History of Vietnamese languages
As you have known, Vietnam has been through several years of domination by the big countries, therefore, Vietnamese languages have plenty of types based on the ages of domination. However, there are three typical Vietnamese characters which are Chinese languages, Nom script and National Vietnamese languages. In this blog, I will introduce about those three kinds of languages.
“CHINESE CHARACTERS” (Chữ Hán) Chinese characters in Vietnam by way of cultural exchange began in the first millennium BC. At present, in Vietnam, the number of artifacts, such as the apex of the ancient hieroglyphs (ancient Han characters) is kept. This is a proof that ancient Han scripts appear in Vietnam quite early and have become a means of recording and communicating in Vietnamese since the first centuries BC. In the VII-XI centuries, Han characters and Han languages are increasingly used in Vietnam. During this period, Chinese languages were used as a means of communication and economic exchanges with China. Since Vietnam was under the domination of the Northern feudalism for more than a thousand years, so most of the inscriptions on the stelae are in Chinese characters. Thereby, we can see how Han languages have a tremendous influence on the culture of ancient Vietnam. After the tenth century, although Vietnam gained independence and independence from the rule of the Northern feudalism, Han languages still continued to be an important means of developing national culture.
“NOM SCRIPT” (Chữ Nôm) A few years ago, a Vietnamese literature began to be built and perfected - it was Nom script. According to the historical study of Vietnam, Nôm means "Nam" being read. The formation of chữ Nôm expressed the will of national independence and expressed a desire to have a script suitable for the characteristics of the Vietnamese language. Nom script is a type of writing built on the basis of lines, factors, and methods of the structure of Chinese characters to record from Vietnamese and Vietnamese. There are a lot of popular poets using Nom script which made the Nom script culture being spread more widely and abundantly.
“NATIONAL VIETNAMESE LANGUAGES” (Chữ quốc ngữ) The Vietnamese alphabet is the modern writing system for the Vietnamese language. It uses the Latin script, based on its employment in the alphabets of Romance languages, in particular, the Portuguese alphabet, with some digraphs and the addition of nine accent marks or diacritics – four of them to create additional sounds, and the other five to indicate the tone of each word. The many diacritics, often two on the same vowel, make written Vietnamese easily recognizable. From 1945 to now, the Government of Vietnam decided to get the Vietnamese script written as official and unified.
In general, this blog is not an interesting as the other blogs because there is nothing to say much and the characters are very dry. However, these are a part of my country so I hope you can understand more about a wonderful history of Vietnam.
References
http://vietsciences.free.fr/vietnam/tiengviet/lichsucacloaichuviet.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_alphabet
