

Originally, VNI's input method utilizedfunction keys(F1, F2,...) to enter the tone marks, which later turned out to be problematic, as the operating system used those keys for other purposes. VNI then turned to the numerical keys along the top of the keyboard (as opposed to thenumpad) for entering tone marks. This arrangement survives today, but users also have the option of customizing the keys used for tone marks.

*Bảng dấu VNI*:atoolbarallowing one-click access to Vietnamese diacritical marks

With VNI Tan Ky mode on, the user can type in diacritical marks anywhere within a word, and the marks will appear at their proper locations. For example, the wordtrường,which means 'school', can be typed in the following ways:

truong-7-2→trường(most conventional way)
72truong→trường
t72ruong→trường
tr72uong→trường
tru7o72ng→trường
truo72ng→trường
truo7ng2→trường

The first way is the conventional method, following handwriting and spelling convention, where the base is written first (truong) and then the tonal marks added later one by one.

VNI Tan Ky

With the release of VNI Tan Ky 4 in the 1990s, VNI freed users from having to remember where to correctly insert tone marks within a word, because, as long as the user enters all the required characters and tone marks, the software will group them correctly. This feature is especially useful for newcomers to the language.

VNI Auto Accent

VNI Auto Accent is the company's most recent software release (2006), with the purpose of alleviatingrepetitive strain injury(RSI) caused by prolonged use ofcomputer keyboards.Auto Accent helps reduce the number of keystrokes needed to type each word by automatically adding diacritical marks for the user. The user must still enter every base letter in the word.

Character encodings

VNI Encoding (Windows/Unix)

The VNI Encoding uses up to two bytes to represent oneVietnamese vowelcharacter, with the second byte supplying additionaldiacritical marks,therefore removing the need to replace control characters with Vietnamese characters, a problematic system found in TCVN1 (VSCII-1) and inVISCII,or using two differentfontssuch as is sometimes employed for TCVN3 (VSCII-3), one containing lowercase characters and the other uppercase characters. A similar approach is taken byWindows-1258and VSCII-2.

This solution is moreportablebetween different versions of Windows and between differentplatforms.However, due to the presence of multiple characters in a file to represent one written character increases the file size. The increased file size can usually be accounted for bycompressingthe data into a file format such asZIP.

The VNI encoding was used extensively in the south of Vietnam, and sometimes used overseas, whileTCVN 5712was dominant in the north.^[4]

Points0x00 through 0x7F followASCII.

VNI "ANSI" Encoding (Windows/Unix)^[5]^[6]
	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	A	B	C	D	E	F
8x
9x
Ax
Bx
Cx	◌̂̀	◌̂́	◌̂ 0302	◌̂̃	◌̣̂	◌̂̉	Ỉ 1EC8		◌̆̀	◌̆́	◌̆ 0306	◌̣̆	Ì	Í	Ỵ 1EF4	◌̣ 0323
Dx		Đ 0110	Ị 1ECA	Ĩ 0128	Ơ 01A0	◌̃ 0303	Ư 01AF		◌̀ 0300	◌́ 0301	◌̆̉	◌̉ 0309	◌̆̃
Ex	◌̂̀	◌̂́	◌̂ 0302	◌̂̃	◌̣̂	◌̂̉	ỉ 1EC9		◌̆̀	◌̆́	◌̆ 0306	◌̣̆	ì	í	ỵ 1EF5	◌̣ 0323
Fx		đ 0111	ị 1ECB	ĩ 0129	ơ 01A1	◌̃ 0303	ư 01B0		◌̀ 0300	◌́ 0301	◌̆̉	◌̉ 0309	◌̆̃

Combining marks for upper-case letters, others are for lower-case

VNI Encoding for Macintosh

A version intended for use on Macintosh systems, with a different arrangement (corresponding to the different arrangement betweenWindows-1252andMac OS Roman).

VNI "Mac" Encoding (Macintosh)^[6]
	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	A	B	C	D	E	F
8x	◌̣̂	◌̂̉		◌̆́	Đ 0110	Ư 01AF	◌̆̃	◌̂́	◌̂̀	◌̂ 0302	◌̣̂	◌̂̃	◌̂̉		◌̆́	◌̆̀
9x	◌̆ 0306	◌̣̆	í 00ED	ì 00EC	ỵ 1EF5	◌̣ 0323	đ 0111	ĩ 0129	ị 1ECB	ơ 01A1	ư 01B0	◌̃ 0303	◌̆̉	◌́ 0301	◌̉ 0309	◌̆̃
Ax															Ỉ 1EC8	◌̀ 0300
Bx															ỉ 1EC9	◌̀ 0300
Cx												◌̂̀	◌̂̃	◌̃ 0303
Dx
Ex						◌̂ 0302	◌̆ 0306	◌̂́	◌̣̆	◌̆̀	Í 00CD	Ỵ 1EF4	◌̣ 0323	Ì 00CC	Ĩ 0128	Ơ 01A0
Fx		Ị 1ECA	◌̆̉	◌̉ 0309	◌́ 0301

Diacritic characters used for uppercase vowels (others are for lowercase vowels)

VNI Encoding for DOS

The VNI encoding for use on DOS does not use separate characters for diacritics, instead replacing certain ASCII punctuation characters with tone-marked uppercase letters (compareISO 646).

VNI "ASCII" Encoding (DOS)^[6]
	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	A	B	C	D	E	F
0x	NUL	SOH	STX	ETX	EOT	ENQ	ACK	BEL	BS	HT	LF	VT	FF	CR	SO	SI
1x	DLE	DC1	DC2	DC3	DC4	NAK	SYN	ETB	CAN	EM	SUB	ESC	FS	GS	RS	US
2x	SP	!	"	#	$	%	&	'	(	)	*	+	,	-	.	/
3x	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	:	;	<	=	>	?
4x	Ỵ 1EF4	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	M	N	O
5x	P	Q	R	S	T	U	V	W	X	Y	Z	[	\	]	Á 00C1	_
6x	À 00C0	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h	i	j	k	l	m	n	o
7x	p	q	r	s	t	u	v	w	x	y	z	Ặ 1EB6	Ả 1EA2	Ã 00C3	Ạ 1EA0	DEL
8x	Ấ 1EA4	ẻ 1EBB	é 00E9	â 00E2	ẽ 1EBD	à 00E0	ẹ 1EB9	Ầ 1EA6	ê 00EA	ế 1EBF	è 00E8	ề 1EC1	Ẩ 1EA8	ì 00EC	ể 1EC3	ễ 1EC5
9x	Ẫ 1EAA	ỏ 1ECF	õ 00F5	ô 00F4	ọ 1ECD	ò 00F2	ố 1ED1	ù 00F9	ồ 1ED3	ổ 1ED5	ỗ 1ED7	ộ 1ED9	ủ 1EE7	ũ 0169	ụ 1EE5	ư 01B0
Ax	á 00E1	í 00ED	ó 00F3	ú 00FA	ứ 1EE9	ừ 1EEB	ử 1EED	ữ 1EEF	ự 1EF1	ỉ 1EC9	ĩ 0129	ị 1ECB	ệ 1EC7	đ 0111	Đ 0110	Ậ 1EAC
Bx	Ắ 1EAE	Ằ 1EB0	Ẳ 1EB2	Ẵ 1EB4	É 00C9	È 00C8	Ẻ 1EBA	Ẽ 1EBC	Ẹ 1EB8	Ế 1EBE	Ề 1EC0	Ể 1EC2	Ễ 1EC4	Ệ 1EC6	Í 00CD	Ì 00CC
Cx	Ỉ 1EC8	Ĩ 0128	Ị 1ECA	Ó 00D3	Ò 00D2	Ỏ 1ECE	Õ 00D5	Ọ 1ECC	Ố 1ED0	Ồ 1ED2	Ổ 1ED4	Ỗ 1ED6	Ộ 1ED8	Ớ 1EDA	Ờ 1EDC	Ở 1EDE
Dx	Ỡ 1EE0	Ợ 1EE2	Ú 00DA	Ù 00D9	Ủ 1EE6	Ũ 0168	Ụ 1EE4	Ứ 1EE8	Ừ 1EEA	Ử 1EEC	Ữ 1EEE	Ự 1EF0	Ý 00DD	Ỳ 1EF2	Ỷ 1EF6	Ỹ 1EF8
Ex	ả 1EA3	ã 00E3	ạ 1EA1	ấ 1EA5	ầ 1EA7	ẩ 1EA9	ẫ 1EAB	ậ 1EAD	ă 0103	ắ 1EAF	ằ 1EB1	ẳ 1EB3	ẵ 1EB5	ặ 1EB7	ý 00FD	ỳ 1EF3
Fx	ỷ 1EF7	ỹ 1EF9	ỵ 1EF5	ơ 01A1	ớ 1EDB	ờ 1EDD	ở 1EDF	ỡ 1EE1	ợ 1EE3	Ô 00D4	Ơ 01A0	Ư 01AF	Ă 0102	Â 00C2	Ê 00CA	NBSP

Differences fromASCII

VIQR and VNI-Internet Mail

The use ofVietnamese Quoted-Readable(VIQR), a convention for writing in Vietnamese using ASCII characters, began during theVietnam War,whentypewriterswere the main tool forword processing.Because theU.S. militaryrequired a way to represent Vietnamese scripts accurately on official documents, VIQR was invented for the military.^{[citation needed]}Due to its longstanding use, VIQR was a natural choice for computer word processing, prior to the appearance of VNI,VPSKeys,VSCII,VISCII,and Unicode. It is still widely used^[when?]for information exchange on computers, but is not desirable for design and layout, due to its cryptic appearance.

VIQR's main issue was the difficulty of reading VIQR text, especially for inexperienced computer users. VNI created and released a free font calledVNI-Internet Mail,which utilized a variant of the VIQR notation and VNI'scombining charactertechnique to give VIQR text a more natural appearance by replacing certain ASCII punctuation with combining characters.

The following table compares VNI-Internet Mail to other codified VIQR or VIQR-like conventions.

Diacritical mark	RFC 1456 VIQR notation^[7]	VSCII-MNEM notation^[8]	VNI Internet Mail notation^[6]	Example
Breve	`(`	`<`	`\|`	`A\|`displayed as Ă
Circumflex	`^`	`>`	`^`	`E^`displayed as Ê
Horn	`+`	`*`	`*`	`U*`displayed as Ư
Acute	`'`	`'`	`'`	`O'`displayed as Ó
Grave	`	`!`	`	O`displayed as Ò
Hook above	`?`	`?`	`{`	`O{`displayed as Ỏ
Tilde	`~`	`"`	`~`	`O~`displayed as Õ
Dot below	`.`	`.`	`}`	`O}`displayed as Ọ
Barred D	`DD`	`DD`	`D_`	`D_`displayed as Đ

References

^"Typing Vietnamese, Part 2: The Vietnamese Diaspora, Unicode and the Ubiquity of Unikey | Saigoneer".saigoneer.Retrieved2021-04-14.
^"Hãy thử gõ tiếng Việt với bộ gõ Telex và Number-key based mới nào!".2018-10-25.
^"Typing Vietnamese, Part 2: The Vietnamese Diaspora, Unicode and the Ubiquity of Unikey | Saigoneer".saigoneer.Retrieved2021-04-14.
^Ngo, Hoc Dinh; Tran, TuBinh."5. Why Having Vietnamese Charset (Character Set – Encoding) Conversion?".Some special functions of WinVNKey.
^"Unicode & Vietnamese Legacy Character Encodings".Vietnamese Unicode FAQs.
^^a ^b ^c ^d"VNI Character Sets".Vietnamese Unicode FAQs.
^Vietnamese Standardization Working Group (1993)."RFC 1456: Conventions for Encoding the Vietnamese Language".IETF.doi:10.17487/RFC1456.{{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal=(help)
^Lunde, Ken(2009).CJKV Information Processing(2nd ed.).O'Reilly Media.pp. 47–49.ISBN 978-0-596-51447-1.

External links

VNI products

[1] "Typing Vietnamese, Part 2: The Vietnamese Diaspora, Unicode and the Ubiquity of Unikey | Saigoneer".saigoneer.Retrieved2021-04-14.

[2] "Hãy thử gõ tiếng Việt với bộ gõ Telex và Number-key based mới nào!".2018-10-25.

[3] "Typing Vietnamese, Part 2: The Vietnamese Diaspora, Unicode and the Ubiquity of Unikey | Saigoneer".saigoneer.Retrieved2021-04-14.

[wvnk-4] Ngo, Hoc Dinh; Tran, TuBinh."5. Why Having Vietnamese Charset (Character Set – Encoding) Conversion?".Some special functions of WinVNKey.

[vufaq-5] "Unicode & Vietnamese Legacy Character Encodings".Vietnamese Unicode FAQs.

[vufaqvni-6] "VNI Character Sets".Vietnamese Unicode FAQs.

[7] Vietnamese Standardization Working Group (1993)."RFC 1456: Conventions for Encoding the Vietnamese Language".IETF.doi:10.17487/RFC1456.{{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal=(help)

[Lunde-8] Lunde, Ken(2009).CJKV Information Processing(2nd ed.).O'Reilly Media.pp. 47–49.ISBN 978-0-596-51447-1.

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