1 Introduction

The Vietnamese Constitution establishes Vietnamese as the national language. Vietnam is a multilingual and multi-ethnic country, with 54 ethnic groups using languages belonging to different language families. The Jing ethnic group (Yue ethnic group) accounts for the vast majority of the population, and their mother tongue Vietnamese has become the national lingua franca. As the official script, Mandarin Chinese characters are widely used in education and media. This article explores the historical evolution of Vietnamese language and script and its implications.

2 Historical Chinese Characters and N ô m Characters

In the paper on the evolution and inspiration of Vietnamese language and script, the second chapter explores in detail the development and influence of Chinese characters and N ô m script in Vietnam throughout history. The history of using Chinese characters in Vietnam spans two thousand years, and during the feudal era in Vietnam, Chinese characters were the main script in the official document system. In 214 BC, Emperor Qin Shi Huang conquered the Lingnan region, and Chinese characters were subsequently introduced to Vietnam. During the Han Dynasty, Chinese characters and Confucian culture were further spread in Vietnam. In the 10th century, Chinese characters became the official script of Vietnam and were widely used in government documents, imperial examinations, and literary works. However, due to the inability of Chinese characters to accurately record the Vietnamese language, some people began to create N ô m script to record Vietnamese. The emergence of N ô m script promoted the development of Vietnamese national literature, but it has never replaced Chinese characters as the official script of the country. Before the 20th century, Vietnamese official documents mainly used Chinese characters, while the common use of N ô m and Chinese characters among the general public.

The Origin and Use of Three Vietnamese Characters

In 1527, Portuguese missionaries introduced the use of Romanization to transcribe Vietnamese. Later, French missionary Alexander de Rhodes compiled the "Vietnamese Portuguese Latin Dictionary", standardizing the Vietnamese alphabet and laying the foundation for the Vietnamese national language. In the 18th and 19th centuries, missionaries published the "Vietnam Latin Dictionary", and the Latinized Vietnamese script gradually improved and was accepted by the public. At the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century, French colonial rule promoted French and Latinized scripts, restricting the use of Chinese characters. At the beginning of the 20th century, Vietnamese intellectuals used Mandarin characters to spread revolutionary ideas and promote their popularization. In 1936, the Vietnamese government abolished Chinese characters, and in 1938, the National Language Character Teaching Movement emerged. In 1945, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam was established, and the national language became the official script. The changes in Vietnamese language and writing reflect the evolution of cultural history, from the period of Chinese prefectures and counties to the period of autonomy, then to the period of French colonialism, until the national language became the only written language after independence. In the 21st century, Vietnam has sparked a wave of learning Chinese, making it the second largest foreign language.

4. Reflection and Enlightenment

The evolution of Vietnamese language and writing is a complex and diverse social issue, and its historical development shows that language and writing are constantly evolving. Vietnamese has absorbed vocabulary from multiple languages during its evolution, and has historically used writing systems such as Chinese characters, N ô m script, and Latinized Mandarin characters. The writing system of Vietnamese language has gone through a long process of growth from scratch and is still undergoing changes and improvements to this day.