( , ) are the Chinese characters that were used to write Literary Chinese (; ) and Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary in Vietnamese. They were officially used in Vietnam after the Red River Delta region was annexed into the Han dynasty and continued to be used until the early 20th century.
Terminology The main Vietnamese term used for Chinese characters is (). It is made of meaning 'character' and 'Han (referring to the Han dynasty)'. Other synonyms of includes ( , literally 'Confucian characters') and ( ) which was borrowed directly from Chinese.
was first mentioned in 's essay ( ), where it initially described a calligraphic style of writing Chinese characters. Over time, however, the term evolved and broadened in scope, eventually coming to refer to the Chinese script in general. This meaning came from the viewpoint that the script belonged to followers of Confucianism. This is further shown with Neo-Confucianism becoming the state ideology of the Lê dynasty.
Classical Chinese is referred to as ( ) and ( ).
History
After the conquest of Nanyue (; chữ Hán: ), parts of modern-day Northern Vietnam were incorporated into the Jiāozhǐ province (Vietnamese: ; : ) of the Han dynasty. It was during this era, that the Red River Delta was under direct Chinese rule for about a millennium. Around this time, Chinese characters became widespread in northern Vietnam. Government documents, literature, and religious texts such as Buddhist sutras were all written in Literary Chinese (; : ). From independence from China and onward, Literary Chinese still remained as the official language for writing whether if it was government documents or literature. Every succeeding dynasty modeled their imperial exams after China's model. Scholars drew lessons from Neo-Confucianism and used its teachings to implement laws in the country. The spread of Confucianism meant the spread of Chinese characters, thus the name for Chinese characters in Vietnamese is called (literally: 'Confucian characters'; ). Scholars were focused on reading Chinese classics such as the Four Books and Five Classics. While literature in Vietnamese (written with chữ Nôm) was the minority. Literature such as Nam quốc sơn hà (chữ Hán: ) and Truyền kỳ mạn lục (chữ Hán: ) being written with Chinese characters. With every new dynasty with the exception of two dynasties, Literary Chinese and thus Chinese characters remained in common usage. It was not until in the 20th century that Chinese characters alongside chữ Nôm began to fall into disuse. The French Indo-Chinese administration sought to westernise and modernise Vietnam by abolishing the Confucian court examinations. During this time, the French language was used for the administration. The French officials favoured Vietnamese being written in the Vietnamese alphabet. Chinese characters were still being taught in classes (in South Vietnam) up to 1975, but failed to be a part of the new elementary curriculum complied by Ministry of Education and Training after the Vietnam War. While Chinese characters can still be seen adorning temples and old buildings, Chữ Hán is now relegated to obscure or cultural aspects of Vietnamese life. During Vietnamese festivals, calligraphists write couplets with Chinese characters wishing prosperity and longevity. Such calligraphists are called . In the poem "", by , the author talks about the Vietnamese calligraphy practiced during Tết and how it is no longer appreciated.
Education The preface of (; 1853) written by Phạm Phục Trai (), contains the following passage:Children around the age of 6–8 begin learning chữ Hán at schools. Students began by learning characters from books such as Nhất thiên tự (; 'one thousand characters'), Tam thiên tự (; 'three thousand characters'), Ngũ thiên tự (; 'five thousand characters'), and the Three Character Classic (). The primers were often glossed with chữ Nôm. As such with Nhất thiên tự (), it was designed to allow students to make the transition from Vietnamese grammar to Classical Chinese grammar. If students read the Chinese characters only, the words will be in an alternating rhyme of three and four, but if it was read with the chữ Nôm glosses, it would be in the Vietnamese lục bát rhyme. These books gave students a foundation to start learning more difficult texts that involved longer sentences and more difficult grammatical structures in Literary Chinese. Students would study texts such as Sơ học vấn tân (; 'inquiring in elementary studies'), Ấu học ngũ ngôn thi (; 'elementary learning of the five-character verses'), Minh tâm bảo giám (; 'precious lessons of enlightenment'), and Minh Đạo gia huấn (; 'precepts of Minh Đạo'). These books taught the basic sentences necessary to read Literary Chinese and taught core Confucian values and concepts such as filial piety. In Sơ học vấn tân (), it has four character phrases that were divided into three sections, one on Chinese history, then Vietnamese history, and lastly on words of advice on education.
During the period of reformed imperial examinations (; ) that took place from 1906 to 1919, there were three grades of education. Students would start learning Chinese characters beginning from the age of 6. The first grade level was called ấu học () (ages 6–12), next was tiểu học () (ages under 27), and then finally, trung học () (ages under 30). Đại học () at this time referred to students studying in the national academies.
The education reform by North Vietnam in 1950 eliminated the use of chữ Hán and chữ Nôm. Chinese characters were still taught in schools in South Vietnam until 1975. During those times, the textbooks that were used were mainly derived from colonial textbooks. There were two main textbooks, (; 1973) and (; 1965). Students could begin learning Chinese characters in secondary school. The department dealing with Literary Chinese and Chinese characters was called Ban Hán-tự D. Students could either chose to learn a second language such as English and French or choose to learn Literary Chinese. Exams for Literary Chinese mainly tested students on their ability to translate Literary Chinese to Vietnamese. These exams typically took around 2 hours.
Uses Names
In Vietnam, many provinces and cities have names that come from Sino-Vietnamese words and were written using Chinese characters. This was done because historically the government administration needed to have a way to write down these names, as some native names did not have characters. Even well-known places like Hanoi () and Huế () were written in Chinese characters. Often, villages only had one-word names in Vietnamese.
Some Sino-Vietnamese names were translated from their original names, like Tam Điệp Quan () being the Sino-Vietnamese name for Đèo Ba Dội. +Place namesChinese charactersSino-Vietnamese name (tên Chữ)Chữ NômVietnamese name (tên Nôm)Hà NộiKẻ ChợHồng HàSông CáiGia ĐịnhSài GònTản Viên SơnNúi Ba Vì
Practically all surnames in Vietnamese are Sino-Vietnamese words; they were once written in Chinese characters. Such as common surnames include Nguyễn (), Trần (), Lê (), Lý (), etc.
Readings for characters
Owing to historical contact with Chinese characters before the adoption of Chinese characters and how they were adapted into Vietnamese, multiple readings can exist for a single character. While most characters usually have one or two pronunciations, some characters can have up to as many as four pronunciations and more. An example of this would be the character hàng – which could have the readings hàng, hành, hãng, hạng, and hạnh. The readings typically depend on the context and definition of the word. If talking about a store or goods, the reading hàng would be used, but if talking about virtue, the reading hạnh would be used. But typically, knowing what readings was not a large problem due to context and compound words. Most Sino-Vietnamese words are restricted to being in compound words. Readings for chữ Hán, often classified into Sino-Vietnamese readings and Non-Sino-Vietnamese readings. Non-Sino-Vietnamese readings are derived from Old Chinese and recent Chinese borrowings during the 17th–20th centuries when Chinese people migrated to Vietnam. Most of these readings were food related as Cantonese Chinese had introduced their food into Vietnam. Borrowings from Old Chinese are also referred to as Early Sino-Vietnamese pronunciations according to Mark Alves.
Sino-Vietnamese readings
Sino-Vietnamese readings are usually referred to as (; literally "sound Sino-Vietnamese"), which are Vietnamese systematic pronunciations of Middle Chinese characters. These readings were largely borrowed into Vietnamese during the late Tang dynasty (618–907). Vietnamese scholars used Chinese rime dictionaries to derive consistent pronunciations for Chinese characters. After Vietnam had regained independence, its rulers sought to build the country on the Chinese model, during this time, Literary Chinese was used for formal government documents. Around this, the Japanese and Koreans also borrowed large amount of characters into their languages and derived consistent pronunciations, these pronunciations are collectively known as the Sino-Xenic pronunciations.
+Examples of Sino-Vietnamese readingsChinese charactersSino-VietnameseStandard ChineseCantoneseSino-JapaneseSino-Korean 'to prepare'chuẩn bịzhǔnbèizeon2bei6junbijunbi 'telephone'điện thoạidiànhuàdin6waa6-2denwajeonhwa 'four'tứ, tưsìsei3, si3shisa ' people'nhân dânrénmínjan4man4jinmininmin 'place name'địa danhdìmíngdei6meng4-2chimeijimyeong 'language'ngôn ngữyányǔjin4jyu5gengoeoneo 'China'Trung QuốcZhōngguóZung1gwok3ChūgokuJungguk 'Japan'Nhật BảnRìběnJat6bun2NihonIlbon
Non-Sino-Vietnamese readings
Non-Sino-Vietnamese readings (; ) are pronunciations that were not consistently derived from Middle Chinese. Typically these readings came from Old Chinese, Cantonese, and other Chinese dialects.
+Examples of multiple-borrowed Chinese wordsChinese (Old > Middle)Early Sino-VietnameseSino-Vietnamese *mjəts > mjɨjHmùi 'smell, odor'vị 'flavor, taste' *bjəʔ > bjuwXvợ 'wife'phụ 'woman' *pjap > pjopphép 'rule, law' pháp 'rule, law' *kams > kɨɐmHgươm 'sword'kiếm 'sword' *kraŋs > kˠiæŋHgương 'mirror'kính 'glass for windows, etc.; eyeglasses' *rlaː > ɖˠachè 'tea or a dessert soup'trà 'tea' *kʰlja > t͡ɕʰiaxe 'wheeled vehicle'xa 'rare form of xe' *ɡraːʔ > ɦˠaXhè 'summer'hạ '(literary) summer'
Nôm readings Nôm readings (; ) were used when there were characters that were phonetically close to a native Vietnamese word's pronunciation would be used as a chữ Nôm character. Most chữ Hán characters that were used for Vietnamese words were often used for their Sino-Vietnamese pronunciations rather than their meaning which could be completely different from the actual word being used. These characters were called (phonetic loan characters), due to them being borrowed phonetically. This was one reason why it was preferred to create a chữ Nôm character rather than using a chữ Hán character causing confusion between pronunciations. +Chinese character and Standard Chinese pronunciationsSino-Vietnamese pronunciationsSino-Vietnamese meaningNôm pronunciationsNôm meaning 'xiē'ta, tásome; a few; a little; a bittaI, me, we 'zhū'chu, châucinnabar; vermilionchoto give, to let, to put; for 'bié'biệtto divide; to separatebiếtto know 'suì'toáishattered; fragmented; shreddedtôiI, me 'luó'lanet for catching birdslàto be, is 'cháo'tràoto ridicule; to deride; to scorn; to jeer atchàohello, bye
Types of characters Chữ Hán can be classified into the traditional classification for Chinese characters, this is called (, Chinese: ), meaning six types of Chinese characters. The characters are largely based on 214 radicals set by the Kangxi Dictionary.
() – Ideogram; an example would be (, ) and (, ). () – Pictogram; an example would be (, ) and (, ). () – Phono-semantic compound; an example would be (, ) which is made up of semantic [] (, ) and phonetic ().