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It's kind of funny too, since of all those languages (besides Chinese), Vietnamese is the most suited to the Chinese characters, being isolating. That said, th
by SuperNinKenDo 3y ago
It's kind of funny too, since of all those languages (besides Chinese), Vietnamese is the most suited to the Chinese characters, being isolating.
That said, they probably also had the easiest time abandoning them because there was never any real formalisation of how to write Vietnamese, as opposed to Literary Chinese, whereas in both Korea and Japan, people were writing their vernacular language in Chinese characters, or derived scripts, for centuries. Vietnam of course having chu Nom and other systems of writing vernacular, but not to the same degree as Korea or Japan did.
- yorwba 3y agoI think the French colonizers trying to make their empire more legible to them and suppressing the use of Chinese characters in service of that goal had a bigger influence on the decline of chu Nom than a particular lack of formalization.
- kergonath 3y agoThere is more context than that in the article. The gist of it is that it was originally developed for religious reasons, became official late in the colonisation process, and was further developed by Vietnamese intellectuals. It out-competed chữ Nôm because it was easier to learn. No need for nefarious master plans.
- b112 3y agoIt was the French, but that doesn't make it nefarious. Have you seen how annoying it is to type pictographic characters on a computer? Try doing so on a typical typewriter, or using an old style printing press. Whether right or wrong, it was seen as beneficial.
- yorwba 3y agoThis doctoral thesis has a short discussion of French language and education policy in their Vietnamese colonies: https://theses.hal.science/tel-02056541/document#page=35 https://theses.hal.science/tel-02056541/document#page=35 Unsurprisingly, it's in French.
- realusername 3y agoIt wasn't very popular either so the French didn't need to try too hard, the Vietnamese writing not being related to China is one of their pride.