How did the Vietnamese written language look b4 the French Colony came to Vietnam?

Question

Originally, Vietnam had its own distinct written language which began in the 13th century.

However, when the French Colony came into Vietnam, their culture heavily influenced Vietnamese written language, thus it became popular and the original became less.

So does anyone have any links that show this original written language? I have never seen it and am interested.

According to wikipedia, the writings looked that of Japan or China, but of course it was different in its own way.

Answer 1

well ,  the vietnamsese written language was exactly the same as the the chinese but that was before the 1200's .In the 13th century the Chinese was  led by the Mongolian King and they came to invade vietnam.This was a very serious trouble as the Chinese army was taking over the world from east to west . To prevent from being defeated the Tran King of vietnam made a conference(Dien Hong) and he came to a decision that from that moment the symbols in the writing system would be modified so that they look a bit different to the original ones .This modification will help protect of the secrets in the army . Of course only vietnamese people could understand the new symbols but the chinese could not.The new system was called Nom ( or Nho) and is still in teaching at some universities in Vn eventhough it is not poppular anymore

You beleive it or not but at the 13th century the chinese army  was undefeatble even the West could not withstand its power.Nevertheless the Vietnamese people had defeated the Chinese 3 times!!!!!

Answer 2

Here is an article with some samples.

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/chunom.h...

Cheers.

Answer 3

I'm from Vietnam, and the answer is the same with Peter.

Answer 4

It was called "Chữ Nôm" written like chinenes but differd from pronouncing.

Answer 5

Hey goat,

I'm not sure of this but...

I thought that before the phonetic writing of Viet Namese, it was written using Chinese Characters, but using the meaning of the Chinese characters (like Japanese using Chinese characters as Kanji) and using the word order and word choice of spoken Viet Namese.  Then when it was read, the Chinese character's meaning was  read aloud as the Viet Namese word.

From a Chinese perspective, that is what happens when Japanese kanji is read.

I think this is the way; Korean was written until the present phonetic characters were adopted.