1. Chinese Characters and Nôm Script
Although there are hypotheses in Vietnamese historical scholarship about an ancient script used by the Vietnamese people dating back three to four thousand years to the era of the Hùng Kings, the classical Vietnamese literary tradition that has been preserved to this day recognizes only Chinese characters (chữ Hán) and Nôm script (chữ Nôm) in its history of formation and development. Of course, to have a more comprehensive view of the literary heritage of the various ethnic communities that have long coexisted in present-day Vietnam, one must also consider other scripts, such as the Cham script in the South and the Tai script in the North. Nevertheless, the repository of Chinese and Nôm script literature remains the foundation of Vietnam’s classical literary tradition.
Chinese characters were introduced to the South quite early, possibly as far back as a few centuries BCE. With the establishment of the state of Nam Việt (207–111 BCE) by Triệu Đà, Chinese characters became the administrative tool for both the Han and the Vietnamese populations of the time. However, it was not until the early centuries CE, under the Han Dynasty, and with the active promotion of Han culture by governors such as Tích Quang, Nhâm Diên, and especially Sĩ Nhiếp, that Chinese characters truly became a functional tool for the Vietnamese. From then on, a class of local Vietnamese scholars and officials proficient in Chinese characters began to emerge. It is not by chance that Sĩ Nhiếp (186–266) was later honored as the "Patriarch of Learning in Giao Châu." However, written records of Chinese characters from that time, and even from the following several centuries in Vietnam, have not been preserved. The oldest surviving Chinese inscription in Vietnam is the Đại Tùy Cửu Chân Quận Báo An Đạo Tràng Chi Bi Văn stele, discovered in Đông Sơn District, Thanh Hóa Province. It was composed by Nguyễn Nhân Khí in the 14th year of the Đại Nghiệp era (618 CE) of the Sui Dynasty. The stele, measuring 75 cm × 150 cm, has faded inscriptions and is currently housed at the Vietnam National Museum of History.
Although Vietnamese and Chinese may originate from different language families (Sino-Tibetan for Chinese and Austroasiatic for Vietnamese), they are typologically very similar. Both are isolating and monosyllabic languages, meaning that each syllable generally carries meaning and can function as a word without morphological changes. Because of this, Chinese characters, representing both sound and meaning for each syllable, became an ideal script for writing Vietnamese at the time. Consequently, the transition from Chinese characters to Vietnamese script (Chữ Nôm) was relatively smooth. At first glance, a Chữ Nôm text can be difficult to distinguish from a Chinese text.
However, the development of Chữ Nôm was not immediate. Initially, individual characters were used sporadically to record local place names, personal names, and native products within Chinese texts. This practice likely began as early as the first century AD when Chinese characters were actively used by the Vietnamese not only for reading but also for recording events, people, and the local environment. However, it took a long time to establish a fully developed system of phonetic-semantic characters for Vietnamese. The challenge was not just the technical creation of characters but the prerequisite of national independence and the cultural need for a distinct script. It was not until the Đinh, Lê, Lý, and Trần dynasties (11th–14th centuries), when Vietnam had secured its independence and developed a strong national identity, that Chữ Nôm could emerge as a fully-fledged writing system. Vietnamese texts written in Chữ Nôm began to appear gradually.
According to historical records, the creation of Chữ Nôm is linked to the legend of Hàn Thuyên (also known as Nguyễn Thuyên). He is said to have composed a written invocation in Chữ Nôm to drive away crocodiles from the Lô River during the reign of Trần Nhân Tông (1279–1293). In the fourth year of Thiệu Bảo (1282), Emperor Trần Nhân Tông ordered Nguyễn Thuyên to perform a ritual and throw his invocation into the river, after which the crocodiles disappeared (as recorded in Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư). Unfortunately, his poem and many of his other works have been lost. Some surviving Chữ Nôm texts from the Trần dynasty include Buddhist verses by Emperor Trần Nhân Tông and Zen master Huyền Quang, such as Cư trần lạc đạo phú, Đá thú lâm tuyền thành đạo ca, and Vịnh Hoa Yên tự phú, which were compiled in Thiền tông bản hạnh (the earliest remaining printed edition dates to 1745).
From that time until the early 20th century, Chinese and Chữ Nôm coexisted in Vietnamese society, each serving distinct yet complementary roles. The historical functions of Chinese and Chữ Nôm in Vietnam can be broadly summarized as follows:
2. The Role of Chinese Characters
Throughout more than a thousand years of Northern domination, Chinese characters held a dominant position in Vietnam. According to historical records, from the 12th to the 9th century, a series of Vietnamese intellectuals used brushes to write records or literary compositions in Chinese characters. A prominent figure among them was Khương Công Phụ (8th century), a native of Ái Châu (Thanh Hóa), who traveled to China to take the imperial examination and ranked first with a rhapsody and an essay written in Chinese characters (as recorded in Complete Tang Literature, Vol. 446). However, the surviving Chinese character texts by Vietnamese scholars from this period are scarce, and the extant copies are mostly found abroad.
It is noteworthy that it was precisely during the period when the Vietnamese gained their independence and autonomy—while establishing their own government modeled after the Chinese feudal state—that Chinese characters began to be actively and widely used by the Vietnamese in various aspects of social life. The role and function of Chinese characters from that time onward are reflected as follows:
(1) First, in administration, Vietnamese feudal dynasties, from the Đinh dynasty (10th century) to the Nguyễn dynasty (20th century), consistently used Chinese characters in official documents at all levels of government. From imperial edicts, decrees, and conferment orders issued by the court to memorials, petitions, and applications submitted by lower officials and commoners, all were written in Chinese characters. Ordinary people, being mostly illiterate, had to rely on or hire educated individuals to draft their petitions. Only on rare occasions were there edicts or letters from the emperor (such as Emperor Quang Trung's letter to Nguyễn Thiếp and his annotations on petitions from northern scholars) or documents and memorials from the populace written purely in Nôm script. Notable administrative texts in Chinese characters include Quân trung từ mệnh tập by Nguyễn Trãi (written on behalf of Lê Lợi) and the Châu bản triều Nguyễn, a collection of more than 50,000 documents from the Gia Long era to the Bảo Đại era (currently preserved at the National Archives Center in Hanoi).
(2) Alongside administration were education and examinations, in which all classical Confucian texts and academic compositions were written in Chinese characters. The training of national talents through Confucianism was actively pursued starting from the Lý dynasty. In 1070, during the reign of Lý Thánh Tông (1054–1072), the Văn Miếu – Quốc Tử Giám was built in Thăng Long as a place for the crown prince to study Chinese literature. In 1075, under Lý Nhân Tông (1072–1128), Vietnam held its first Confucian examination to select talents. From then until 1919, when the final imperial examination (Hội Examination) was held in Huế, a total of 2,898 individuals passed the highest level of imperial examinations. These scholars formed the intellectual backbone that contributed to Vietnam’s classical literary tradition over the centuries.
(3) The written culture of Vietnam (including works on history, geography, literature, religion, and beliefs) was primarily built upon Chinese characters. The Đại Việt sử ký, completed in 1272 by historian Lê Văn Hưu during the reign of Trần Thánh Tông (1258–1278), was the first official historical record of Vietnam. Consisting of 30 volumes, it is now lost, but it served as the foundation for later, more extensive historical records in subsequent dynasties, such as Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư (carved and printed in 1697 during the Lê dynasty), Đại Việt sử ký tiền biên (completed in 1800 under the Tây Sơn dynasty), and Khâm định Việt sử thông giám cương mục (finished in 1881 under Emperor Tự Đức of the Nguyễn dynasty). Similarly, legal codes such as the Hình thư of the Lý dynasty (1042) and the Quốc triều hình luật of the Trần dynasty (1244) were lost, but later famous legal codes such as Quốc triều hình luật (1489, under Emperor Lê Thánh Tông, also known as the Hồng Đức Code) and Hoàng triều luật lệ (1815, under the Nguyễn dynasty, also called the Gia Long Code) remain.
Numerous scholarly works documenting and describing the Vietnamese people and their land were written in Chinese characters by accomplished writers such as Lê Hữu Trác (1724–1791), Lê Quý Đôn (1726–1784), Ngô Thì Sĩ (1726–1780), and Ngô Thì Nhậm (1782–1840). Using Chinese characters, Vietnamese literati developed a literary tradition that encompassed various genres, particularly poetry and prose fiction. Almost every Confucian and Buddhist scholar in Vietnam composed poetry in Chinese characters. Notable among the prose works is Truyền kỳ mạn lục by Nguyễn Dữ (mid-16th century), a collection of 20 short stories based on Vietnamese society at the time; the historical novel Hoàng Lê nhất thống chí by the Ngô family literary group, which depicts the turbulent period of late 18th- and early 19th-century Vietnam; and several other Chinese-language novels and essays, particularly those of Phan Bội Châu (1867–1940).
Beyond Confucian scholars, Chinese characters also served as a crucial medium for the dissemination of Taoist and Buddhist scriptures in Vietnam. They became deeply integrated into temples, shrines, pagodas, and historical sites. Chinese calligraphy, with its solemn and majestic appearance, was well-suited for inscriptions on steles to commemorate virtues and honor ancestors, as well as for decorative couplets and plaques in both public and private spaces. Of course, within these cultural and religious environments, the Vietnamese also used the Nôm script.
3. The Role of Chữ Nôm
When Chữ Nôm was created and gradually perfected spontaneously by its users (who were also its creators), Chữ Hán had already had a long history of "residence" and had served Vietnamese society effectively in many aspects of spiritual life, particularly in administration and the training of national talents. This was not necessarily due to the prestige of Chữ Hán itself, but rather to the advantage of a Chinese civilization that had spread throughout the region in medieval times. Through Chữ Hán, the Vietnamese, like many other peoples, transitioned from passive to active adoption. Therefore, it would be inappropriate to assign Chữ Nôm the task of reclaiming roles that Chữ Hán had long held in a deserving manner. In Vietnamese history, there were a few kings who were interested in Chữ Nôm and wanted to use it in administrative transactions (such as Hồ Quý Ly and Nguyễn Huệ), as well as intellectuals who sought to reform the script by replacing Chữ Hán with Chữ Nôm (such as Nguyễn Trường Tộ in Tế cấp bát điều presented to Emperor Tự Đức). However, all these commendable ideas and experiments were fleeting and did not leave any significant marks on Chữ Nôm. In such contexts, how did Chữ Nôm demonstrate its capabilities to contribute alongside Chữ Hán in building Vietnam's classical civilization?
(1) First, there were areas where Chữ Hán proved weak, even powerless, and had to yield to Chữ Nôm to fulfill its role. At least three fields allowed Chữ Nôm to showcase its potential optimally:
(a) The Vietnamese, like many other peoples, had a rich and diverse oral cultural heritage long before writing existed. This included stories, songs, proverbs, idioms, and riddles passed down through generations. Clearly, in order to record, collect, and edit this oral cultural treasure in Vietnamese, nothing was more suitable and faithful than directly using Chữ Nôm (rather than translating it into Chữ Hán). In fact, numerous such collections were made in Chữ Nôm, such as Lý hạng ca dao, which contains 256 folk songs; Nam quốc phương ngôn tục ngữ bị lục, comprising 27 sections of folk songs, proverbs, and riddles; and Nam ca tân truyện, which records traditional songs from Huế. A series of classical tuồng and chèo plays such as Văn Duyên diễn hí, Trương Viên diễn ca, and Lưu Bình trò can also be mentioned here.
(b) Chữ Nôm, written in verse form, was the most suitable and effective way to popularize and disseminate knowledge in various fields. This includes historical narrative books such as Việt sử diễn âm (16th century), Thiên Nam minh giám (first half of the 17th century), Thiên Nam ngữ lục (second half of the 17th century), and Đại Nam quốc sử diễn ca (19th century). Although most of the population was illiterate in Chữ Hán and Chữ Nôm, they could listen to these poetic works being read aloud multiple times, committing them to memory even when they were thousands of verses long. The same applies to "diễn ca" or "diễn âm" works in fields such as law (Hoàng Việt luật lệ toát yếu diễn ca) and medicine (Chẩn đậu diễn ca).
(c) The prominent role of Chữ Nôm was expressed in literary creations. Although scholars of all times wrote poetry and prose in Chữ Hán, only with Chữ Nôm could the Vietnamese create immortal literary masterpieces. The oldest surviving Chữ Nôm poetry collection is Quốc âm thi tập by Nguyễn Trãi (1380–1442), followed by Bạch Vân am quốc ngữ thi by Nguyễn Bình Khiêm (1491–1585). Notably, while prose fiction in Chữ Hán existed, Chữ Nôm literature overwhelmingly took the form of verse. The most outstanding and accomplished genres were long narrative poems in lục bát and song thất lục bát. These forms reached their pinnacle in the late 18th and early 19th centuries with works recognized worldwide, such as Chinh phụ ngâm khúc by Đoàn Thị Điểm (1705–1748) and Truyện Kiều (Đoạn trường tân thanh) by Nguyễn Du (1766–1820). Other notable Chữ Nôm poets from the 13th to the early 20th century include Nguyễn Huy Tự, Nguyễn Gia Thiều, Phạm Thái, Hồ Xuân Hương, Nguyễn Đình Chiểu, Nguyễn Công Trứ, Nguyễn Khuyến, and Trần Tế Xương. Thanks to them, the Vietnamese language was refined by incorporating both Chữ Hán and folk cultural elements, forming a literature rich in clarity and expressive power.
(2) On the other hand, Chữ Nôm did not always "work independently" but often collaborated with Chữ Hán to create and preserve cultural works. This is evident in several cases:
(a) Not to mention cases where a few scattered Nôm characters might appear as needed in scholarly Chinese texts, in folk life, Nôm characters were almost always used alongside Chinese characters to record village activities, local regulations, geographical records, deity genealogies, family genealogies, bookkeeping, petitions, contracts, etc. Alongside Chinese characters, Nôm also appeared in couplets, horizontal plaques, stone steles, and bronze bells in communal houses, temples, and shrines. There was even a poetic genre highly favored by commoner Confucian scholars, called "hát nói" (a style in ca trù singing), in which purely Nôm lyrics in Vietnamese were often interspersed with a few Chinese-character phrases.
(b) Nôm characters were also effectively used in the transcription of texts and the dissemination of written culture. For example:
- The classical scriptures of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism in Chinese could be translated into Nôm in two ways: either by summarizing the main ideas and converting them into Nôm verse for easier dissemination (such as Luận ngữ thích nghĩa ca, a Nôm lục bát poetic rendition of the Analects in 20 chapters); or by directly translating each Chinese sentence into Nôm (such as Thi kinh giải âm, which translated the entire collection of over 300 poems in the Book of Songs into Nôm). Some texts from Western languages were also sometimes abridged and translated into Nôm prose, such as Các Thánh truyện (1646), edited by Jeronijimo Maijorica (a 12-volume work, with 11 volumes still extant, totaling 1,672 pages).
- Similarly, some Chinese prose works by Vietnamese authors were later transcribed into Nôm prose through direct sentence-by-sentence translation. A notable example is the "annotated version" traditionally attributed to Nguyễn Thế Nghi (late 16th to early 17th century) for Nguyễn Dữ's Truyền kỳ mạn lục (mid-16th century), as well as the Nôm translation found in Cổ Châu Phật bản hạnh ngữ lục (16th century), with an extant engraved copy still preserved at Dâu Pagoda.
- There was also a series of reference books in which Nôm was used to explain the meanings of Chinese characters, often compiled in verse. By using these books, people could simultaneously learn both Chinese and Nôm. Some notable works of this type include Chỉ nam ngọc âm giải nghĩa (14th and 17th centuries), Tam thiên tự giải âm by Ngô Thì Sĩ (18th century), Nhật dụng thường đàm by Phạm Đình Hổ (18th century), Tự học giải nghĩa ca from the reign of Tự Đức (19th century), and Đại Nam quốc ngữ by Nguyễn Văn San (19th century), etc.
It is important to note that both Chinese and Nôm characters in Vietnam, whether used independently or in combination, were shaped using the same traditional manual methods. The primary methods of inscription included: (a) Handwriting with a brush on paper, fabric, silk, or any writable surface; (b) Carving with knives or chisels onto hard materials like wood, stone, or bronze to create engraved texts (steles, bells, plaques, etc.); (c) Engraving reversed characters onto wooden blocks to create printing plates for mass reproduction on paper. Thanks to this traditional printing method, Vietnamese works in both Chinese and Nôm were widely replicated and disseminated, fostering the development of the Chinese-Nôm literary tradition from the medieval period onward. Even into the early 20th century, many publishers continued to engrave and reprint numerous Hán-Nôm works, which sold well in the contemporary book market.
Additionally, it should be emphasized that from the 11th century onward, when the Vietnamese actively used Chinese characters for their own purposes, they began pronouncing them according to the phonetics of late Tang and early Song China. Over time, this pronunciation gradually diverged from its original homeland, increasingly influenced by Vietnamese phonology. This became known as the Sino-Vietnamese pronunciation. Through this adaptation, both the Chinese language and its script became highly familiar to the Vietnamese, diminishing any sense of it being a "foreign language." Consequently, the emergence of Nôm was never meant to replace Chinese characters but rather to complement them in serving the societal needs of the Vietnamese people, as previously discussed.
From the early 20th century onward, the Latinized Vietnamese script (commonly known as Quốc ngữ) gradually replaced the roles of both Chinese and Nôm in most of their social functions. However, given the deep historical foundation of Hán-Nôm literature, the role of these scripts in preserving and transmitting traditional culture will never fade. For the Vietnamese people today, both Chinese and Nôm characters remain a sacred bridge linking the past with the present and future, playing an enduring role in the cultural life of scholars and ordinary citizens alike.
References
Đào Duy Anh. Chữ Nôm – Nguồn gốc, cấu tạo, diễn biến. NXB Khoa học Xã hội, Hà Nội, 1975.
2. Nguyễn Tài Cẩn. Nguồn gốc và quá trình hình thành cách đọc Hán Việt. NXB Khoa học Xã hội, 1979.
3. Phan Huy Chú. Lịch triều hiến chương loại chí. Manuscript in Chinese characters, 49 volumes. Institute of Hán-Nôm Studies Library (A. 1551/1-8).
4. Trần Văn Giáp. Tìm hiểu kho sách Hán Nôm (Thư tịch chí Việt Nam). Volume I, NXB Văn hoá, Hà Nội, 1984; Volume II, NXB Khoa học Xã hội, Hà Nội, 1990.
5. Nguyễn Quang Hồng (ed.). Văn khắc Hán Nôm Việt Nam (Tuyển chọn và lược thuật). NXB Khoa học Xã hội, 1992.
6. Nguyễn Quang Hồng. “Di sản Hán Nôm nhìn từ góc độ của khoa học ngữ văn.” Tạp chí Hán Nôm, 1987, No. 2.
7. Trần Nghĩa, Francois Gros (eds.). Di sản Hán Nôm Việt Nam (Thư mục đề yếu). Three volumes. NXB Khoa học Xã hội, Hà Nội, 1993.
8. Ngô Đức Thọ (ed.). Các nhà khoa bảng Việt Nam (1075–1919). NXB Văn học, Hà Nội, 1993.
This article by Prof. Nguyễn Quang Hồng was originally presented at the conference commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Society for Chinese Character Culture in Japan, Tokyo, March 1999. It was published in Ngôn ngữ & Đời sống, 1999, No. 5 (43). The author has granted permission for its reproduction on the Digitizing Vietnam website.
There is an urgent need for those working in the field of Hán-Nôm studies to rethink their theoretical approaches and deepen their understanding of the objects they manage and research. Only in this way can a scientific foundation be established to guide, structure, and organize large-scale scientific activities, as well as specific projects and tasks.
In addressing this issue at the outset, we will not explore all aspects and details. Instead, we will focus on the methodology of literary studies, informed by the observable realities in our country. Our goal is to establish broad, essential perspectives on the Hán-Nôm heritage, contributing to the direction and visualization of scientific activities based on Hán-Nôm materials, a vital component of the nation's overall literary heritage.
Cultural heritage in general of a nation or country can encompass many different components and types, from material culture to spiritual culture, from tangible to intangible culture. Among the treasures of the intangible and, potentially, tangible spiritual cultural heritage of a nation, the heritage that carries a literary nature holds an important position.
Hán-Nôm Heritage in the Overall Literary Heritage of the Vietnamese People
Philology, as understood in contemporary science, is the entirety of statements created by humans using language. Once completed and shaped in some way, each statement is referred to as a literary work (shortened to "literature"). Depending on how the material is shaped, literature can be divided into different forms: spoken literature, handwritten literature, printed literature, etc.
When a nation has not yet developed its own writing system for its language and has not borrowed the writing system of another nation, all of its literary works are purely oral. In such a case, its literary heritage can only be oral literature (such as proverbs, folk sayings, ballads, anecdotes, etc.). However, once that nation learns to use writing—whether developing its own or borrowing from another nation—to create written works, that is, texts (văn bản - in the original sense of the word), the spiritual culture of that nation begins to enter a new phase, a phase of having a written tradition (văn hiến - also in the original sense of the term).
It is also important to note that literary works in a nation's literary heritage, whether oral or written, can be created and exist independently (such as proverbs, riddles, folk songs, books, documents, letters, etc.), but they can also accompany other forms of cultural heritage (for example, songs in folk traditions, literary essays, poems, couplets, inscriptions on steles, bells, towers, temples, palaces, etc.).
From the above understanding of literary heritage in general, looking at the practical use of language and writing in Vietnam, we can easily observe that in the entire literary heritage of our country, all types of literature mentioned above are present, including rich and diverse oral literature treasures, as well as collections of texts in Hán characters, Nôm script, Quốc ngữ (Vietnamese alphabet), and many other scripts of different ethnic groups, written by hand and reproduced by manual methods (mainly engraving and woodblock printing), created and passed down by generations of the Vietnamese people.
In terms of types of language and script, the written literary heritage of our country can be differentiated in two steps as follows:
Of course, it is possible that some works may simultaneously use several different languages and writing systems. For example, in the current collection of books at the Institute of Hán-Nôm Studies in Hanoi, there are many works of the "phonetic explanation" and "interpretation" types that translate from Hán into Nôm and even into Quốc ngữ (Vietnamese alphabet), French, etc. For such texts, they must be distinguished and handled specifically depending on the degree and nature of the integration or alternation between the different scripts.
The distinction of the written literary heritage in our country based on the criteria of language and writing systems, as outlined above, is certainly not a purely formal procedure. In fact, it reflects very important historical and cultural factors. In the first step, when differentiating between texts written in the Latin alphabet (A) and those written in other systems (B), we are also broadly distinguishing between texts that emerged in modern times as a result of contact with Western civilization (Europe) and those that were created through interaction with Eastern civilization (Asia), which has been closely linked to the long history of the Vietnamese people from ancient times through the medieval period and into the early decades of the 20th century. In the second step, when distinguishing between texts in the square scripts (Han characters) (B1) and other non-Latin scripts that are not square scripts (B2), we are also recognizing the relationship between this classification and the two distinct cultures the Vietnamese people have absorbed: Chinese civilization (for B1) and Indian civilization (for B2).
At this point, the theoretical understanding of Hán-Nôm Heritage from a literary perspective has become relatively clear. It consists of written works created or contributed to by the Vietnamese people, primarily based on the ancient Han script and the scripts of the Vietnamese people from the square script system (including various types of Nôm). These texts were shaped and reproduced using manual methods (handwriting, carving, woodblock printing, etc.), forming an important part of the overall written heritage of the Vietnamese people.
Regarding the actual collection of Hán-Nôm texts we currently have, the theoretical framework mentioned above is appropriate and encompasses most of the phenomena that are considered Hán-Nôm heritage. Of course, there may be some exceptional cases where the formation and transmission of texts carry special "fates."
Hán-Nôm heritage is primarily a cultural and historical category. Therefore, not every text or phenomenon involving Hán or Nôm characters is considered Hán-Nôm heritage. The definition presented above excludes certain Hán-Nôm phenomena, mainly referring to texts in Han and Nôm that were written by contemporary Vietnamese people in particular circumstances (and possibly even by foreigners writing about Vietnam). Even though these Hán-Nôm texts may not hold inherent literary value from a purely literary perspective, they still may be important. Thus, when necessary, the concept of "Hán-Nôm Heritage" must be distinguished from all general Hán-Nôm phenomena. However, this distinction is not intended to exclude anything from our scope of management and study; rather, it serves to help us process Hán-Nôm materials more appropriately in our collection and research efforts.
2. Hán-Nôm Literature and Classical Vietnamese Literature
As we have outlined above, Hán-Nôm heritage is an important component of the overall literary heritage of the Vietnamese people. Engaging with Hán-Nôm heritage also means engaging with the intellect and heart of countless generations of our ancestors across almost every aspect of life in our society in the past. Therefore, Hán-Nôm heritage and Hán-Nôm materials can simultaneously serve as objects of study for many different scientific fields. Through Hán-Nôm materials, researchers in fields such as philosophy, history, ethnology, sociology, geography, agriculture, biology, medicine, mathematics, etc., can find essential information, key evidence, and suitable subjects for their research. However, first and foremost, alongside the interest of specialists in these various fields (from social sciences to natural sciences), Hán-Nôm materials need to be processed through the scholarly lens of researchers in the field of Classical Vietnamese Literature.
Philology, as understood today, is the science that studies all linguistic phenomena in all their forms of expression, and the dialectical-historical relationship between the formal elements and the content of literary works.
Here, we will not delve into all aspects of this definition but will highlight a few key points: First, one should avoid the tendency to focus solely on literary works: literary studies are concerned with all forms of language, including scientific language, official documents, letters, books, records, news, etc. Second, the science of philology does not delve into the specialized content values transmitted by language (as this is the task of other scientific fields) but primarily focuses on the linguistic and written aspects of language, including the interpretation of semantic content in its dialectical and historical relationship with the formal elements (language, script, and modes of representation) of the text.
Sometimes, people simplify the notion of literary studies as merely a shorthand or combination of linguistics and literature. In reality, the scope of the term "literary studies" (from the Greek philologié) has varied throughout the history of science from ancient times to the present. It was not until the late 19th and early 20th centuries that this term began to be associated not only with linguistics (as 19th-century philologists imagined) but also with the study of literature. It is important to note that the reason literary studies remain within the scope of philology is not because they focus on the artistic nature or the intellectual-aesthetic content of a work (which is more appropriate to the field of art sciences), but because they primarily concern the linguistic and written aspects of the work, the material in words and characters shaped by the hand of the author—the literary artist. It is at this second level that literature is closely related to linguistics, which forms the core of literary studies in general. However, while literature examines and describes artistic works and their aesthetic qualities, linguistics still primarily focuses on linguistic units and their systems as tools for expressing human thought and communication across all fields of social activity. Although linguistics (and related fields like paleography) occupies a very important position, it cannot replace or fulfill all the tasks assigned to other specialized areas of literary studies, such as textual criticism, bibliology, etc., which focus on the texts themselves, including works from all fields.
From the general perspective of literary studies outlined above, let's return to the Hán-Nôm heritage of our country. It is indeed a highly rich and diverse object of study for the classical Vietnamese literature field. Based on the demands of our ideological-cultural revolution and the scientific-technological revolution, in accordance with the objective laws of the development of social sciences, from the Hán-Nôm material treasure, we can establish a series of specialized literary studies that focus on Hán-Nôm phenomena with different subjects and tasks. Aside from what already falls under the scope of historical linguistics or classical Vietnamese literature, which are well known, we believe that within the domain of Hán-Nôm literary studies, three prominent subfields stand out:
(1) Hán-Nôm Paleography: This involves the study of Chinese characters and especially Nôm characters in the Hán-Nôm texts of the Vietnamese people. It looks into the history of their formation and development, describes and compares these Nôm systems, and establishes connections between them and other square-script systems in the region. This field addresses theoretical and technical issues in compiling Han and Nôm dictionaries, creating Hán-Nôm reference materials according to the square-script systems, and more.
(2) Hán-Nôm Textual Studies: This field comprehensively studies the history and preservation of Hán-Nôm texts. It investigates both general issues and specific ones related to the formation, reproduction, preservation, and transmission of Hán-Nôm texts. It may involve in-depth research on the texts of a particular work or the works of a particular author, or a range of works and authors from the same period or from different historical periods. It addresses general and specific issues in dealing with Hán-Nôm texts (such as authentication, editing, annotation, transliteration, and translation) for the purposes of publication and use.
(3) Hán-Nôm Bibliography: This area focuses on classifying and systematizing Hán-Nôm texts and works. It identifies the characteristics of each text type, both in terms of content and form. It examines and establishes methods for text systematization. It addresses general and specific issues in constructing collections of texts and works, Hán-Nôm reference tables, and more. This is the field that inherits traditional bibliography and cataloging, while also laying the foundation for modernizing (including computerizing) Hán-Nôm documentary information work.
Thus, each of the aforementioned subfields has its own distinct research subjects and tasks, and within each subfield, one can delve into different aspects. This defines the trend of specialization for researchers in the field of Hán-Nôm studies. On the other hand, Hán-Nôm literary studies subfields are not, and cannot be, completely isolated from one another. They are always closely interconnected and support each other. This close relationship between the subfields of Hán-Nôm literary studies is not only evident when conducting basic research but also in the design and implementation of applied projects such as the compilation of reference books (for example, creating reference tables for texts and works, authors, compiling Han and Nôm dictionaries, vocabulary collections for personal names, place names, official titles, honorifics in Hán-Nôm materials, etc.) and in constructing collections and anthologies of works, as well as in the annotation, transliteration, translation, and introduction of Hán-Nôm works. These projects often reflect a comprehensive integration of research achievements from multiple specializations within the Hán-Nôm field, as well as achievements from other scientific disciplines (not only in the social sciences and humanities but also in natural sciences and technology).
No scientific discipline can emerge and develop in isolation, fully closed off from other fields of science, both domestically and globally. The field of Hán-Nôm literary studies is no exception to this general scientific rule. Scholars of Hán-Nôm literary studies cannot avoid being influenced by and incorporating the achievements and methods of other scientific fields, particularly history (both Vietnamese and Chinese history), linguistics (the history of Vietnamese and Chinese languages), and all necessary knowledge regarding the historical and cultural relationships between the peoples of the region. It should be emphasized that due to the prominence of Chinese civilization in East Asia during ancient and medieval times, Chinese characters and Classical Chinese (literary Chinese) have been present in the classical literary traditions of many peoples in the region. This has posed common issues for classical literary studies in many countries in the region (Vietnam, North Korea – South Korea, Mongolia, Japan, etc.), which requires us to pay attention to and contribute to research in this area. Additionally, scholars of Hán-Nôm literary studies must regularly engage with and equip themselves with necessary knowledge of general literary studies, as well as theories of paleography, textual studies, bibliography, information studies, etc., depending on their specific specialization. Conversely, through their continuous efforts in their specialized field and their engagement with other scientific disciplines, scholars of Hán-Nôm literary studies can also make significant contributions to the achievements and progress of related scientific fields. Here, there is nothing that prevents a talented scholar of Hán-Nôm literary studies from simultaneously being an expert in other scientific areas.
As presented in the introduction of this article, the Hán-Nôm heritage is a key part, but not the entirety, of the literary heritage of the various ethnic groups in Vietnam. Therefore, while Hán-Nôm literary studies are foundational, they still do not encompass the whole of classical Vietnamese literary studies. To have a comprehensive understanding of classical Vietnamese literary studies, we need a team of scholars who specialize in studying other literary heritages from various ethnic groups across our country, particularly ancient texts written in scripts that are neither part of the square character Han system nor the Latin script, such as the classical scripts of the Thai, Cham, and Khmer peoples in Vietnam, etc. It must be recognized that researching these ancient script collections is not only consistent with the internal logic of the development of literary studies in our country but, first and foremost, is an urgent demand in the implementation of our state's ethnic and cultural policies.
Thus, alongside the Hán-Nôm heritage, classical Vietnamese literary studies also have another rich and diverse research subject. However, the general overview of the scientific subfields within the study of these ancient scripts can still be conceptualized in a manner similar to the way we have described Hán-Nôm heritage. That is, we also identify prominent subfields such as paleography, textual studies, and bibliology, etc. The key difference from Hán-Nôm literary studies is that when engaging with the collections of texts in ancient Thai, Cham, Khmer scripts, etc., we are simultaneously encountering entirely different forms of language and writing systems, which are rooted in the cultural and historical relationships between the ethnic groups of our country and neighboring countries in the region, from the west of the Annamite Range to India. This is where one of the world's most brilliant ancient and medieval civilizations was born, alongside those of Egypt, Greece, and China—the Indian civilization, with its Sanskrit writing system.
Footnotes:
This article by Professor. Nguyễn Quang Hồng was published in Hán Nôm Journal No. 2, Hanoi, 1987, and later reprinted in the book Hán Nôm Journal – 100 Selected Articles by the Institute of Hán Nôm Studies, Hanoi, 2000, as well as in a few other anthologies. We have obtained permission from the author to reprint it on the website Digitizing Vietnam.
(1) See Ju. V. Rozhdestvensky, Vvedenie v obshuju filologiju (Introduction to General Philology), "Vyshaja shkola" Publishing, Moscow, 1979 (in Russian).
(2) It is also possible that some ethnic nationalities in this region may have independently created their own scripts without clear influence from any specific culture, though such cases are very rare. See I.J. Gelb, A Study of Writing, "Raduga" Publishing, Moscow, 1982, p. 258, note 30 (in Russian).
(3) An interesting example of this type is the Hán văn Hồng Nghệ An phú written by revolutionary Lê Hồng Phong while he was imprisoned in Côn Đảo. Lacking paper and pen, Lê Hồng Phong composed it by thinking of each line and reciting it aloud for another prisoner to memorize according to the Hán-Việt pronunciation. Over 40 years later, the comrade transcribed the entire text for Cụ Thạch Can to record in Quốc ngữ and publish in Hán Nôm Studies Journal, No. 1, 1985.
(4) The general spirit derived from Professor Ju. V. Rozhdestvensky’s views on philology (in the referenced work) form the basis for the definition of literary studies presented here.
(5) The term "classical" here does not oppose "modern" but refers to the subject of research: texts and literary works formed in the past and transmitted to the present.
(6) The term thư tịch học (bibliology) may not be entirely suitable, as this term (which is closely associated with the concept of books) does not encompass all the different types of texts and research tasks being considered here.