page_title: Chữ Nôm
section_title: Lê (1428–1788), Tây Sơn (1788–1802) and Nguyễn dynasties (1802–1945)
hierarchical_section_title: Chữ Nôm / History / Lê (1428–1788), Tây Sơn (1788–1802) and Nguyễn dynasties (1802–1945)
caption_attribution_description: English: A page from Nhật dụng thường đàm, published in 1851. This is copy R.1726, p.38. The original is at the National Library of Vietnam. It is a dictionary of Classical Chinese for Vietnamese speakers. The text is in Nom.
context_page_description: Chữ Nôm, in earlier times also called Chữ Nam or Quốc Âm, is a logographic writing system formerly used to write the Vietnamese language. It used the standard set of classical Chinese characters to represent Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary and some native Vietnamese words, while new characters were created on the Chinese model to represent other words.
  Although formal writing in Vietnam was done in classical Chinese, until the early 20th century, chữ Nôm was widely used between the 15th and 19th centuries by Vietnam's cultured elite, including women, for popular works, many in verse. One of the best-known pieces of Vietnamese literature, The Tale of Kiều, was composed in chữ Nôm.
  In the 1920s, the Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet created by Jesuit missionaries displaced chữ Nôm as the preferred way to record Vietnamese. While Han characters are still used for decorative, historic and ceremonial value and as symbols of good luck, Nôm characters have fallen into disuse in any other function in modern Vietnam in favour of the alphabet. The task of preservation and study of Vietnamese texts written in Nôm is conducted by the Institute of Hán-Nôm Studies in Hanoi.
context_section_description: Among the earlier works in Nôm of this era are the writings of Nguyễn Trãi (1380–1442). The corpus of Nôm writings grew over time as did more scholarly compilations of the script itself. Trịnh Thị Ngọc Trúc, consort of King Lê Thần Tông, is generally given credit for Chỉ nam ngọc âm giải nghĩa (the Explication of the Guide to Jeweled Sounds), a 24,000-character bilingual Han-to-Nom dictionary compiled between the 15th and 18th centuries, most likely in 1641 or 1761.
  While almost all official writings and documents continued to be written in classical Chinese until the early 20th century, Nôm was the preferred script for literary compositions of the cultural elites. 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. Apogees of Vietnamese literature emerged with Nguyễn Du's The Tale of Kiều and Hồ Xuân Hương's poetry. Although literacy in premodern Vietnam was limited to just 3 to 5 percent of the population, nearly every village had someone who could read Nom aloud for the benefit of other villagers. Thus these Nôm works circulated orally in the villages, making it accessible even to the illiterates.
  In 1838, Jean-Louis Taberd compiled a Nom dictionary, helping with the standardization of the script. In 1867, Catholic scholar Nguyễn Trường Tộ made the bold move to petition the Emperor Tự Đức to adopt Nôm as the official script. The court failed to make a break with chu Nho but Nôm did gain some sanction as Quốc Âm, i.e. the national speech.
caption: A page from the bilingual dictionary Nhật dụng thường đàm (1851). Characters representing words in Hán (Chinese) are explained in Nôm (Vietnamese).
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