Changes

# Vietnamese diacritics are "distracting," according to the style guide of ''National Geographic''.<ref>''[http://stylemanual.ngs.org/home/A/accent-marks National Geographic Style Manual]''. "Although Vietnamese is written in the Latin alphabet, the number of accent marks can be distracting and may therefore be omitted."</ref> This is a publication with a great deal of experience with many different kinds of diacritics. Style should be as unremarkable as possible so that readers can focus on content.

# Vietnamese diacritics are "distracting," according to the style guide of ''National Geographic''.<ref>''[http://stylemanual.ngs.org/home/A/accent-marks National Geographic Style Manual]''. "Although Vietnamese is written in the Latin alphabet, the number of accent marks can be distracting and may therefore be omitted."</ref> This is a publication with a great deal of experience with many different kinds of diacritics. Style should be as unremarkable as possible so that readers can focus on content.

# ''The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia'' (1993), the top specialist work on Vietnamese history, drops the diacritics.

# ''The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia'' (1993), the top specialist work on Vietnamese history, drops the diacritics.

# Publishers in the English-speaking may drop Vietnamese diacritics because they fear copy editors will screw them up, but this is obviously not an issue for a publisher based in Vietnam itself. In fact, Vietnam has several English-language news sites that are professionally edited, including [http://english.vov.vn/ Voice of Vietnam]. But you won't find diacritics on those sites either.<ref>The major news sites are aggregated by [http://en.baomoi.com/ Bao Moi]. You look up a name on this site and get an overview of how the Vietnamese press handles this issue.</ref> They model conventional language use for the benefit of Vietnamese who are learning English, so they have no interest in promoting Viet-lish.

# Publishers in the English-speaking world may drop Vietnamese diacritics because they fear copy editors will screw them up. But this is obviously not an issue for a publisher based in Vietnam itself. In fact, Vietnam has several English-language news sites that are professionally edited, including [http://english.vov.vn/ Voice of Vietnam]. But you won't find diacritics on those sites either.<ref>The major news sites are aggregated by [http://en.baomoi.com/ Bao Moi]. You look up a name on this site and get an overview of how the Vietnamese press handles this issue.</ref> They model conventional language use for the benefit of Vietnamese who are learning English, so they have no interest in promoting Viet-lish.

# Who does put Vietnamese diacritics in English-language material? Besides Wikipedia,<ref>Vietnam-related titles were moved to diacritic forms ''en masse'' soon after I was banned.</ref> there's Thế Giới Publishers in Hanoi. Much of the material this company puts out is old-style war propaganda. Tourists can buy it and show the goofy language and lettering to their friends back home. The print edition of ''Viet Nam News'' also uses diacritics. This newspaper is a Cold War dinosaur that disappeared from newsstands years ago.<ref>They still hand out copies of ''Viet Nam News'' to passengers who request it on Vietnam Air. Otherwise, the print edition doesn't have any circulation worth mentioning. The [http://vietnamnews.vn/ web edition of VNN] is the top English-language site in Vietnam and a very different publication. It is diacritics free and far less propaganda-oriented than the print edition.</ref> In "patriotic-language" publications of this type, Vietnam is "Việt Nam," Hanoi is "Hà Nội," and mainstream English has been left far behind.

# Who does put Vietnamese diacritics in English-language material? Besides Wikipedia,<ref>Vietnam-related titles were moved to diacritic forms ''en masse'' soon after I was banned.</ref> there's Thế Giới Publishers in Hanoi. Much of the material this company puts out is old-style war propaganda. Tourists can buy it and show the goofy language and lettering to their friends back home. The print edition of ''Viet Nam News'' also uses diacritics. This newspaper is a Cold War dinosaur that disappeared from newsstands years ago.<ref>They still hand out copies of ''Viet Nam News'' to passengers who request it on Vietnam Air. Otherwise, the print edition doesn't have any circulation worth mentioning. The [http://vietnamnews.vn/ web edition of VNN] is the top English-language site in Vietnam and a very different publication. It is diacritics free and far less propaganda-oriented than the print edition.</ref> In "patriotic-language" publications of this type, Vietnam is "Việt Nam," Hanoi is "Hà Nội," and mainstream English has been left far behind.