Chữ Hán
Chữ Hán (𡨸漢, literally 'Han characters', Vietnamese pronunciation: [t͡ɕɨ˦ˀ˥ haːn˧˦])[1] is the term for Chinese characters in Vietnamese. Chữ Hán are used to write Literary Chinese (Hán văn; 漢文) and Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary in the Vietnamese language. They were officially used in Vietnam after the Red River Delta region was incorporated into the Han dynasty and continued to be used until the early 20th century (111 BC – 1919 AD) where usage of Literary Chinese was abolished alongside the Confucian court examinations causing chữ Hán to fall into obscurity.
Chữ Hán
Chữ Nho
- 3rd century BC – 20th century AD
- Limited present use
Top-to-bottom, columns from right to left
Chữ Hán can be classified into the traditional classification for Chinese characters, this is called lục thư[39] (六書, Chinese: liùshū), meaning six types of Chinese characters. The characters are largely based on 214 radicals set by the Kangxi Dictionary.[40]
Some chữ Hán characters were simplified into variants of characters that were easier to write, but they are not the same simplified characters used by current-day Chinese. According to Trịnh Khắc Mạnh, when he analysed the early 13th century book, 釋氏寶鼎行持秘旨全章 (Thích thị Bảo đỉnh hành trì bí chỉ toàn chương). He found that the number of character variants is double the number of variants borrowed from China.[47] This means that Vietnamese variant characters may differ from Chinese variants and simplified characters, for example:
Some characters matching Simplified Chinese do exist, but these characters are rare in Vietnamese literature.
There are other variants such as 𭓇 học (variant of 學; ⿳⿰〢⿻丨𰀪冖子) and 𱻊 nghĩa (variant of 義; ⿱𦍌又).[49]
Another prominent example is the character, 𫢋 phật (⿰亻天) which is a common variant of the character 佛 meaning 'Buddha'. It is composed of the radicals, 人 nhân [亻] and 天 thiên, all together to mean 'heavenly person'.[50][51]