Chữ Hán Chữ Nho
Chữ Hán andchữ Nho written inchữ Nôm, withVietnamese alphabet on the right.
Script type	Logographic
Period	3rd century BC – 20th century AD Limited present use
Direction	Top-to-bottom, columns from right to left
Languages	Literary Chinese,Vietnamese
Related scripts
Parent systems	Oracle bone script Seal script Clerical script Regular script Chữ Hán
Child systems	Chữ Nôm
Sister systems	Kanji,Hanja,Bopomofo,traditional Chinese,simplified Chinese,Khitan script,Jurchen script,Tangut script,Yi script
This article containsphonetic transcriptions in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. For the distinction between[ ],/ / and ⟨ ⟩, seeIPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

This article containschữ Nôm text. Without properrendering support, you may seequestion marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofchữ Nôm.

Chinese characters
Chinese family of scripts Written Chinese Kanji Hanja Chữ Hán
Evolution ofscript styles Neolithic symbols in China Oracle bone Bronze Seal Large Small Bird-worm Clerical Cursive Semi-cursive Regular Flat brush Modern typefaces Fangsong Ming Hei
Properties andclassification Components Strokes order Radicals Orthography jiu zixing xin zixing Digital encoding
Collation and standards Kangxi Dictionary forms (1716) Commonly Used Characters (PRC, 2013) Commonly-Used Characters (Hong Kong, 2007) Nan Min Recommended Characters (Taiwan, 2009) Standard Form of National Characters (Taiwan, 1982) Jōyō kanji (Japan, 2010)
Reforms Simplified characters second round Traditional characters debate Japanese script reform kyūjitai
Homographs and readings Literary and colloquial readings Kanbun Idu
Variants Zetian characters
Derived systems Kana man'yōgana hiragana katakana Jurchen script Khitan large small Nüshu Bopomofo Slavonic transcription
Transliteration of Chinese
v t e

Chữ Hán (Vietnamese:𡨸漢[t͡ɕɯ˦ˀ˥haːn˧˦]^ⓘ,lit. 'Han characters')^[1] are theChinese characters that were used to writeLiterary Chinese (Hán văn;漢文) andSino-Vietnamese vocabulary inVietnamese. They were officially used in Vietnam after theRed River Delta region was incorporated into theHan dynasty and continued to be used until the early 20th century.

The main Vietnamese term used for Chinese characters ischữ Hán (𡨸漢). It is made ofchữ meaning 'character' andHán 'Han (referring to theHan dynasty)'. Other synonyms ofchữ Hán includeschữ Nho (𡨸儒[t͡ɕɯ˦ˀ˥ɲɔ˧˧], literally 'Confucian characters') andHán tự^[a] (漢字[haːn˧˦tɯ˧˨ʔ]^ⓘ) which was borrowed directly from Chinese.

Chữ Nho was first mentioned in Phạm Đình Hổ's essayVũ trung tùy bút (雨中隨筆lit. 'Essays in the Rain'), where it initially described a calligraphic style of writing Chinese characters.[2] 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 theLê dynasty.^[3]

Classical Chinese is referred to asHán văn (漢文[haːn˧˦van˧˧]) andvăn ngôn (文言[văn˧˧ŋon˧˧]).^[4]

After the conquest ofNanyue (Vietnamese:Nam Việt; chữ Hán:南越), parts of modern-day Northern Vietnam were incorporated into theJiāozhǐ province (Vietnamese:Giao Chỉ;chữ Hán:交趾) of theHan 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).^[5] Fromindependence from China and onward, Literary Chinese still remained as the official language for writing whether if it was government documents or literature.^[6] Every succeeding dynasty modeled theirimperial exams after China'smodel. Scholars drew lessons fromNeo-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 calledchữ Nho (literally: 'Confucian characters';𡨸儒).^[7] Scholars were focused on reading Chinese classics such as theFour Books and Five Classics. While literature in Vietnamese (written withchữ Nôm) was the minority. Literature such asNam quốc sơn hà (chữ Hán:南國山河) andTruyền kỳ mạn lục (chữ Hán:傳奇漫錄) being written with Chinese characters. With every new dynasty with the exception of two dynasties,^[b] Literary Chinese and thus Chinese characters remained in common usage.^{[citation needed]}

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 theConfucian 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 (inSouth Vietnam) up to 1975, but failed to be a part of the new elementary curriculum complied byMinistry of Education and Training after the Vietnam War.^[8]

Today, Chinese characters can still be seen adorning temples and old buildings. Chữ Hán is now relegated to obscurity and cultural aspects of Vietnam. During Vietnamese festivals, calligraphists will write some couplets written in Chinese characters wishing prosperity and longevity. Calligraphists that are skilled in calligraphy are called ông đồ.^[9] This is especially reflected in the poem "Ông đồ", by Vũ Đình Liên. The poem talks about theông đồ duringTết and how the art of Vietnamese calligraphy is no longer appreciated.^[9]

The preface ofKhải đồng thuyết ước (啟童說約; 1853) written by Phạm Phục Trai (范复齋), contains the following passage:^[10]

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.^[11] Students began by learning characters from books such asNhất 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 theThree Character Classic (三字經).^[11] The primers were often glossed with chữ Nôm.^[12] As such with Nhất thiên tự (一千字), it was designed to allow students to make the transition from Vietnamese grammar toClassical Chinese grammar.^[13] 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 Vietnameselục 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 asSơ 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'), andMinh Đạo gia huấn (明道家訓; 'precepts of Minh Đạo').^[14] These books taught the basic sentences necessary to read Literary Chinese and taught core Confucian values and concepts such asfilial 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.^[13]

Thiên Nam tứ tự kinh (天南四字經) is a book that was used to teach children the history of Vietnam. (All of the sentences in the book are in four-character phrases.)

The first page ofTam thiên tự toản yếu (三千字纂要), used to teach children chữ Hán and its equivalent chữ Nôm.

A page of theThree Character Classic, this version specifically is calledTam tự kinh lục bát diễn âm (三字經六八演音). Shown is the original Chinese text above and below is the Vietnamese translation.

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).^[15] Đại học (大學) at this time referred to students studying in the national academies.

The education reform byNorth Vietnam in 1950 eliminated the use of chữ Hán and chữ Nôm.^[16] Chinese characters were still taught in schools inSouth 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) andHán-văn giáo-khoa thư (漢文敎科書; 1965).^[c][17] Students could begin learning Chinese characters in secondary school. The department dealing with Literary Chinese and Chinese characters was called Ban Hán-tự D.^[17] 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.^[17]

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.^{[citation needed]}

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.^{[citation needed]}

The Sino-Vietnamese name forHanoi written in chữ Hán, Hà Nội河内.

The native Vietnamese name forHanoi written in chữ Nôm, Kẻ Chợ仉𢄂.

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.^[d]

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 readingshàng,hành,hãng,hạng, andhạnh.^[18][e] The readings typically depend on the context and definition of the word. If talking about a store or goods, the readinghàng would be used, but if talking aboutvirtue, the readinghạnh 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 whenChinese people migrated to Vietnam.^[19] 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.^[20]

Sino-Vietnamese readings are usually referred to asâm Hán Việt (音漢越; literally "sound Sino-Vietnamese"),^{[21][22][23][24]} which are Vietnamese systematic pronunciations ofMiddle Chinese characters.^[25] These readings were largely borrowed into Vietnamese during the lateTang dynasty (618–907). Vietnamese scholars usedChinese rime dictionaries to derive consistent pronunciations for Chinese characters.^[26] 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.^[27] 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 theSino-Xenic pronunciations.^[25]

Non-Sino-Vietnamese readings (âm phi Hán Việt;音非漢越)^[28][29][30] are pronunciations that were not consistently derived from Middle Chinese.^[31] Typically these readings came from Old Chinese, Cantonese, and other Chinese dialects.

Nôm readings (âm Nôm;音喃)^[32][33][34] 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.^[35] 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 calledchữ giả tá (phonetic loan characters),^[32] 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.

Chữ Hán can be classified into thetraditional classification for Chinese characters, this is calledlục thư^[42] (六書, Chinese:liùshū), meaning six types of Chinese characters. The characters are largely based on214 radicals set by theKangxi Dictionary.^[43]

• Chữ chỉ sự (𡨸指事) – Ideogram; an example would be上 (thượng,'above') and下 (hạ,'below').^[44]
• Chữ tượng hình (𡨸象形) – Pictogram; an example would be日 (nhật,'sun') and木 (mộc,'tree').^[45]
• 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).^[46][f]
• 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').^[47]
• 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').^[48]
• 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 achữ giả tá like德 (Đức,'Germany') and意 (Ý,'Italy').^[49]

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.^[50] This means that Vietnamese variant characters may differ from Chinese variants andsimplified characters, for example:

• The word羅la^[g] 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.^[51]

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).^[52]

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'.^[53][54]

𭓇, a variant of學

𱻊, a variant of義

In Vietnamese writing,𦰩 is written with龷 on top. (⿰氵⿱龷⿻口夫)

The character匕 (chuỷ) or〻 is often used as aniteration mark to indicate that the current chữ Hán character is to be repeated. This is used in words that usereduplication. For example, in the poemChinh 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).

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