The national language of the country is Vietnamese, a tonal Austroasiatic language (Mon–Khmer), which is spoken by the majority of the population. In its early history, Vietnamese writing used Chinese characters (''chữ Hán'') before a different meaning set of Chinese characters known as ''chữ Nôm'' developed between the 7th–13th century. The folk epic  (''The Tale of Kieu'', originally known as ) by Nguyễn Du was written in ''chữ Nôm''. ''Chữ Quốc ngữ'', the Romanised Vietnamese alphabet, was developed in the 17th century by Jesuit missionaries such as Francisco de Pina and Alexandre de Rhodes by using the alphabets of the Romance languages, particularly the Portuguese alphabet, which later became widely used through Vietnamese institutions during the French colonial period.