Man applies inlay designs to a wood plaque at handicraft workshop in Hoi An

A new language

Under French rule, Chinese characters were replaced by a system of writing based on the Latin alphabet. (Learn more)

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Once it became a French “protectorate” with puppet emperors, Vietnamese upper class leaders fiercely debated the relative merits of Chinese Confucian versus Western European knowledge and power. By the 1920s, though, they decided to adopt quoc ngu, a simplified Latin alphabet transcription of Vietnamese language, to replace the use of Chinese characters, which require much longer to learn because they denote words rather than sounds.

Quoc ngu was invented in the mid 17th century by Portuguese missionaries who modified the Latin alphabet with accents and signs to represent the consonants, vowels, and tones of spoken Vietnamese, and was later refined by French missionaries. When Vietnam was divided into North and South in 1954, quoc ngu became the official written language of both nations.

Chinese writing can still be seen in present-day Vietnam in cities with large populations of ethnic Chinese, such as Hoi An, where this photograph was taken.

Learn more about French, Latin, alphabet, language, quoc ngu, and writing.

Definitions

protectorate n.: A country that is controlled and “protected” by another.

Confucian adj.: Deriving from the teachings of Confucius, a Chinese philosopher in the fifth century BCE who emphasized personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice and sincerity.

quoc ngu n.: System of writing for the Vietnamese language using a modified the Latin alphabet with accents and signs to represent the consonants, vowels, and tones of spoken Vietnamese.

Latin alphabet n.: The alphabet first used in Latin and now used in English as well as most of the languages of Europe, the Americas, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Pacific Islands.