Viet Syllable Keyboard

－EARLY PRACTICE



－COLLECTIVE WORK



－SELECTED WORKS



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Bàn phím tiếng Việt

Artwork & software by Nhan Phan
Research by Yui Nguyen
Hardware by Quang Anh Nguyen

https://vietkeyboard.vercel.app/

The recent physical version.

A digital version is available at vietkeyboard.vercel.app



Typing is a key interaction between us and computer. Typing is a way of using language. Users forming the words in the mind and put them into life by physically pressing on keys. Typing reflects how we use language to rationale and navigate in digital era.

Early 2024, CodeSurfing hosted a research called "Our Vietnamese Project". From the research, we built a dataset of all the mono-syllables of Vietnamese, extracted from "Từ điển tiếng Việt" (Vietnamese dictionary) by Prof. Hoàng Phê. From 30.000 Vietnamese words appear in the dictionary, we created a dataset of roughly 6,000 mono-syllables. While analyzing that monosyllabic dataset, we recognized a structure of Vietnamese. Despite the alphabetic outerwear, the Vietnamese body is actually constructed by:

consonant + vowel + consonant

The current use of alphabetic keyboard (QWERTY) erases that structure and forces Vietnamese to become a character-based language, instead of a component-based language. Each part of a Vietnamese syllable carries certain pronunciation and certain feeling. For example: “phập” starts with “ph” that force us to breath out briefly, “ậ” carries the air back in to fill the mouth, then “p” force the lips and teeth to close abruptly. All of them together to create “phập”, which means a quick and exact bite. Think vampire. The QWERTY keyboard erases that syllabic functionality. And worse, with rules and automation, users are not allowed to form words that are possible to form and pronounce in Vietnamese but not yet appear in the dictionary. There are more than new 70,000 syllables like that, compared to 6,000 official syllables. This proves the abundance and flexibility of our language and suggest endless potential for the growth of Vietnamese.



1st digital prototype (07/2024)

Keyboard display with its research poster at 3nam Studio (09/2024)

Installation view at FutureTense Award Hong Kong (08/2025)

Nhân Phan ␥



In search of another technological future, Nhân Phan looks toward a vision deeply bound to humanity: technology invented by and for the powerless, carrying hopes and dreams, making space for personal feelings, and giving form to what once seemed impossible. His practice reclaims this sense of possibility: imagining technology as it once promised to be, before commercial interests and large-scale systems of control narrowed what it could mean.

Questions of love, desire, digital identity, and poetic computation recur across his work in software, data, installation, film, language, and pedagogical experiments. Nhân emerged from Saigon's DIY tech community and founded CodeSurfing, an art-tech collective in Vietnam. He holds a BS in Computer Science from Goldsmiths, University of London, and has been both a fellow and mentor of the Processing Foundation Fellowship. He is currently an MFA candidate at UCLA Design | Media Arts.


CONTACT

You can reach me via my email. My teaching and programs are public via CodeSurfing (IG and Web).