Hán tự (漢字, meaning "Chinese character") or chữ Nho (字儒, literally "script of Confucian scholars") is the Vietnamese term for Chinese characters, which was used to write classical Chinese, in contrast to chữ Nôm, which was used to write the Vietnamese language. In imperial Vietnam, formal writings were, in most cases, done in classical Chinese, while Vietnamese was only used for recording literature. These writings are indistinguishable from those classical Chinese works produced in China, Korea, or Japan. The readings of Hán tự, like Kanji and Hanja, reflect that of Middle Chinese, and provide valuable data for the study of historical Chinese phonology. The use of classical Chinese, and its written form, Hán tự, died out in Vietnam during the 20th century, after the French colonization and Vietnam’s own independence. A system of modified and invented characters modeled loosely on Chinese characters called chữ Nôm, which, unlike the system of Hán tự, allowed for the expression of purely Vietnamese words, was created in Vietnam at least as early as the 13th century. While designed for native Vietnamese speakers, it required the user to already know Chinese characters, and thus Chữ Nôm was used primarily for literary writings by cultural elites (such as the poetry of Nguyễn Du and Hồ Xuân Hương), while all other official writings and documents continued to be written in Hán tự until the 20th century.
External links
- 漢字 Hán tự: A Vietnamese-Chinese wordlist
- Từ điển Hán Việt Thiều Chửu (漢越辭典)
- Hán Việt chú thích, Chinese-to-Vietnamese transliteration
