| Chữ Nôm 𡨸喃 | |
|---|---|
.svg) | |
| Script type | |
Period | 13th century[1][2] – 20th century |
| Direction | Top-to-bottom, columns from right to left (traditional) Left-to-right (modern) |
| Languages | Vietnamese |
| Related scripts | |
Parent systems | |
Child systems | Nom Tay[3] |
Sister systems | Sawndip[4] |
| ISO 15924 | |
| ISO 15924 | Hani(500), Han (Hanzi, Kanji, Hanja) |
| Unicode | |
Unicode alias | Han |
| 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. | |
| Chinese characters |
|---|
 |
Collation and standards
|
Homographs and readings |
Chữ Nôm (𡨸喃,IPA:[t͡ɕɯ˦ˀ˥nom˧˧])[5] is alogographic writing system formerly used to write theVietnamese language. It usesChinese characters to representSino-Vietnamese vocabulary and some native Vietnamese words, with other words represented by new characters created using a variety of methods, includingphono-semantic compounds.[6] This composite script was therefore highly complex and was accessible to the less than five percent of the Vietnamese population who had mastered written Chinese.[7]
Although all formal writing inVietnam was done inClassical Chinese until the early 20th century (except for two brief interludes),[8] between the 15th and 19th centuries some Vietnamese literati used chữ Nôm to create popular works in the vernacular, many in verse. One of the best-known pieces ofVietnamese literature,The Tale of Kiều, was written in chữ Nôm byNguyễn Du.[9]
TheVietnamese alphabet created by PortugueseJesuit missionaries, with the earliest known usage occurring in the 17th century, replaced chữ Nôm as the preferred way to record Vietnamese literature from the 1920s. While Chinese characters are still used for decorative, historic and ceremonial value, chữ Nôm has fallen out of mainstream use in modern Vietnam. In the 21st century, chữ Nôm is being used in Vietnam for historical andliturgical purposes. TheInstitute of Hán-Nôm Studies atHanoi is the main research centre for pre-modern texts from Vietnam, bothChinese-language texts written in Chinese characters (chữ Hán) and Vietnamese-language texts in chữ Nôm.
The Vietnamese wordchữ 'character' is derived from theMiddle Chinese worddziH字, meaning '[Chinese] character'.[10][11] The wordNôm 'Southern' is derived from theMiddle Chinese wordnom南,[a] meaning 'south'.[12][13] It could also be based on the dialectal pronunciation from the South Central dialects (most notably in the name of province ofQuảng Nam, known locally asQuảng Nôm).[14]
There are many ways to write the namechữ Nôm in chữ Nôm characters. The wordchữ may be written as字,𫳘(⿰字宁),𡨸,𫿰(⿰字文),𡦂(⿰字字),𲂯(⿰貝字),𱚂(⿱字渚), or宁, whileNôm is written as喃.[15][16]
Chữ Nôm is the logographic writing system of the Vietnamese language. It is based on the Chinese writing system but adds a large number of new characters to make it fit the Vietnamese language. Common historical terms for chữ Nôm wereQuốc Âm (國音, 'national sound') andQuốc ngữ (國語, 'national language').
In Vietnamese,Chinese characters are calledchữ Hán (𡨸漢 'Han characters'),chữ Nho (𡨸儒 'Confucian characters', due to the connection withConfucianism) and uncommonly asHán tự (漢字 'Han characters').[17][18][19]Hán văn (漢文) refers literature written in Literary Chinese.[20][21]
The termHán Nôm (漢喃 'Han and chữ Nôm characters')[22] in Vietnamese designates the whole body of premodern written materials from Vietnam, either written in Chinese (chữ Hán) or in Vietnamese (chữ Nôm).[23] Hán and Nôm could also be found in the same document side by side,[24] for example, in the case of translations of books onChinese medicine.[25] TheBuddhist historyCổ Châu Pháp Vân phật bản hạnh ngữ lục (1752) gives the story of earlyBuddhism in Vietnam both in Hán script and in a parallel Nôm translation.[26] The JesuitGirolamo Maiorica (1605–1656) had also used parallel Hán and Nôm texts.
The termchữ Quốc ngữ (𡨸國語 'national language script') refers to theVietnamese alphabet in current use, but was used to refer to chữ Nôm before the Vietnamese alphabet was widely used.
Chinese characters were introduced to Vietnam after theHan dynastyconqueredNanyue in 111 BC. Independence was achieved after theBattle of Bạch Đằng in 938, butLiterary Chinese wasadopted for official purposes in 1010.[27] For most of the period up to the early 20th century, formal writing was indistinguishable from contemporaneous classical Chinese works produced in China, Korea, andJapan.[28]
Vietnamese scholars were thus intimately familiar with Chinese writing. In order to record their native language, they applied the structural principles of Chinese characters to develop chữ Nôm. The new script was mostly used to record folk songs and for other popular literature.[29] Vietnamese written in chữ Nôm briefly replaced Chinese for official purposes under theHồ dynasty (1400–1407) and under theTây Sơn (1778–1802), but in both cases this was swiftly reversed.[8]
The use of Chinese characters to transcribe the Vietnamese language can be traced to an inscription with the two characters "布蓋", as part of the posthumous title ofPhùng Hưng, a national hero who succeeded in briefly expelling the Chinese in the late 8th century. The two characters have literal Chinese meanings 'cloth' and 'cover', which make no sense in this context. They have thus been interpreted as a phonetic transcription, via theirMiddle Chinese pronunciationsbuH kajH, of a Vietnamese phrase, eithervua cái 'great king', orbố cái 'father and mother' (of the people).[30][31]
After Vietnam established its independence from China in the 10th century,Đinh Bộ Lĩnh (r. 968–979), the founder of theĐinh dynasty, named the countryĐại Cồ Việt大瞿越. The first and third Chinese characters mean 'great' and 'Viet'. The second character was often used to transcribe non-Chinese terms and names phonetically. In this context, cồ is an obsolete Vietnamese word for 'big'.[b][32][33]
The oldest surviving inscription using Chinese characters to transcribe Vietnamese names is on a stele at the Báo Ân pagoda in Tháp Miếu village (Phúc Yên,Vĩnh Phúc province). The inscription, re-engraved in the 18th century from an original dating from 1209, is written in Chinese but includes names of 21 people and villages written in an early form of Nom.[34][35][36][37] Another stele at Hộ Thành Sơn inNinh Bình Province (1343) is reported as listing 20 villages.[38][39][c]
Trần Nhân Tông (r. 1278–1293) ordered that Nôm be used to communicate his proclamations to the people.[38][41]The first literary writing in Vietnamese is said to have been anincantation in verse composed in 1282 by the Minister of JusticeNguyễn Thuyên and thrown into theRed River to expel a menacingcrocodile.[38]Four poems written in Nom from the Tran dynasty, two by Trần Nhân Tông and one each byHuyền Quang andMạc Đĩnh Chi, were collected and published in 1805.[42]
The Nôm textPhật thuyết đại báo phụ mẫu ân trọng kinh ('Sūtra explained by the Buddha on the Great Repayment of the Heavy Debt to Parents') was printed around 1730, but conspicuously avoids the character利lợi, suggesting that it was written (or copied) during the reign ofLê Lợi (1428–1433).Based on archaic features of the text compared with the Tran dynasty poems, including an exceptional number of words with initial consonant clusters written with pairs of characters, some scholars suggest that it is a copy of an earlier original, perhaps as early as the 12th century.[44]
During the seven years of theHồ dynasty (1400–07) Classical Chinese was discouraged in favor of vernacular Vietnamese written in Nôm, which became the official script. The emperorHồ Quý Ly even ordered the translation of theBook of Documents into Nôm and pushed for reinterpretation of Confucian thoughts in his bookMinh đạo.[41] These efforts were reversed with the fall of the Hồ andChinese conquest of 1407, lasting twenty years, during which use of the vernacular language and demotic script were suppressed.[45]
During theMing dynasty occupation of Vietnam, chữ Nôm printing blocks, texts and inscriptions were thoroughly destroyed; as a result the earliest surviving texts of chữ Nôm post-date the occupation.[46]
Chữ Nôm was not reinstated as the official script after the demise of theHồ dynasty and restoration of Viet rule.[47] Very few extant vernacular texts in Nôm predate the 15th century and even many later texts in Nôm were translations or rewritings of works in Chinese. During the 15th and 16th centuries, reformist governments translatedChinese Classics into Nôm, but these translations have not survived due to being seen as subversive by successive governments. As a result of its marginalized nature and lack of institutional backing, chữ Nôm was used as a medium for social protest during theLê dynasty (1428–1789), leading to its ban in 1663, 1718, and 1760.[48]
While almost all official writings and documents continued to be written inClassical Chinese until the early 20th century, Nôm was used for popular literary compositions. The corpus of Nôm writings grew over time as did more scholarly compilations of the script itself. Among the earlier works in Nôm of this era are the writings ofNguyễn Trãi (1380–1442) which aimed to disseminateNeo-Confucianism among as broad an audience as possible.[49]Trịnh Thị Ngọc Trúc [vi], consort of KingLê Thần Tông, is generally given credit forChỉ nam ngọc âm giải nghĩa [vi] (指南玉音解義; 'guide to Southern Jade sounds: explanations and meanings'), a 24,000-character bilingual Hán-to-Nômdictionary compiled between the 15th and 18th centuries, most likely in 1641 or 1761.[50][51]
TheTây Sơn dynasty (1778–1802) mandated the use of Nôm in both government business and civil service examinations but their policy was reverted after the dynasty's collapse.Gia Long (r. 1802–1820), founder of theNguyễn dynasty (1802–1945), supported chữ Nôm only for as long as it took for him to become emperor and then immediately reverted to Chinese. His successor,Minh Mạng (r. 1820–1841), the second emperor of the Nguyễn dynasty, prohibited the use of Nôm in the government.[52][48]
Nôm reached its golden period with the Nguyễn dynasty in the 19th century as it became a vehicle for diverse genres, from novels to theatrical pieces, and instructional manuals.[53] Apogees of Vietnamese literature emerged withNguyễn Du'sThe Tale of Kiều[54] andHồ Xuân Hương's poetry. Although literacy in premodern Vietnam was limited to just 3 to 5 percent of the population,[55] nearly every village had someone who could read Nôm aloud for the benefit of other villagers.[56] Thus these Nôm works circulated orally in the villages, and were accessible even to the illiterates.[57]
Nôm was used as the dominant script inVietnamese Catholic literature until the late 19th century.[58] In 1838,Jean-Louis Taberd compiled a Nôm dictionary, helping with the standardization of the script.[59] The reformist Catholic scholarNguyễn Trường Tộ presented the EmperorTự Đức with a series of unsuccessful petitions (written in Classical Chinese, like all court documents) proposing reforms in several areas of government and society. His petitionTế cấp bát điều (濟急八條 'Eight urgent matters', 1867), includes proposals on education, including a section entitledXin khoan dung quốc âm ('Please tolerate the national voice'). He proposed to replace Classical Chinese with Vietnamese written using a script based on Chinese characters that he calledQuốc âm Hán tự (國音漢字 'Han characters with national pronunciations'), though he described this as a new creation, and did not mention chữ Nôm.[60][61][62]
Despite the increasing use of Nôm for popular literature and as a medium for oral dissemination in rural areas, this composite script was never able to supplant Classical Chinese as the primary script of Vietnam. It was highly complex and inefficient, requiring the user to have some prior knowledge of the Chinese script. It was accessible to less than five percent of the Vietnamese population who had already mastered written Chinese and served primarily as a way to learn Classical Chinese and to record folk literature.[7] The small number of literati who took Nôm seriously had to contend with their peers and make sure not to offend their sense of propriety. Even figures known to have written in Nôm such asLê Thánh Tông and Nguyễn Trãi were more renowned for their Chinese language writings.[63] According to language researcher Nguyen Thuy Dan, the majority of the Vietnamese elite up to the 19th century seem to have never written in anything but Classical Chinese and even criticized the use of Nôm.[64]
From the latter half of the 19th century onwards, theFrench colonial authorities discouraged or simply banned the use of classicalChinese, and promoted the use of the Vietnamese alphabet, which they viewed as a stepping stone toward learning French. Language reform movements in other Asian nations stimulated Vietnamese interest in the subject. Following theRusso-Japanese War of 1905, Japan was increasingly cited as a model for modernization. The Confucian education system was compared unfavourably to the Japanese system of public education. According to a polemic by writerPhan Châu Trinh, "so-called Confucian scholars" lacked knowledge of the modern world, as well as real understanding of Han literature. Their degrees showed only that they had learned how to write characters, he claimed.[65]
The popularity of Hanoi's short-livedTonkin Free School suggested that broad reform was possible. In 1910, the colonial school system adopted a "Franco-Vietnamese curriculum", which emphasized French and alphabetic Vietnamese. The traditional Civil Service Examination, which emphasized the command of classical Chinese, was dismantled in 1915 inTonkin and was given for the last time at the imperial capital ofHuế on January 4, 1919.[66] The examination system, and the education system based on it, had been in effect for almost 900 years.[66]
The decline of the Chinese script also led to the decline of chữ Nôm given that Nôm and Chinese characters are so intimately connected.[67] After the First World War, chữ Nôm gradually died out as the Vietnamese alphabet grew more and popular.[68] In an article published in 1935 (based on a lecture given in 1925), Georges Cordier estimated that 70% of literate persons knew the alphabet, 20% knew chữ Nôm and 10% knew Chinese characters.[69]However, estimates of the rate of literacy in the late 1930s range from 5% to 20%.[70]By 1953, literacy (using the alphabet) had risen to 70%.[71]
TheGin people, descendants of 16th-century migrants from Vietnam to islands offDongxing in southernChina, now speak a form ofYue Chinese and Vietnamese, but their priests use songbooks and scriptures written in chữ Nôm in their ceremonies.[72]
Here is a line inTam tự kinh lục bát diễn âm (三字經六八演音), a Vietnamese translation of theThree Character Classic. It features the original text on the top of the page and the Vietnamese translation on the bottom.
人不𭓇不知理 (Nhân bất học bất tri lý)
𠊚空𭓇別𨤰夷麻推 (Người không học biết nhẽ gì mà suy)
Without learning, one does not understand reason.[d]
Vietnamese is atonal language, as is Chinese, and has nearly 5,000 distinct syllables.[27]In chữ Nôm, each monosyllabic word of Vietnamese was represented by a character, either borrowed from Chinese or locally created.The resulting system was even more difficult to use than the Chinese script.[29]
As ananalytic language, Vietnamese was a better fit for a character-based script than Japanese and Korean, with theiragglutinative morphology.[56]Partly for this reason, there was no development of a phonetic system that could be taught to the general public, like Japanesekana syllabary or the Koreanhangul alphabet, until the arrival of the Europeans.[77]Moreover, most Vietnamese literati viewed Chinese as the proper medium of civilized writing, and had no interest in turning Nôm into a form of writing suitable for mass communication.[56]
Chữ Nôm has never been standardized.[78] As a result, a Vietnamese word could be represented by several Nôm characters. For example, the very wordchữ ('character', 'script'), a Chinese loanword, can be written as either字 (Chinese character),𡦂 (Vietnamese-only compound-semantic character) or𡨸 (Vietnamese-only semantic-phonetic character). For another example, the wordgiữa ('middle'; 'in between') can be written either as𡨌 (⿰守中) or𫡉 (⿰字中). Both characters were invented for Vietnamese and have a semantic-phonetic structure, the difference being the phonetic indicator (守 vs.字).
Another example of a Vietnamese word that is represented by several Nôm characters is the word for moon,trăng. It can be represented by a Chinese character that is phonetically similar to trăng,菱 (lăng), a Nôm character,𢁋 (⿱巴陵) which is composed of two phonetic components巴 (ba) and陵 (lăng) for the Middle Vietnameseblăng, or a chữ Nôm character,𦝄 (⿰月夌) composed of a phonetic component夌 (lăng) and a semantic component meaning月 ('moon').
Unmodified Chinese characters were used in chữ Nôm in three different ways.
The first two categories are similar to theon andkun readings of Japanesekanji respectively.[84] The third is similar toateji, in which characters are used only for their sound value, or theMan'yōgana script that became the origin ofhiragana andkatakana.
When a character would have two readings, a diacritic may be added to the character to indicate the "indigenous" reading. The two most common alternate reading diacritical marks arecá (𖿰), (a variant form of个) andnháy (𖿱).[85] Thus when本 is meant to be read asvốn, it is written as本𖿱,[e] with a diacritic at the upper right corner.[86]
Other alternate reading diacritical marks includetháu đấm (草𢶸) where a character is represented by a simplified variant with two points on either side of the character.[87]
In contrast to the few hundred Japanesekokuji (国字) and handful of Koreangukja (국자,國字), which are mostly rarely used characters for indigenous natural phenomena, Vietnamese scribes created thousands of new characters, used throughout the language.[88]
As in the Chinese writing system, the most common kind of invented character in Nôm is the phono-semantic compound, made by combining two characters or components, one suggesting the word's meaning and the other its approximate sound. For example,[86]
A smaller group consists of semantic compound characters, which are composed of two Chinese characters representing words of similar meaning. For example,𡗶 (giời ortrời 'sky', 'heaven') is composed of天 ('sky') and上 ('upper').[86][89]
A few characters were obtained by modifying Chinese characters related either semantically or phonetically to the word to be represented. For example,
As an example of the way chữ Nôm was used to record Vietnamese, the first two lines of theTale of Kiều (1871 edition), written in the traditionalsix-eight form of Vietnamese verse, consist of 14 characters:[93]
𤾓
Trăm
hundred
𢆥
năm
year
𥪞
trong
in
𡎝
cõi
world
𠊛
người
person
些
ta,
our
𤾓𢆥𥪞𡎝𠊛些
Trăm năm trong cõi người ta,
hundred year in world person our
A hundred years—in this life span on earth,
𡨸
Chữ
word
才
tài
talent
𡨸
chữ
word
命
mệnh
destiny
窖
khéo
clever
𱺵
là
to be
恄
ghét
hate
饒
nhau.
each other
𡨸才𡨸命窖𱺵恄饒
Chữ tài chữ mệnh khéo là ghét nhau.
word talent word destiny clever {to be} hate {each other}
talent and destiny are apt to feud.[94]
| character | word | gloss | derivation |
|---|---|---|---|
| 𤾓(⿱百林) | trăm | hundred | compound of百 'hundred' and林lâm |
| 𢆥(⿰南年) | năm | year | compound of南nam and年 'year' |
| 𥪞(⿺竜內) | trong | in | compound of竜long and內 'inside' |
| 𡎝(⿰土癸) | cõi | world | compound of土 'earth' and癸quý |
| 𠊛(⿰㝵人) | người | person | compound of㝵ngại and人 'person' |
| 些 | ta | our | character of homophone Sino-Vietnameseta 'little, few; rather, somewhat' |
| 𡨸(⿰宁字) | chữ | word | compound of宁trữ and字 'character; word' |
| 才 | tài | talent | Sino-Vietnamese word |
| 𡨸(⿰宁字) | chữ | word | compound of宁trữ and字 'character; word' |
| 命 | mệnh | destiny | Sino-Vietnamese word |
| 窖 | khéo | clever | variant character of the near-homophone Sino-Vietnamese竅khiếu 'hole', Sino-Vietnamese reading of窖 isgiáo |
| 𱺵(⿱罒𪜀) | là | to be | simplified form of羅là 'to be', using the character of near-homophone Sino-Vietnamesela 'net for catching birds' |
| 恄 | ghét | hate | compound of忄 'heart' classifier and吉cát |
| 饒 | nhau | each other | character of near-homophone Sino-Vietnamesenhiêu 'bountiful, abundant, plentiful' |
In 1993, the Vietnamese government released an 8-bit coding standard for alphabetic Vietnamese (TCVN 5712:1993, or VSCII), as well as a 16-bit standard for Nôm (TCVN 5773:1993).[95] This group of glyphs is referred to as "V0." In 1994, theIdeographic Rapporteur Group agreed to include Nôm characters as part ofUnicode.[96] A revised standard, TCVN 6909:2001, defines 9,299 glyphs.[97] About half of these glyphs are specific to Vietnam.[97] Nôm characters not already encoded were added toCJK Unified Ideographs Extension B.[97] (These characters have five-digithexadecimal code points. The characters that were encoded earlier have four-digit hex.)
| Code | Characters | Unicode block | Standard | Date | V Source | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| V0 | 2,246 | Basic Block (593), A (138), B (1,515) | TCVN 5773:1993 | 2001 | V0-3021 to V0-4927 | 5 |
| V1 | 3,311 | Basic Block (3,110), C (1) | TCVN 6056:1995 | 1999 | V1-4A21 to V1-6D35 | 2, 5 |
| V2 | 3,205 | Basic Block (763), A (151), B (2,291) | VHN 01:1998 | 2001 | V2-6E21 to V2-9171 | 2, 5 |
| V3 | 535 | Basic Block (91), A (19), B (425) | VHN 02:1998 | 2001 | V3-3021 to V3-3644 | Manuscripts |
| V4 | 785 (encoded) | Extension C | Defined as sources 1, 3, and 6 | 2009 | V4-4021 to V4-4B2F | 1, 3, 6 |
| V04 | 1,028 | Extension E | Unencoded V4 and V6 characters | Projected | V04-4022 to V04-583E | V4: 1, 3, 6; V6: 4, manuscripts |
| V5 | ~900 | Proposed in 2001, but already coded | 2001 | None | 2, 5 | |
| Sources: Nguyễn Quang Hồng,[97] "Unibook Character Browser", Unicode, Inc., "Code Charts – CJK Ext. E" (N4358-A).[98] | ||||||
Characters were extracted from the following sources:
The V2, V3, and V4 proposals were developed by a group at the Han-Nom Research Institute led by Nguyễn Quang Hồng.[97] V4, developed in 2001, includes over 400 ideograms formerly used by theTày people of northern Vietnam.[97] This allows theTày language to get its own registration code.[97] V5 is a set of about 900 characters proposed in 2001.[97] As these characters were already part of Unicode, the IRG concluded that they could not be edited and no Vietnamese code was added.[97] (This is despite the fact that national codes were added retroactively for version 3.0 in 1999.) The Nôm Na Group, led by Ngô Thanh Nhàn, published a set of nearly 20,000 Nôm characters in 2005.[99] This set includes both the characters proposed earlier and a large group of additional characters referred to as "V6".[97] These are mainly Han characters from Trần Văn Kiệm's dictionary which were already assigned code points. Character readings were determined manually by Hồng's group, while Nhàn's group developed software for this purpose.[100] The work of the two groups was integrated and published in 2008 as theHán Nôm Coded Character Repertoire.[100]
| Character | Composition | Nôm reading | Sino-Vietnamese reading | Meaning | Code point | V Source | Other sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 吧 | ⿰口巴 | và | ba | (slightly formal) and | U+5427 | V0-3122 | G0,J,KP,K,T |
| 傷 | ⿰亻⿱𠂉昜 | thương | thương | wound, injury, to love non-romantically | U+50B7 | V1-4C22 | G1,J,KP,K,T |
| 𠊛 | ⿰㝵人 | người | N/A | people | U+2029B | V2-6E4F | None |
| 㤝 | ⿰忄充 | suông | song | plain, bland | U+391D | V3-313D | G3,KP,K,T |
| 𫋙 | ⿰虫強 | càng | N/A | claw, pincer | U+2B2D9 | V4-536F | None |
| 𫡯[g] | ⿰朝乙 | chàu | N/A | wealth | U+2B86F | V4-405E | None |
| Key: G0 = China (GB 2312); G1 = China (GB 12345); G3 = China (GB 7589); GHZ =Hanyu Da Zidian; J = Japan; KP= North Korea; K = South Korea; T = Taiwan. Sources:Unihan Database,Vietnamese Nôm Preservation Foundation, "Code Charts – CJK Ext. E" (N4358-A).[98] The Han-Viet readings are fromHán Việt Từ Điển. | |||||||
The characters that do not exist in Chinese haveSino-Vietnamese readings that are based on the characters given in parentheses. The common character forcàng (強) contains the radical虫 (insects).[101] This radical is added redundantly to create𫋙, a rare variation shown in the chart above. The character𫡯 (chàu) is specific to theTày people.[102] It has been part of the Unicode standard only since version 8.0 of June 2015, so there is still very little font andinput method support for it. It is a variation of朝, the corresponding character in Vietnamese.[103]
The material used in this study is obviously older than the poems of Nguyễn Trãi and belongs to the text type called giải âm 解音, which includes word-for-word translations of Chinese texts into Vietnamese.
The document, 佛說大報父母恩重經 Phật thuyết Đại báo phụ mẫu ân trọng kinh ("Sūtra explained by the Buddha on the Great Repayment of the Heavy Debt to Parents", henceforth Đại báo), is held in the Société asiatique, Paris. It is a version of a popular Chinese apochyphon more commonly known under the title 父母恩重難報經 Fùmǔ Ēnzhòng Nánbàojīng, Phụ mẫu ân trọng nan báo kinh ("Sūtra on the Difficulty of Repaying the Heavy Debt to Parents"), in which the Chinese text is accompanied by a vernacular translation (called 解音 giải âm in Vietnam) in a rudimentary form of Chữ Nôm, where vernacular words are written with Chinese characters and modified versions thereof.
Thus, the Literary Sinitic preface overtly claims the present dictionary to be an explication (giải nghĩa 解義) of Sĩ Nhiếp's original work—that is, the vernacular glossary to southern songs and poems entitled Guide to Collected Works (Chỉ nam phẩm vị 指南品彙).
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of July 2025 (link)Works cited
There are a number of software tools that can produce chữ Nôm characters simply by typing Vietnamese words in chữ quốc ngữ:
Other entry methods:
Fonts with a sufficient coverage of Chữ Nôm characters includeHan-Nom Gothic,Han-Nom Minh,Han-Nom Ming,Han-Nom Kai,Nom Na Tong,STXiHei (Heiti TC),MingLiU plus MingLiU-ExtB,Han Nom A plusHan Nom B,FZKaiT-Extended plusFZKaiT-Extended(SIP), andMojikyō fonts which require special software. The following web pages are collections of URLs from which Chữ Nôm capable fonts can be downloaded: