Writing in Vietnam

[@TrueSchwar]

I sincerely apologize for my butchering of Vietnamese pronunciation.

[@deacudaniel1635]

There are extremely few foreigners who can pronunce Vietnamese at a decent level.

[@thatvietguyonline]

Your pronunciation is decent good, no worries

[@-xeno-5802]

@@deacudaniel1635well thanks dude. I am Vietnamese but I only speak English and I'm trying to learn Vietnamese language. So I'll never be perfect :(

[@Hwelhos]

​@@-xeno-5802 You can do it

[@nyctophiliav]

may i know what latin alphabet font you use in this video?

[@セキひろあき]

Never thought that Chu Nom was a mixed script system. I felt that Chu Nom characters are unnecessarily complicated due to their structure but now I've come to appreciate them more. This is by far the best video that explains Vietnamese characters I've ever seen.

[@TrueSchwar]

Thanks! Also, a weird thought isn’t? That Chu Nom, which looks and acts like Chinese Characters, is considered separate from Chinese characters.

[@deacudaniel1635]

@@TrueSchwar It's more like Vietnamese reinventing Chinese characters than a separate writing systems.

[@TrueSchwar]

@@deacudaniel1635 and yet linguists consider it a nixed style script.

[@thatvietguyonline]

The effort and purpose for inventing Chu Nom was for the Kings and their officials to understand within Dai Viet and not for Ancient China imperial’s ambassadors to understand what they wrote in books and scripts

[@trien30]

Chữ Nôm script was only used for native Vietnamese words. The Chữ Hán script used modern Chinese words. The older Chữ Nho script used Classical/Ancient Chinese language. Hán-Nôm script is the mixed script using Modern Chinese and Nôm script via Sino-Vietnamese and Modern Vietnamese vocabulary.

[@lawrencebautista1]

Imagine if Chu Han and Chu Nom have been preserved and still being used in Vietnam today. Vietnamese language would have been the most unique among the CJKV languages for having invented their own set of characters which look like Chinese but dont exist in Chinese vocabulary, and not like Hangul, Katakana and Hiragana which have been invented from scratch. There is a handwriting of revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh displayed in a museum in Hanoi where he used a unique mixed script writing combining the modern Chu Quoc Ngu and Chu Han and Chu Nom. Imagine if this form is used in Vietnam today. This would have been more complicated than the Japanese mixed script of Katakana, Hiragana and Kanji.

[@damian_madmansnest]

No it won’t. Sawndip that has been used by Zhuang people is based on same principles.

[@crafting9735]

no one cares@@damian_madmansnest

[@damian_madmansnest]

​@@crafting9735 i am very sorry that you don’t care about Sawndip while at the same time care to tell me about it. however, i advice you to only ever speak on behalf of yourself, and never on behalf of everyone, lest you make a fool of yourself.

[@crafting9735]

he was talking about CKVJ's scripts which is Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Japanese, I just want to say that you are off topic because talking about Zhuang language so no one cares@@damian_madmansnest

[@damian_madmansnest]

@@crafting9735 Thanks for your clarification. However, I believe ‘Chinese’ in CJKV should not be understood in a narrow sense as referring to Han ethnicity, but rather broadly as referring to Chinese culture, so all characters that originate from and share principles of Chinese writing system should be classified as CJKV. It would be plain stupid to not consider Sawndip as part of CJKV characters because the very characters partly overlap with both Hanzi and Chu Nom. This view is probably shared by the Unicode Foundation that places Sawndip within CJK Unified Ideographs, just like Chu Nom. And also politically Guangxi is currently part of China so Sawndip is one of the Chinese writing systems in this sense as well.

[@deacudaniel1635]

Regarding why Vietnamese was able to adopt Latin alphabet and totally replace Chinese-based scripts, I think the 2 main reasons are: -Vietnam was the only Sinosphere country whose territory was entirely conquered by a Western power, so naturally the French needed to force the Latin script upon Vietnamese and abolish Chinese based script in order to better keep such a large territory under control. -Vietnamese has a much more diverse phonological system, which means much fewer homophones than Chinese and Japanese so using a purely phonetic writing system works just fine in Vietnamese, unlike most of the other Sinosphere languages where logographic script is needed to distinguish between homophones.

[@Liggliluff]

You do the homophones argument. But how do people speak with eachother? People don't speak in logographs, people speak with phones, homophones included.

[@deacudaniel1635]

@@Liggliluff Actually, the problem is more complex than that.In the spoken language, they use all kinds of methods to provide more context to express their ideas more clearly, such as using compound words and longer sentences, while in written form, these languages tend to be more concise so they use a logographic script to differentiate between homophones.Moreover, this is not my whole argument, just one aspect that should be noted.It's mostly political and cultural reasons, but also linguistic reasons.

[@deacudaniel1635]

Another aspect that should be added is the replacing of Chinese with the Latin script meant for the Vietnamese more cultural independence from China, given the fact that they were under Chinese rule for more than a thousand years.Another example is Korea, that wasn't under Chinese rule for that long, but still has a large tendency to abandon Hanja and only use Hangul due to their people's desire to remove Chinese influence from their culture.

[@DraconicA5]

@@Liggliluff It's called Homonyms. Every language has it.

[@JS-ih7lu]

@@deacudaniel1635Koreans removed Hanja after WWII because were trying to remove Japanese influence from their language, and the Japanese happened to use Kanji. Chinese characters were just collateral damage.

[@VicTheFigGuy]

Interesting video. I think why Chu Quoc Ngu was readily embraced because it does a much better job in capturing native Vietnamese as a spoken language with a system that is more comprehensive and consistent. I moved to the US when I was 7. After I self taught myself how the alphabet and the basic writing work, I was able to write and read Vietnamese easily. I listened to a lecture given by a Vietnamese linguist researcher and at pne point he said that Vietnamese had to somewhat sacrifice some of the actual spoken sound even when using Chu Nom because the characters simply couldn't capture it which actually led to quite a bit of changes in native spoken language. Words with two sounds often simplified down to one. I think an example used was something like Trời (sky/heaven) was originally more like Blời. The "B" and "L" making the "Buh" "Luh" sound. Another reason is that Vietnamese has been fighting for complete independence from China from up north for millennium now which sought to assimilate and erase Vietnamese cultural identity. There are historical records of Vietnamese kings and emperors in the past banning certain things they deemed Chinese in attempt to regain cultural distinction. So I think when Chu Quoc Ngu was developed, the elites pushed for the adoption of CQG not only because it better capture the spoken language but also that it would be one very significant thing in their effort to be recognized as a distinct culture from China. That and I think it helps improve literacy to the mass.

[@scurly0792]

This has become my new favourite channel, I've been looking for a video on Vietnamese linguistics and this had explanations for so many things I was wondering about. Really looking forward to future videos

[@b_rginho]

been waiting for this video since I watched the one about hanja/kanji, as I love the vietnamese language. keep up the great work, man.

[@deacudaniel1635]

Finally your new linguistic video! The content is so fascinating and well explained! Btw the method used for creating Chu Nom characters for words with consonant clusters in Vietnamese looks somehow like the Chinese 反切 spelling from their ancient rhyme books. Now you covered the whole East Asia except China, so maybe you will also talk about history of writing in China in a future video?

[@TrueSchwar]

Maybe :)

[@ChristianJiang]

Super interesting! I’m sure you’d love Tangut characters too, as well as the Khitan script. Truly interesting stuff!

[@bendiscovers]

Amazing, you made it sound understandable and interesting, without being overly complex. Thks a lot!

[@3.saar.a]

0:12 it’s worth keeping in mind that most of the history of anything actually happened way before modern country borders took form.

[@gunjchowwiwat8357]

2:48 just some minor correction here. cat small ate apple red แมว ตัวเล็ก กิน แอปเปิ้ล​ แดง แล้ว แล้ว basically it is '了' ได้ came form '得'

[@lynnchance8219]

2:02 This is kind of incorrect. The Mongols tried to use the ʼPhags-pa script as a unified script for the written languages within their empire during Kublai Khan's rein and the following century of Yuan dynasty.

[@Liggliluff]

It's also going to be a pushback from phonetic writing when the idea that "if you write these languages phonetically, due to homophones, things will be ambiguous", which doesn't make sense, since then people can't speak with eachother, since that is ambiguous. Another stupid reason is "you can't write tones in Latin script", which is also false.

[@moonmissy]

I'm Vietnamese with knowledge on these developments in Vietnamese language. The reason why Vietnam adopted Chữ Nôm because fundamentally, Chinese writing doesn't make sense for the average person. Think about Cantonese where they write one way (according to Mandarin speaking language) and speak another way that is totally different from the writing system. It's like speaking Welsch but using latin in your writing before English writing system was developed. There just aren't any "regular"spoken words that Vietnamese people use in daily life reflected in the writing. Therefore the development of Chữ Nôm, which was meant to reflect the spoken language in writing. When the French introduced the alphabet and phonetics system (Alexander de Rhodes), the elites in Vietnam embraced it for three reasons: 1) easier to promote universal literacy 2) the new writing system better reflect what is spoken 3) Independence of culture from thousands of years of Chinese rule. Although the new phonetic writing system is based on French/Latin alphabet, that is the only similarity, it is nothing like any of the European language in usage. It still has Chinese influences embued with Vietnamese culture context. Vietnam history is plagued with constantly repelling invaders from the north, 4000 years of culture and war/colonial history. Unlike Koread, Vietnamese kings often claimed independence from China, not as a vassal (thus the Vietnamese emperors wore yellow robes unlike Korean kings). Vietnam was more concerned with the Chinese invading them and making them a province than the French colonial rule. The French wants Vietnam's natural resources, leaving puppet kings and much of the culture intact. The Chinese, often erases all the cultural aspect and tries to assimilate Vietnam into the larger whole. It's often mentioned in Vietnamese history books that everytime the Chinese conquered Vietnam, they enslaved the men and make babies with women. It's ethnic cleansing. That is why many Vietnamese last names can be written in Chinese and exist in Chinese language, because they're Chinese last names. As a child growing up in Vietnam, by grade two, after learning the phonetic system, I could read adult books (sounding out all the words) which I might not know what it meant. So learning the language was super fast because it is inline with what is used daily. So with a grade 4 education, I basically taught myself vietnamese after moving to Canada by reading more books and talking to elders. I now write and read vietnamese fluently at the university level.

[@thatvietguyonline]

Interesting story of yours how you self taught Vietnamese bro, kudos

[@columbus8myhw]

You should have mentioned that chữ Quốc ngữ uses Portuguese spelling conventions, not French spelling conventions. The French would have used 'gn' instead of 'nh', for example. Also - why didn't Cambodia and Laos, which were also under French rule, adopt the Latin alphabet?

[@Suite_annamite]

Indeed, but it was the Parisian dialect which became standard French which uses the "gn", as a nod with it's Italian equivalent. Because the written form of southern dialects such as Occitan and Provençal also spells it "nh" just like Portuguese. And since I recall seeing other examples of spellings where contemporary written Vietnamese may have taken hints, it is, therefore, quite possible that the Vietnamese "chữ Quốc ngữ" was inspired by both Portuguese as well as Occitan or Provençal.

[@fannyalbi9040]

ya y cambodia n laos didn’t adopt latin? because vietnamese has stronger inferior complex or stockholm syndrome is more severe?

[@meigyokuthmn]

Cambodia and Laos already had their version of alphabet writing system so no need for Latin characters.

[@columbus8myhw]

@@meigyokuthmn You could say the same about the Philippines

[@lovelylavenderr]

I think an interesting video would be explaining how even though Vietnamese and Khmer are in the same language family and are pretty close, why Khmer created a writing script similar in style to Lao or Thai.

[@TrueSchwar]

Well the Khmer writing system comes from the same source as Thai and Lao, the Pallavas script, which in turn is descended from Brahmi. This script spread to the region alongside Buddhism as well as general East Indian/Tamil influence on the region. Vietnam however, didn't come under this influence to the same extent, as they were closer and more influenced by the Sino-Sphere. I’ll look into it. If there’s enough stuff there for a video, maybe. Might just be a short however.

[@dayalasingh5853]

As a complete outsider to the Chinese character derived scripts just based off morphology it seems like a standardized chu nom could've been even better than they were for Korean or Japanese, if Korea and Japan made it work (at some point) then Chu Nom definitely seems viable to me.

[@MinecraftMasterNo1]

If you visit Hanoi, you will find a small monument dedicated to 2 decades of anti-American resistance. Nearby, you will find a slightly larger monument dedicated to 2 centuries of anti-French resistance. And close to that, you will find a massive monument dedicated to 2 millennia of anti-Chinese resistance. It is hard to state how much disdain there is for China in Vietnam. Abandoning Chinese characters as soon as a viable alternative presented itself was an obvious choice.

[@Liggliluff]

Hasn't Korea moved away from Chinese characters completely, or near-completely by this point?

[@TrueSchwar]

I went over that in a past video, but kind of? They definitely don't use Hanja in everyday writing, but Hanja is still an aspect of functional life in Korea. In Vietnam, from my understanding, it's been relegated to cultural significance, but not functional. Unless you study Han Nom at Hanoi.

[@vytah]

You can still encounter sporadic hanja in Korean texts, usually as either a disambiguation or an abbreviation. I checked Chosun Ilbo's webpage and it has headlines like: 中, 마이크론 제재는 삼성·SK하이닉스에 보내는 경고 한미일, 對잠수함·수색구조훈련 돌입... “北수중 핵공격 대응”. 한동훈, 뜬금 애창곡 질문에 “윤도현 아니다”... 野, 애모 읊은 이유 테슬라는 美서 최다 판매...... 현대차는 곧 보조금도 끊긴다 So at least in that publication, a quarter of headlines contain hanja. 中 is clearly an abbreviation, not sure about the others. The South Korean penal code contains this: 범죄의 성질 및 죄상(罪狀) - in this case it's a disambiguation. Students study hanja at school in both North and South Korea, although I don't know how universal it is.

[@thatvietguyonline]

In Vietnam, mass education now is in Modern Vietnamese Chu Quoc Ngu for decades & generations now so basically only few old peoples (mostly in the North) and those who take classes in HanNom or Mandarin/Japanese language classes can read the HanZi

[@LongNguyen-kq5ou]

Chữ Nôm is very difficult for people to learn chữ Quốc Ngữ is easy for people to learn

[@thatvietguyonline]

Your video presentation and voice over are very similar to the ones on a KZbin channel called “Keith”, which confused me both of you might the same 😊❤ Thanks for the work

[@gkheng]

4:28 i think bahasa melayu, which is part of Austroasiatic lang, is bulan too

[@Imanimayambhante]

I think it might be a loanword from Kra-Dai languages. Since Proto-Tai word for moon is *ɓlɯənA and Pre-Proto-Tai could be something like *ɓɯ.lan > *ɓə.lɯan which is from Proto-Kra-Dai *bulan, because at that time northern Vietnam, Gangxi, and Guangdong were also the land of Kra-Dai speakers (I guess might be the majority but not the ruling-governing class). And yes, I believe in Austro-Tai hypothesis that Kra-Dai and Austronesian shared the same ancestor, we have a lot in common. but Kra-Dai moved inland and had been contacted with Chinese for thousands of years making tonogenesis, iambic stress > monosyllabization. that’s why you see some words from our languages similar to Austronesian languages. (Bahasa Melayu is not Austroasiatic but Austronesian)

[@Imanimayambhante]

Examples Proto-Austronesian - Proto-Tai - Thai *qudip - *C̥.dipD - ดิบ dip *mat͡saj - *p.ta:jA - ตาย taːj *nipən - *wanA - ฟัน fan *sapuj - *wɤjA - ไฟ faj *(qa)lima - *mwɯːA - มือ mɯː *bulaʎ - *ɓlɯənA - เดือน dɯən *daʎum - *C̬.namC - น้ำ naːm *manuk - *C̬.nokD - นก nok *qətut - *k.tɤtD - ตด tot *tidəm - *C̥.damA - ดำ dam Numbers comparison with Kra languages Proto-Austronesian - Ecun Buyang - Laha Ung *əɕa - pi - cam *dusa - θa - sa *təlu - tu - tu *səpat - pa - pɑ *lima - ma - mɑ *ənəm - nam - dɐm *pitu - tu - tʰo *walu - maðu - mahu *siwa - va - sowa *puluq - put - pɤt

[@HastonedNguyen]

Thank you for your video. There are still unresolved things relating to Vietnamese language both spoken & writing. In the past, even when Vietnamese used the so-called Han characters for writing, they pronounced them differently than the Mandarin. Also, they called them Chữ Nho字儒. Why called these characters “Chữ Nho 字儒”? The term “Chinese or Han characters漢字” has emerged in Vietnam recently since 1950-1960 compared to the thousands-year old term “Chữ Nho 字儒”. Look at the linkage in Vietnamese: Nho儒 = Nhỏ (small), = Nhã (elegant), = Nhân (Human), = Nhu (gentle, necessary). Therefore, Chữ Nho 字儒 means the writing created by the people who possess those qualities & we consider them the Sages. In short, “Chữ Nho 字儒” is the writing system of the Sages. Why? because for the same thing, the voices or spoken sounds are many while the words are limited. Therefore, the Viet’s sages have selected just a few best or most abstract voices & used “Chữ Nho 字儒” for them so that they could express the most abstractive & wise ideas through the Classics, given the limited writing material thousands of years ago. For example: The voice THẢ (speak) is related to THÍT (keep silent); THẦM-THÌ (whisper) & THÓI (speak). The voice THÓI in turn is related to: THIN (keep silent); THỦ-THỈ (whisper) & THỐT (speak). THỐT leads to the voices: THINH (keep silent), THẼ-THỌT (whisper) & THUYẾT 說 (Speak at length or discuss). All the above voices express various kinds or nuances of “Speaking” starting with T but only the last one THUYẾT was selected & is written 說 (Speak at length). Therefore, to the Vietnamese “Chữ Nho 字儒” is sacred but also limited, lacking the diversity & nuances compared to the daily voice, that is so alive & changes continuously. In addition, sticking to “Chữ Nho 字儒” alone is not enough as many tones & voices would not be reserved. That is why alongside “Chữ Nho 字儒”, Viet people has developed Chữ Nôm (𡨸喃) that the Chinese can’t understand, then & now. Chữ Nôm’s (𡨸喃) capability to capture all the tones & voices in Vietnamese has played a decisive role for the Portuguese priests, Francisco de Pina, S.J.(1585 / 1586- 1625, the key contributor), Gaspar do Amaral, S.J. (1594-1646), António Barbosa, S.J. (1594-1647) & French, Alexandre de Rhodes, S.J. (1593-1660) to create & develop the Latin-based writing that Vietnamese use today. Without Chữ Nôm (𡨸喃), the priests would not be able to complete their works within such a record short time period of just about 30-40 years & with the very limited resources. The key thing here is that: Can anyone else explain the root of the word THUYẾT 說 (Speak at length) like above that explains not only its meaning, but also its pronunciation & its developments from “silence” to “whisper” to “speak” & finally “speak at length”, similar to the 5 actions in the Yin Yang 5 Actions theory (Compared to the word THUYẾT 說 etymology in Mandarin: The word 說 pronounces shuō & other pronunciations don’t exist. It means Speak, talk, say, scold. It is formed from mouth-speak (讠)訁 yán and mouth-speaking (兑)兌 duì (simp 说)).

[@daisybrain9423]

I forgot that Mongol joke existed. I haven't heard it in so long. Gave me a good laugh :P

[@Pakanahymni]

Really interesting. You might want to look up the pronunciation of "psyche", I think I heard you pronounce it as a monosyllabic. Maybe that was just a nod to these monosyllabic languages of east Asia.

[@_thehandsomefrog_4825]

2:02 How the HELL is there a JJK reference here??? (That's Todo's quote)

[@TrueSchwar]

??? Except for the mongols is meant to be a Crash Course World History reference. Where does it appear in JJK

[@_thehandsomefrog_4825]

@TrueSchwar First of all, I didn't expect you to reply lol. Assume that you don't watch anime or read manga, Jujutsu Kaisen or JJK is a manga series written and illustrated by Gege Akutami, it has an anime adaptation by studio MAPPA. The quote "We are the exception" appear in chapter 126 in the manga and episode 20 "Right and Wrong part 3" in the anime, said by the character Aoi Todo when he came to save Yuju Itadori, the main character. I swear I'm not a JJK nerd I just got caught off-guard by that and want to mess with y'all 😭

[@TrueSchwar]

Unfortunately, you’ve achieved the requirements for my domain expansion, “rhotic onslaught”!

[@_thehandsomefrog_4825]

@@TrueSchwar Dawg you made me yap about JJK for absolutely no reason at all😭😭. Oh well, just gonna say: "Chúc bạn có một Giáng sinh an con mợ nó lành thằng cờ hó tri thức tuyệt vời đụ mé" (Yeah Google Translate ain't gonna help you 😈)

[@Andy-bb2eo]

因为使用象形文字，所以口语也会跟随文字变成单音节，因为语音很少有变换，所以现在我们如果用表音文字，那么所有的字都会变成一个样子，难以阅读识别。越南能改成拼音文字真是不能理解。

[@samhaine6804]

IMHO what they did to vietnamese orthography was perhaps the worst colonial crime france ever commited

[@thatvietguyonline]

Uhmmm… yes and no actually, without the influence of the western colonial period there prolly be a lower rate of national literacy now, people in rural places still can’t read and write, Vietnam would still be a REALLY poor country, since the CHU QUOC NGU been born, we are able to work and trade better, economic growth and have better life quality. So it’s a debatable argument actually

[@meigyokuthmn]

This writing system dated back to 17th century, way before the France.

[@siyacer]

​@@meigyokuthmnhe's talking about that latin scripy

[@d.b.2215]

​@@siyacerThe Latin alphabet for Vietnamese was born in the 17th century. If you didn't know that, please refrain from joining discussions

[@siyacer]

@@d.b.2215 are you so pretentious as to not be able to understand text without having context spoonfed to you? yes, the vietnamese latin alphabet was created in the 17th century by Portuguese missionaries, this is a widely known fact. however, it wasn't until the early 20th century that chu nom fell out of favor completely and was replaced by the latin alphabet, an act committed by the *French Colonial Government*. if you do not even understand Vietnam's basic history, do not join the discussion.

[@eleftheriaethanatos]

İ believe a Perso-Arabic based script for Vietnamese would look really nice.

[@arielp7582]

No it wouldn't. Vietnamese has too many vowels for a script that only has 3 vowel symbols

[@Joshua_Nguyen0630]

Vietnamese Latin alphabets have nothing to do with french nor colonialism, it was created long before any french soldiers set foot in Vietnam, by Portuguese and Vietnamese christians. Im a Viet Christian and gladly Vietnam got rid of its reactionary Confucian, colonial Chinese and French pasts.

[@lucheim]

The Mongols! 🏇🐎🏇🐎🏇

[@fariesz6786]

nice mongoltage reference

[@dylanplumley280]

It sucks that they adopted the latin alphabet. They should create a new writing system and create something unique.

[@2248hgkir]

The wheel does not need to be reinvented :)

[@bkcalvine]

The butchering of the pronunciation is rough.

[@Joshua_Nguyen0630]

At first neither I should praise nor thank op to make a video on topic like this. just rushing into every piece of the video,. and it seems that it won't deserve anything better noteworthy but look at it, typical reddit wojak nerd trash white supremacist misinterpretations of Asian aspects of history. At least to say, switching eurocentric to sinocentric view doesn't help it balance but brings more biases. Why didn't Vietnamese write Chinese characters anymore? Well its because two reasons, Vietnamese is an Austroasiatic language probably originated from northeast India and so incompatible to an writing system of a completely different language family , and while China and Vietnam weren't the exact same ethnicity nor nation on maps throughout history, implying that China speaks Chinese and Vietnam speaks Vietnamese are bs. Also many Vietnamese perceive Chinese characters as remnants of Chinese colonialism imposed onto during Chinese rules

[@xemdutup]

propaganda

[@robert-skibelo]

Great video. Just stop using the absurd politically correct and meaningless "BCE". It's BC. Before Christ. There's no such thing as a "common era". Round 8:47 I assume you meant to write "national script" rather than "natial script". And a bit later Portuguese, not Protuguese and propaganda, not propganda. Maybe you should call in a proof-reader before publishing?

[@filipinojalapeno1527]

nobody gets offended by bce or bc. theyre equally valid terms for the same thing