Writing system
Up to the late 19th century, two writing systems based on Chinese characters were used in Vietnam:
All formal writing, including government business, scholarship and formal literature, was done in Literary Chinese (chữ nho "scholar's characters").
Folk literature in Vietnamese was recorded using the Chữ Nôm script, in which many characters were borrowed and many more modified and invented to represent native Vietnamese words.
A romanization of Vietnamese was codified in the 17th century by the French Jesuit missionary Alexandre de Rhodes (1591–1660), based on works of earlier Portuguese missionaries Gaspar do Amaral and António Barbosa. This Vietnamese alphabet (quốc ngữ or "national script", literally "national language") was gradually expanded from its initial domain in Christian writing to become more popular among the general public.
Under French colonial rule, Vietnamese written with the alphabet became required for all public documents in 1910 by issue of a decree by the French Résident Supérieur of the protectorate of Tonkin. By the middle of the 20th century virtually all writing was done in quốc ngữ. Only a few scholars and some extremely elderly people are able to read chữ nôm today. In China, members of the Jing minority still write in Chữ Nôm.
Changes in the script were made by French scholars and administrators and by conferences held after independence during 1954–1974. The script now reflects a so-called Middle Vietnamese dialect that has vowels and final consonants most similar to northern dialects and initial consonants most similar to southern dialects (Nguyễn 1996). This Middle Vietnamese is presumably close to the Hanoi variety as spoken sometime after 1600 but before the present. (This is not unlike how English orthography is based on the Chancery Standard of late Middle English, with many spellings retained even after significant phonetic change.)
~News courtesy of Wikipedia~
Up to the late 19th century, two writing systems based on Chinese characters were used in Vietnam:
All formal writing, including government business, scholarship and formal literature, was done in Literary Chinese (chữ nho "scholar's characters").
Folk literature in Vietnamese was recorded using the Chữ Nôm script, in which many characters were borrowed and many more modified and invented to represent native Vietnamese words.
A romanization of Vietnamese was codified in the 17th century by the French Jesuit missionary Alexandre de Rhodes (1591–1660), based on works of earlier Portuguese missionaries Gaspar do Amaral and António Barbosa. This Vietnamese alphabet (quốc ngữ or "national script", literally "national language") was gradually expanded from its initial domain in Christian writing to become more popular among the general public.
Under French colonial rule, Vietnamese written with the alphabet became required for all public documents in 1910 by issue of a decree by the French Résident Supérieur of the protectorate of Tonkin. By the middle of the 20th century virtually all writing was done in quốc ngữ. Only a few scholars and some extremely elderly people are able to read chữ nôm today. In China, members of the Jing minority still write in Chữ Nôm.
Changes in the script were made by French scholars and administrators and by conferences held after independence during 1954–1974. The script now reflects a so-called Middle Vietnamese dialect that has vowels and final consonants most similar to northern dialects and initial consonants most similar to southern dialects (Nguyễn 1996). This Middle Vietnamese is presumably close to the Hanoi variety as spoken sometime after 1600 but before the present. (This is not unlike how English orthography is based on the Chancery Standard of late Middle English, with many spellings retained even after significant phonetic change.)
~News courtesy of Wikipedia~
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