Chữ Hán

History

After the conquest of Nanyue (Vietnamese: Nam Việt; chữ Hán: 南越), parts of modern-day Northern Vietnam were incorporated into the Jiāozhǐ province (Vietnamese: Giao Chỉ; chữ Hán: 交趾) 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 (Vietnamese: Hán văn; chữ Hán: 漢文). 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 chữ Nho (literally: 'Confucian characters'; 𡨸儒). 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: 南國山河) and Truyền kỳ mạn lục (chữ Hán: 傳奇漫錄) 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 ông đồ. In the poem "Ông đồ", by Vũ Đình Liên, the author talks about the Vietnamese calligraphy practiced during Tết and how it is no longer appreciated.

Education

The preface of Khải đồng thuyết ước (啟童說約; 1853) written by Phạm Phục Trai (范复齋), contains the following passage:

余童年，先君子從俗命之，先讀《三字經》及三皇諸史，次則讀經傳，習時舉業文字，求合場規，取青紫而已。

Dư đồng niên, tiên quân tử tùng tục mệnh chi, tiên độc “Tam tự kinh” cập Tam Hoàng chư sử, thứ tắc độc kinh truyện, tập thì cử nghiệp văn tự, cầu hợp trường quy, thủ thanh tử nhi dĩ.

Tôi hồi tuổi nhỏ nghe các bậc quân tử đời trước theo lệ thường dạy mà dạy bảo, trước hết đọc Tam tự kinh và các sử đời Tam Hoàng, tiếp theo thì đọc kinh truyện, tập lối chữ nghĩa cử nghiệp thời thượng, sao cho hợp trường quy để được làm quan mà thôi.

In my childhood, under the guidance of my elders and conforming to the customs, I first studied the "Three Character Classic" and various histories of the Three Emperors. Afterward, I delved into the classics and their commentaries, honing my skills in calligraphy and writing, aiming to conform to the rules of society and attain a respectable status.

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 (一千字; 'one thousand characters'), Tam thiên tự (三千字; 'three thousand characters'), Ngũ thiên tự (五千字; 'five thousand characters'), and the Three Character Classic (三字經). The primers were often glossed with chữ Nôm. As such with Nhất thiên tự (一千字), 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 (𥘉學問津; 'inquiring in elementary studies'), Ấu học ngũ ngôn thi (幼學五言詩; 'elementary learning of the five-character verses'), Minh tâm bảo giám (明心寶鑑; 'precious lessons of enlightenment'), and Minh Đạo gia huấn (明道家訓; '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 (𥘉學問津), 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 (khoa cử cải lương; 科舉改良) 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 (幼學) (ages 6–12), next was tiểu học (小學) (ages under 27), and then finally, trung học (中學) (ages under 30). Đại học (大學) 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, Hán-văn tân khóa bản (漢文新課本; 1973) and Hán-văn giáo-khoa thư (漢文敎科書; 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 (河內) and Huế (化) 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 (三疊關) being the Sino-Vietnamese name for Đèo Ba Dội.

Practically all surnames in Vietnamese are Sino-Vietnamese words; they were once written in Chinese characters. Such as common surnames include Nguyễn (阮), Trần (陳), Lê (黎), Lý (李), 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 行 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 âm Hán Việt (音漢越; 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.

Non-Sino-Vietnamese readings

Non-Sino-Vietnamese readings (âm phi Hán Việt; 音非漢越) are pronunciations that were not consistently derived from Middle Chinese. Typically these readings came from Old Chinese, Cantonese, and other Chinese dialects.

Nôm readings

Nôm readings (âm Nôm; 音喃) 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 chữ giả tá (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.

Types of characters

Chữ Hán can be classified into the traditional classification for Chinese characters, this is called lục thư (六書, Chinese: liùshū), meaning six types of Chinese characters. The characters are largely based on 214 radicals set by the Kangxi Dictionary.

• Chữ chỉ sự (𡨸指事) – Ideogram; an example would be 上 (thượng, 'above') and 下 (hạ, 'below').
• Chữ tượng hình (𡨸象形) – Pictogram; an example would be 日 (nhật, 'sun') and 木 (mộc, 'tree').
• Chữ hình thanh (𡨸形聲) – Phono-semantic compound; an example would be 銅 (đồng, 'copper, currency') which is made up of semantic 金 [釒] (kim, 'metal') and phonetic 同 (đồng).
• Chữ hội ý (𡨸會意) – Compound ideographs; an example would be 武 (vũ [võ], 'military, martial') which is made up of 戈 (qua, 'dagger-axe') and 止 (chỉ, 'foot, to walk').
• Chữ chuyển chú (𡨸轉注) – Derivative cognates, characters that were derived from other characters with similar meaning; an example would be 老 (lão, 'old'), which is a cognate of 考 (khảo, 'elderly').
• Chữ giả tá (𡨸假借) – Phonetic loan; an example would be 法 (Pháp, 'France') is used for the name of France. Other European countries are also referred by a chữ giả tá like 德 (Đức, 'Germany') and 意 (Ý, 'Italy').

Variants

• Vietnamese variant characters

Some chữ Hán characters were simplified into variants of characters that were easier to write, but they are not the same simplified characters used by current-day Chinese. According to Trịnh Khắc Mạnh, when he analysed the early 13th-century book, 釋氏寶鼎行持秘旨全章 (Thích thị Bảo đỉnh hành trì bí chỉ toàn chương), he found that the number of character variants is double the number of variants borrowed from China. This means that Vietnamese variant characters may differ from Chinese variants and simplified characters, for example:

• The word 羅 la is simplified into 罗 in Chinese, but it is different in Vietnamese, 𱺵 (⿱罒𪜀). Other variants include 𦉼 (⿱罒大) and 𪜀 (⿻十ㄣ).
• Another example would be the character 沒 một which is simplified into 没 in Chinese and was simplified from 沒 to 𱥺 (⿰氵𠬠), then finally, 𠬠 (⿱丷又).
• The word 濫 lạm was simplified into 滥 in Chinese, but was simplified from 濫 to 滥 to 𪵯 (⿰氵𫜵) to 𫜵 (⿴𰀪⺀) in Vietnamese.

Some characters matching Simplified Chinese do exist, but these characters are rare in Vietnamese literature.

There are other variants such as 𭓇 học (variant of 學; ⿳⿰〢⿻丨𰀪冖子) and 𱻊 nghĩa (variant of 義; ⿱𦍌又).

Another prominent example is the character, 𫢋 phật (⿰亻天) which is a common variant of the character 佛 meaning 'Buddha'. It is composed of the radicals 人 nhân [亻] and 天 thiên, all together meaning 'heavenly person'.

Symbols

The character 匕 (chuỷ) or 〻 is often used as an iteration mark to indicate that the current chữ Hán character is to be repeated. This is used in words that use reduplication. For example, in the poem Chinh phụ ngâm khúc (征婦吟曲), the character 悠 (du) is repeated twice in the third line of the poem. It is written as 悠〻 to represent 悠悠 (du du).

The way the marker is used is very similar to how Chinese and Japanese use their iteration marker 々. Japanese uses 々 as an iteration marker, so, for example, 人人 (hitobito) would be written as 人々 (hitobito).