Chu Nom
Chu Nom (Chữ NÃÂôm in quoc-ngu and 字喃 in Chinese characters) is a classical vernacular script (based on Chinese characters) of the Vietnamese language, and was the most common method of writing Vietnamese for over a millennium. By the early 20th century the use of chu Nom (script) gave way to a roman-style alphabet known as chu Quoc-Ngu. Although a vast cultural heritage and history remains written in chu Nom, few Vietnamese today can read it.After Vietnamese independence from China in 939 CE, scholars began their creation of Nom, an ideographic script that represents Vietnamese speech. For the next 1,000 years – from the 10th century and into the 20th – much of Vietnamese literature, philosophy, history, law, medicine, religion, and government policy was written in Nom script. During the 24 years of the Tay-Son emperors (1788-1802), all administrative documents were written in Chu Nom. In other words, approximately 1,000 years of Vietnamese cultural history is recorded in this unique system.
This heritage is now nearly lost. With the 17th century advent of quoc ngu – the modern roman-style script – Nom literacy gradually died out. In 1920, the colonial government decreed against its use. Today, fewer than 100 scholars world-wide can read Nom. Much of Viet Nam's vast, written history is, in effect, inaccessible to the 80 million speakers of the language.
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Attribution
Original text provided by the Vietnamese Nom Preservation Foundation, with permission granted to publish this text under the GNU Free Documentation License.