As we all know, in history, with the spread of Chinese culture, Chinese characters have also spread to Vietnam, the Korean Peninsula, Japan and other surrounding areas, becoming a kind of super-national characters that are popular in the "Chinese character cultural circle". But now, only China and Japan are the countries that strictly adopt Chinese characters. On the surface, Viet Nam and the Korean Peninsula have withdrawn from the cultural circle of Chinese characters. Especially in Vietnam, Chinese characters have been abolished for nearly a hundred years, and Latin characters have become the official languages of their country, which is embarrassing.
The spread of "Confucianism"
In 111 BC, the Han army took up the third route and perished in South Vietnam, which was divided into Lingnan in the war at the end of Qin Dynasty. Seven counties were set up in its hometown, among which Jiaozhi, Jiuzhen and Rinan were in today’s Vietnam. At first, the residents here were completely unfamiliar with Central Plains culture. The so-called "where the toes are unified, although the county is located, but the words are different, retranslation is the pass." From the names of counties set in the Western Han Dynasty, we can also see the leopard. Among the 17 counties in Jiaozhi and Jiuzhen County, only Anding belongs to the Chinese name of "Xi Yi Jia Ming", such as "Beidai, Xiyu, Xupu, Wuqie and Wubian", which are obviously transliteration of Chinese characters in the local dialect.
County names of Jiaozhi in the Western Han Dynasty
However, during the long "county period" (from 111 BC to 939 AD, Vietnam called it "the northern period"), groups of Han Chinese moved to Vietnam, including lords, officials, businessmen, craftsmen, old ministers who fell out of power and criminals … "The Xiongwang culture (native to Vietnam) developed to the early AD and seemed to suddenly stagnate. No matter where archaeologists dig their hoes, they find Chinese-style ancient brick tombs all over the country, and the funerary objects are also Chinese-style … "In the Three Kingdoms period, Xu Jing, a celebrity, chose to take a boat from Huiji (now Shaoxing, Zhejiang) to escape the war, and passed through Guangdong and Fujian provinces all the way, but it was a wilderness in his eyes. Only after reaching the intersection of" a vast territory and a large population "can he be regarded as seeing the" land of Han "again.
When the Han people went south, the Chinese style gradually rose. Ren Yan and Xi Guang of the Han Dynasty "established schools in Jiuzhen and Jiaozhi respectively, guiding the classics and righteousness", and Chinese characters were subsequently introduced into Vietnam. At the beginning, Chinese characters were spread in Vietnam to meet the needs of spreading Confucian culture, so Chinese characters were also called "Confucian characters" in Vietnam.
After the Sui Dynasty pioneered the imperial examination to select scholars, Tang inherited the Sui system and passed the imperial examinations such as Jinshi and Mingjing, recruiting talents extensively. In addition to the official schools run by the imperial court in Annan counties, various private schools and township schools have also developed greatly. This played a vital role in the spread of Chinese characters in Annan, so that a "Chinese-Vietnamese sound" was formed in Vietnamese-each Chinese character has a corresponding pronunciation of "Chinese-Vietnamese sound", which of course carries the pronunciation of the Central Plains Chinese in the Tang Dynasty. For example, in the History of the Old Five Dynasties, it was recorded that "in the first year of Kaiping (the back beam), the supervisor of the Department of Heaven said that the word’ E’ was changed to’ Wu’", indicating that the pronunciation of the Central Plains at that time had changed, because the taboo began to pronounce’ E’ as’ Wu’; In the Sino-Vietnamese pronunciation, the pronunciation of "mau" and "vu" is still completely different.
In the Tang Dynasty, the Chinese character attainments of Annam scholars had reached a very high level. Jiang Gongfu, a native of Rinan County, Aizhou (now Anding County, Qinghua Province, Vietnam), was a typical representative of Annam scholars’ highest achievements in the Central Plains Imperial Examination. This person Jinshi and Tang Dezong, when the official to advise adults, with the book door flat chapter. Quantang Wen contains his Advice to the Truth and the incomplete Bai Yun Chun Hai Fu. Jiang Gongfu’s level in Chinese culture can be regarded as the pride of many intellectuals and politicians in the Central Plains, and Vietnamese theorists even respect him as "Annan’s eternal literary Sect".
Jiang Gongfu, "Annam’s Eternal Literati Sect"
An attempt to "whisper words"
In the tenth century, Vietnam stood on its own feet with its border vassals. But at this time, after more than 1000 years of infiltration of China culture, Chinese characters have been deeply rooted in all fields of Vietnamese society. In 1070, the Li Dynasty in Vietnam established the Confucian Temple in Shenglong City. In 1076, the imperial academy was built by the Confucian Temple in the Li Dynasty, which was dedicated to the education of Chinese characters and Chinese culture for the children of royalty and dignitaries. Later, the educational target was gradually expanded, and it was also attended by talented children in cloth. In 1075, Vietnam opened the imperial examination for the first time, and since then it has become an important way to take scholars in the past dynasties. The content, form and organization of the imperial examination are all based on China. In the history of more than 800 years of scientific examination in Vietnam, there are as many as 2,818 scholars.
As the orthodox script of Vietnam’s feudal country, Chinese characters gradually cultivated and improved Vietnam’s academic and literary traditions. Li Taizu’s imperial edict to move the capital is considered to be the earliest existing historical document and written literary work in Vietnam. The famous historical classics such as Li Wenxiu’s Dayue Historical Records, Pan Fuxian’s Dayue Historical Records, and Wu Shilian’s Dayue Historical Records are also written in Chinese characters. It can be said that the history of Vietnam is recorded and handed down by Chinese characters.
Vietnam’s national history "Da Yue Shi Ji Quan Shu"
However, like Japan and the Korean Peninsula, Viet Nam has also encountered a problem in the use of Chinese characters: "The pronunciation of the country is unusual in China", that is, Chinese characters cannot express their language completely and accurately. Japan and Korea solved this problem by developing "Wanye Kana" and "Official Reading" which use Chinese characters as phonetic symbols respectively, and finally formed their own phonetic characters-Hiragana/Katakana and "Xunmin Zhengyin". Vietnam is another way, which is "word nan", which means "the word of the south"
In the 13th century, the word "nan" has been systematized and used in literary works. Hu Jili, the emperor of the Hu Dynasty (1400-1407), once translated "The Book of History without Escape" into Professor Nan’s maid-in-waiting; Nguy?n Hu? of Xishan Dynasty (1771-1792) stipulated that the third test of each subject required candidates to answer with words. From the first half of the 18th century to the first half of the 19th century, with the advent of classical works such as "Ode to a Woman", "Ode to a Palace Complain" and "Biography of Jin Yun Qiao", the literature of Ci Nan reached its peak.
However, Zinan is based on Chinese characters, borrowed from the whole Chinese characters or their radicals, and created by using the methods of pictophonetic sound, knowing and borrowing in Chinese characters. The composition of each character requires one or several Chinese characters, and whether it is compounded by pictophonetic, knowing or borrowing methods, it is mostly read by Chinese pronunciation, such as the word "Wu", which is written as "Nan Wu", with "nam" as the phonetic symbol and "Wu" as the semantic symbol. In fact, this is no different from the "hen" created in early vernacular Chinese and the "wo" made in Guangfu dialect, which is essentially a supplement to Chinese characters. It can even be considered that Chinese characters and word nan are actually just one word, because the structural components of words are exactly the same.
Literary works of word nan
Therefore, to learn Chinese characters, you must first learn Chinese characters. However, compared with Chinese characters, word nan is more difficult to read, write and remember, which makes it impossible for this kind of "southern word" to enter the folk who are not familiar with Chinese characters. As for the elite who were born in the imperial examination and mastered Chinese characters, they were more willing to use Confucian characters, which carried the way of sages. Therefore, the word nan never replaced the position of Chinese characters.
Unintentionally inserted "Mandarin characters"
In fact, as early as a century before the Xishan Dynasty attempted to popularize the word "Nan", another kind of writing which was completely different from Chinese characters (and "Nan") appeared. Two Catholic missionaries from Italy and Portugal came to Da Nang on January 18th, 1615, and established a church, which initiated the western missionaries to preach in Vietnam. These missionaries brought some advanced western knowledge and novel commodities, and knew how to use magical western medicine to cure diseases and exorcise evil spirits, so they were attractive and developed more and more Christians.
In order to spread the "Gospel" of God in East Asia as soon as possible, the early Western missionaries followed the precedent set by the famous Matteo Ricci and actively studied the local culture. However, unlike Matteo Ricci, who took the upper line of scholar-officials, later missionaries were basically illiterate people at the bottom, so they began to record Vietnamese with their own Latin alphabet.
Alexandre de Rhodes, a French missionary, compiled a Vietnamese-Portuguese-Latin Dictionary in 1651, which is regarded as an important symbol of the emergence of Ch Qucn. Du Guangzheng, a Vietnamese priest, came to the conclusion after careful investigation and study: "The current Mandarin characters were jointly created by many Catholic priests who were active in Vietnam in the 17th century (in silent cooperation with some Vietnamese believers). In a nutshell, they used the Latin alphabet, borrowed the sounds of Portuguese, Italian and Greek to a certain extent, and combined them to create the words we used. "
A similar situation occurred in the southeast coast of China after the Opium War. At that time, missionaries created several Roman characters according to local dialects in order to preach among the people, and the most influential Minnan dialect "Peh-o-j:" was used until the 20th century. Just like the situation in the southeast coast of China, Mandarin characters were originally used only in religious occasions, for translating the Bible and compiling teaching materials. What really changed its status was the French aggression.
In 1858, the French army shelled Da Nang, opened the door of Vietnam, and turned the whole Vietnam into its colony in nearly 30 years. The invaders regarded Chinese characters as a historical and cultural link between China and Vietnam and an obstacle to French colonial rule, so they forced the use of Mandarin characters, threatening that "when this kind of Chinese characters incompatible with progress is still the only tool for exchanging ideas, the only way to promote transformation is to develop French-Annan schools and replace Chinese characters with Latin letters". In 1917, the French colonial authorities brazenly ordered the complete abolition of Chinese character education in schools; In July, 1919, Hue’s puppet court issued the Royal Imperial Imperial Imperial edict to abolish the imperial examination, and Chinese characters (and the characters attached to them) were forced to withdraw from the historical stage of Vietnam.
However, the French’s purpose is only to "first replace (Chinese characters) with the characters called’ national language’ spelled by European letters, and then replace them with French". The use of Mandarin characters is limited to the bilingual education of Vietnamese and French in the lower grades of primary school, and French is in a dominant position in the upper grades of primary school and above middle school. "After a long period of time, in the distant future, it (Vietnamese) may die out, leaving some words for the future French of this country. Just as the Guarani language contributed many words to Brazilian Portuguese, the colonists have already made such a clamor.
Although the invaders’ attitude towards Mandarin characters is that the meaning of drunkenness is not in the wine, the Mandarin characters themselves are not blameless. For example, there is no F, but ph is used instead, D is used to represent Z, while the common D is in Mandarin characters. But after all, it is easy to learn and understand, so it has become a favorable tool for national people to spread revolutionary ideas and strive for national independence. On September 2, 1945, in Bating Square, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh read the Declaration of Independence written by himself in Mandarin, solemnly proclaiming the birth of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
Vietnamese dong ("Republican socialist Vietnam").
Then, in a very short time, Mandarin characters became the official language of Vietnam. Article 18 of the Constitution promulgated in 1946 even stipulates: "The elected person must be a citizen with the right to vote, at least 21 years old, and must be able to read and write Mandarin." It seems that this can not be completely attributed to the "de-sinicization" under nationalism. After all, Ho Chi Minh is familiar with Chinese, and the name of another leader, the Long March, comes directly from these two Chinese characters. What’s more, at that time, even Chairman Mao Zedong once thought that "Pinyin writing is a more convenient form of writing. Chinese characters are too complicated and difficult. At present, they are only simplified and reformed, and one day they will be fundamentally reformed. " (Selected Letters of Mao Zedong, p. 454)
Vietnamese temples with Chinese characters written on them
In today’s Vietnam, the official position of Mandarin characters has been unshakable, while Zinan has become a dead languages that only a few experts can read. As for Chinese characters, they still accidentally exist in the study of Vietnamese monks and nuns-after all, the classics of Chinese Buddhism are written in Chinese. In the past, Mandarin characters entered Vietnam through religion, and today Chinese characters exist in Vietnam through religion, which may be the strangeness of history.
References:
Su Caiqiong: The Changes of Vietnamese Characters and the Development of National Consciousness, Master’s Degree Thesis of Jinan University, 2010.
Liang Maohua: A Study on the Development History of Vietnamese Characters, Doctoral Dissertation of Zhengzhou University, 2014.
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