Chữ Nôm 𡨸喃

chữ Nôm · from Vietnamese

What is Chữ Nôm?

Chữ Nôm is the historical Vietnamese script that adapted Chinese characters and invented new ones to write native Vietnamese words.

Classical Chinese (chữ Hán) was Vietnam's formal written language, but from around the 13th century writers used Nôm for vernacular literature. The masterpiece The Tale of Kiều by Nguyễn Du was written in Nôm. It was replaced by the Latin-based chữ Quốc ngữ in the 20th century and is now read by few specialists.

Examples

𡨸 chữ (letter, character); 喃 nôm (southern, vernacular); 𠊛 người (person: 人 + 㝵 for sound); Truyện Kiều (The Tale of Kiều)

Kungfucius says: Vietnamese took Chinese characters, then built harder ones. Then switched to the Latin alphabet. Fair enough.