[{"@context":"http:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BlogPosting","@id":"https:\/\/wiki.edu.vn\/en\/wiki12\/literary-chinese-in-vietnam-wikipedia\/#BlogPosting","mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/wiki.edu.vn\/en\/wiki12\/literary-chinese-in-vietnam-wikipedia\/","headline":"Literary Chinese in Vietnam – Wikipedia","name":"Literary Chinese in Vietnam – Wikipedia","description":"Classical Chinese as written in Vietnam Literary Chinese (Vietnamese: V\u0103n ng\u00f4n \u6587\u8a00, C\u1ed5 v\u0103n \u53e4\u6587 or H\u00e1n v\u0103n \u6f22\u6587[1]) was","datePublished":"2022-12-28","dateModified":"2022-12-28","author":{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/wiki.edu.vn\/en\/wiki12\/author\/lordneo\/#Person","name":"lordneo","url":"https:\/\/wiki.edu.vn\/en\/wiki12\/author\/lordneo\/","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c9645c498c9701c88b89b8537773dd7c?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c9645c498c9701c88b89b8537773dd7c?s=96&d=mm&r=g","height":96,"width":96}},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Enzyklop\u00e4die","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/wiki.edu.vn\/wiki4\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/download.jpg","url":"https:\/\/wiki.edu.vn\/wiki4\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/download.jpg","width":600,"height":60}},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/a\/a4\/%E5%B6%BA%E5%8D%97%E6%91%AD%E6%80%AA%E5%88%97%E5%82%B3.jpg\/220px-%E5%B6%BA%E5%8D%97%E6%91%AD%E6%80%AA%E5%88%97%E5%82%B3.jpg","url":"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/a\/a4\/%E5%B6%BA%E5%8D%97%E6%91%AD%E6%80%AA%E5%88%97%E5%82%B3.jpg\/220px-%E5%B6%BA%E5%8D%97%E6%91%AD%E6%80%AA%E5%88%97%E5%82%B3.jpg","height":"198","width":"220"},"url":"https:\/\/wiki.edu.vn\/en\/wiki12\/literary-chinese-in-vietnam-wikipedia\/","wordCount":3676,"articleBody":"Classical Chinese as written in Vietnam    Literary Chinese (Vietnamese: V\u0103n ng\u00f4n \u6587\u8a00, C\u1ed5 v\u0103n \u53e4\u6587 or H\u00e1n v\u0103n \u6f22\u6587[1]) was the medium of all formal writing in Vietnam for almost all of the history of the country up to the early 20th century, when it was replaced by vernacular writing in Vietnamese using the Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet.The language was the same as that used in China, as well as in Korea and in Japan, and used the same standard Chinese characters. It was used for official business, historical annals, fiction, verse, scholarship and even for declarations of Vietnamese determination to resist Chinese invaders.Table of Contents  Literary Chinese[edit]History[edit]References[edit]Cited books and articles[edit]Literary Chinese[edit]Literary Chinese was a style of writing modelled on the classics of Warring States period and Han dynasty, such as the Mencius, the Commentary of Zuo and Sima Qian’s Historical Records.It remained largely static while the various varieties of Chinese evolved and diverged to the point of mutual unintelligibility.The language was also used for formal writing in Vietnam, Korea and Japan, enabling scholars from these countries, as well as China, to communicate in writing, in a role similar to that of Latin in Europe.Literary Chinese as written in Vietnam used the same characters and outward form as in China.Although Literary Chinese was used only for written communication, each Chinese character could be read aloud in a Vietnamese approximation of the Middle Chinese pronunciation.For example, the term for Chinese characters, \u6f22\u5b57 (H\u00e0nz\u00ec in Modern Standard Chinese) has a Sino-Vietnamese reading of H\u00e1n t\u1ef1.With these pronunciations, Chinese words were imported wholesale into the Vietnamese language.The resulting Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary makes up over half of the Vietnamese lexicon.The Vietnamese terms for writing in Chinese are ch\u1eef vi\u1ebft H\u00e1n (‘Chinese writing’) or ch\u1eef vi\u1ebft Nho (‘Confucian writing’) in contrast to ch\u1eef vi\u1ebft N\u00f4m (‘Southern writing’), which was written in ch\u1eef N\u00f4m, a script for the Vietnamese language. The N\u00f4m script, using a mixture of Chinese characters and locally created characters, became the vehicle for a flourishing vernacular literature, peaking in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. However Literary Chinese remained the medium of scholarship and administration for almost all of the period up to the early 20th century.History[edit]    An 1814 printing of the preserved compliance note entitled “\u0110\u1ed7i tr\u1ef1c ng\u00f4n c\u1ef1c gi\u00e1n” written by Jiang Gongfu in 758.  X\u00e1 L\u1ee3i Buddhist temple stele erected in 601 CE.  The northern part of Vietnam (down to about the 17th parallel) was incorporated into the Han empire in 111 BC, beginning a millennium of Chinese rule, interrupted only by two short-lived revolts.At first the empire sought to rule their new possession indirectly through the Vietnamese nobility, but after an influx of refugees fleeing the takeover of Wang Mang (9\u201323 AD), policy shifted to assimilation, contributing to the revolt of the Trung sisters (39\u201343).After the suppression of the revolt, Chinese authorities stepped up assimilation, destroying the estates of Vietnamese nobles, but also opening Chinese education to the Vietnamese.A few rose through the civil service to senior positions in the province and elsewhere in the empire. As in any other part of the empire, the administrative language of Vietnam was Chinese.After the country achieved independence in 938, it continued to use Literary Chinese.At first Buddhist monks dominated government and scholarship in the country.The next extant writings by Vietnamese authors are poems from the late 10th century, in Chinese, by the Buddhist monks Lac Thuan and Khu\u00f4ng Vi\u1ec7t.After three short-lived dynasties, the Ly dynasty (1009\u20131225) was established with the support of Buddhist clergy.When the first king moved the capital to Hanoi in the following year, he issued the 110-character Edict on the Transfer of the Capital.Confucian influence grew over the course of the dynasty, with a Confucian Temple of Literature being erected in the capital in 1070.Civil service examinations on the Chinese model began in 1075, and in the following year a college was established for training sons of the ruling elite in the Confucian classics.When the Chinese Song empire invaded the country in 1076, the general L\u00fd Th\u01b0\u1eddng Ki\u1ec7t wrote a 4-line poem Mountains and rivers of the Southern country.His poem was the first of a series of statements of Vietnamese determination to resist northern invaders, all written in Literary Chinese.Later examples includeThe influence of Confucian literati grew in the following Tran dynasty (1225\u20131400) until they had a monopoly on public office.The first official history, the Annals of \u0110\u1ea1i Vi\u1ec7t (1272), was commissioned during this dynasty.Although this work has been lost, it served as a model for later annals, and parts of it are preserved in later annals written in Chinese, the Abbreviated Annals of \u0110\u1ea1i Vi\u1ec7t (late 14th century) and the Complete Annals of \u0110\u1ea1i Vi\u1ec7t (1479).Unofficial histories from this period include the Spirits of the Departed in the Viet Realm and the Wondrous Tales of Linh Nam, parts of which were also incorporated into the Complete Annals.  The Vietnamese nationalist Phan B\u1ed9i Ch\u00e2u (1867\u20131940), wrote in Literary Chinese.Literary Chinese remained the language of administration throughout the traditional period, except during two short-lived reformist regimes.When H\u1ed3 Qu\u00fd Ly seized the throne in 1400, as well as pursuing a programme of land reform, he sought to break the power of the Confucian literati by making Vietnamese, written in the N\u00f4m script, the state language and translating the classics to make them available to all.H\u1ed3’s reforms were reversed after Ming China invaded the country.None of the N\u00f4m literature of the period has survived, through a combination of the Ming destruction of Vietnamese libraries and the continued prestige of Chinese works after the Ming were driven out.Similar reforms were attempted by Nguy\u1ec5n Hu\u1ec7 from 1788, but were again reversed at the beginning of the succeeding Nguy\u1ec5n dynasty (1802\u20131945).The shared written language made it possible for Vietnamese scholars to communicate with literate Chinese and Koreans, but only in writing; they required interpreters for verbal communication.The Vietnamese sent their best scholars as envoys to the Chinese capital, where they were to purchase the latest Chinese books and to enter poetry-writing competitions with Chinese and Korean scholars.The 18th-century triumph of L\u00ea Qu\u00fd \u0110\u00f4n in such a competition became a focus of national pride.L\u00ea Qu\u00fd \u0110\u00f4n is considered the last great author of Chinese literature in Vietnam.His prodigious output included a history of Vietnam, collected essays on a wide variety of topics, anthologies of verse and commentaries on the classics.  Chinese characters used for decorative purposes in modern VietnamVietnamese intellectuals continued to write in Chinese up to the early decades of the 20th century.For example, the nationalist Phan B\u1ed9i Ch\u00e2u (1867\u20131940) wrote his History of the Loss of Vietnam (1905) and other tracts in Literary Chinese, and also used it to communicate when in Japan and China, as he spoke neither Japanese nor Chinese.Writers such as Phan B\u1ed9i Ch\u00e2u, Phan Ch\u00e2u Trinh and the principal of the Tonkin Free School even used Chinese to write their attacks on education in Chinese and the examination system.On the other side, the French colonial authorities were also opposed to Chinese, both because it made administration more difficult for them and because of the nationalist literature being circulated in the language.They abolished the examination system in 1913, and both Literary Chinese and Ch\u1eef n\u00f4m were swiftly replaced by the Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet in the early 20th century.In modern Vietnam, Chinese characters are seen only singly or in stock phrases written by calligraphers.References[edit]^ Nguy\u1ec5n, Tri T\u00e0i (2002). Gi\u00e1o tr\u00ecnh ti\u1ebfng H\u00e1n. T\u1eadp I: C\u01a1 s\u1edf. Nh\u00e0 xu\u1ea5t b\u1ea3n \u0110\u1ea1i h\u1ecdc Qu\u1ed1c gia Th\u00e0nh ph\u1ed1 H\u1ed3 Ch\u00ed Minh. p.\u00a05.Cited books and articles[edit]Alves, Mark J. (2009), “Loanwords in Vietnamese”,  in Haspelmath, Martin; Tadmor, Uri (eds.), Loanwords in the World’s Languages: A Comparative Handbook, De Gruyter, pp.\u00a0617\u2013637, ISBN\u00a0978-3-11-021843-5.Coed\u00e8s, George (1966), The Making of South East Asia, translated by H.M. Wright, University of California Press, ISBN\u00a0978-0-520-05061-7.DeFrancis, John (1977), Colonialism and language policy in Viet Nam, Mouton, ISBN\u00a0978-90-279-7643-7.Hannas, Wm. C. (1997), Asia’s Orthographic Dilemma, University of Hawaii Press, ISBN\u00a0978-0-8248-1892-0.Kornicki, P.F. (2011), “A transnational approach to East Asian book history”,  in Chakravorty, Swapan; Gupta, Abhijit (eds.), New Word Order: Transnational Themes in Book History, Worldview Publications, pp.\u00a065\u201379, ISBN\u00a0978-81-920651-1-3.Norman, Jerry (1988), Chinese, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN\u00a0978-0-521-29653-3.Nguyen, Dinh-Hoa (1981), “Patriotism in classical Vietnamese literature: evolution of a theme”,  in Tham, Seong Chee (ed.), Literature and Society in Southeast Asia, NUS Press, pp.\u00a0303\u2013320, ISBN\u00a0978-9971-690-36-6.Taylor, Keith Weller (1983), The Birth of Vietnam, University of California Press, ISBN\u00a0978-0-520-07417-0.Woodside, Alexander (1971), Vietnam and the Chinese Model, Harvard Univ Asia Center, ISBN\u00a0978-0-674-93721-5."},{"@context":"http:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https:\/\/wiki.edu.vn\/en\/wiki12\/#breadcrumbitem","name":"Enzyklop\u00e4die"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https:\/\/wiki.edu.vn\/en\/wiki12\/literary-chinese-in-vietnam-wikipedia\/#breadcrumbitem","name":"Literary Chinese in Vietnam – Wikipedia"}}]}]