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80% knew Chu Nom when the French arrived

Posted by: Quoc Trung (---.adsl.hansenet.de)

Date: September 25, 2004 04:54AM

Hello,

By accident I found this comment about an article in the New York Review of Books: [www.umich.edu];.

---------------
Date: Mon, 06 May 91 08:47:43 CST
From: RYATES%CMSUVMB.bitnet@***
Subject: Re: What rights do language communities have?

An issue that has not been considered about banning languages is how the language will be written. Richard West, writing in the most recent issue of the New York Review of Books, observes that when the French arrived in Vietnam about 80% knew the Chinese ideographs for writing Vietnamese. The French prohibited Chinese characters and required the use of a Latin alphabet devised by a missionary in the 17th Century. Many Vietnamese protested so that by the end of the 1930s 80% of the boys of school age were not attending classes.
---------------

I couldn't verify this. I searched the archive of NYRB at [www.nybooks.com]; for reviews by Richard West and found one about "Graham Greene and 'The Quiet American'".

Maybe the reason for high illiteracy rate in Vietnam before Quoc Ngu became official was not that Chu Nom was difficult and therefore not widely spread. If it is true that once 80% could write Vietnamese using Chu Nom then one cannot blame the script system for illiteracy. The french already arrived in Vietnam in the 17th century but I think by "arrived", the beginning of French colonization in 1862 is meant. Compared to 93% who can read Quoc Ngu in Vietnam today, 80% in the middle of the 19th century is not bad for a script that is said to be hard to learn. In England at the same time about 40% were unable to write. So was the vietnamese school system already that good at that time?

I know that these thoughts are based on vague information. Maybe someone has more solid information.

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Re: 80% knew Chu Nom when the French arrived

Posted by: Quoc Trung (---.adsl.hansenet.de)

Date: September 25, 2004 04:58PM

Thanks for the reply,

Nguoi viet hoi do lam bien hoc chu, doi thang phap
dem chu moi, hay sao.

Let's explore the situation more realistic.

After the end of the Tay Son era in 1802, Emperor Gia Long unified the country and gave it its modern name. Thanhphohochiminh was Giadinh, Hanoi was Thanglong, and Hue was the capital. Gia Long instituted law code and built a bureaucratic system. Buddism, Taoist and indigenous religions were forbidden. Military service was used to strengthen the control of the government, and corvee labor to built roads, bridges, ports, etc. Under him all were required to work 60 days a year with no pay. Vietnam was a complex society, so don't think people did not know nothing just because they lived 200 years ago.

Since Gia Long was the first who made Chu Nom the national script, it is likely that he did not just say it but also undertook efforts to manifest Chu Nom in the whole country. An increased literacy rate could be a result of those efforts.

History repeated one hundred years later, but Chu Nom was already buried so this time Quoc Ngu was made the national script. And again, the literacy rate increased as a result of reforming campaigns.

QT

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Re: 80% knew Chu Nom when the French arrived

Posted by: nnt (---.w82-121.abo.wanadoo.fr)

Date: September 25, 2004 06:12PM

Quoc Trung wrote:

> Since Gia Long was the first who made Chu Nom the national
> script, it is likely that he did not just say it but also
> undertook efforts to manifest Chu Nom in the whole country.

This is not really true : according to history books, the only two dynasties who promoted Chữ Nôm as national script were the Hồ dynasty (1400-1407) and the Tây Sơn .

Just think about one fact : in these not so old days, except for a few exceptions, most women were illiterate due to the prejudices against women's instruction. That makes the percentage go down at best to 51% ...

And most men were illiterate too ! 100% (not just 80%) of those Vietnamese who knew Chinese characters also knew Chữ Nôm, that was sure , but how many could afford to learn these characters?

Chữ Nôm could not compete with Quốc Ngữ because it was harder than Chinese script, and Chinese script was/is hard.

The end of the official examinations in Vietnam around 1918 also meant the end of the incentives to learn Chinese characters, and as a matter of consequence, of Chữ Nôm.
The famous poems(in Nôm) by Tú Xương about the decline of Chinese characters in Vietnam were written around 1900, about 20 years before the official ending of the examinations.

80-20 % is a rough guess for anything, but surely a wrong guess in this case.

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Re: 80% knew Chu Nom when the French arrived

Posted by: lethanhquang (---.vnn.vn)

Date: January 24, 2009 11:26PM

Quote:
nnt
Quoc Trung wrote:

> Since Gia Long was the first who made Chu Nom
the national
> script, it is likely that he did not just say
it but also
> undertook efforts to manifest Chu Nom in the
whole country.

This is not really true : according to history
books, the only two dynasties who promoted Chữ
Nôm as national script were the Hồ dynasty
(1400-1407) and the Tây Sơn .

Just think about one fact : in these not so old
days, except for a few exceptions, most women were
illiterate due to the prejudices against women's
instruction. That makes the percentage go down at
best to 51% ...

And most men were illiterate too ! 100% (not just
80%) of those Vietnamese who knew Chinese
characters also knew Chữ Nôm, that was sure ,
but how many could afford to learn these
characters?

Chữ Nôm could not compete with Quốc Ngữ
because it was harder than Chinese script, and
Chinese script was/is hard.

The end of the official examinations in Vietnam
around 1918 also meant the end of the incentives
to learn Chinese characters, and as a matter of
consequence, of Chữ Nôm.
The famous poems(in Nôm) by Tú Xương about
the decline of Chinese characters in Vietnam were
written around 1900, about 20 years before the
official ending of the examinations.

80-20 % is a rough guess for anything, but surely
a wrong guess in this case.

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Re: 80% knew Chu Nom when the French arrived

Posted by: AnhMỹ Trần (---.dsl.wlfrct.sbcglobal.net)

Date: January 25, 2009 01:26AM

Quote:
Many Vietnamese protested so that by the end of the 1930s 80% of the boys of school age were not attending classes.

Đoạn trích nguyên văn trên cho thấy là người Việt phản đối chính sách Pháp bắt
học quốc ngữ thay chữ Nôm, nên đến cuối những năm 1930 thì 80 phần trăm trẻ con
không đi học trường nhà nước, chứ không phải 80 phần trăm biết chữ Nôm. Hiểu đúng
ra thì lúc ấy, hầu hết trẻ con ViệtNam mù chữ, dốt nát, làm sao học được chữ Nôm?

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Re: 80% knew Chu Nom when the French arrived

Posted by: Nguyen Anh Tuan (---.hsd1.md.comcast.net)

Date: February 01, 2010 02:01PM

It's not necessarily true that all who knew Chinese characters knew Nom. Also before Quoc Ngu everyone would have known Chinese characters. The question is extent. While the elite obviously knew all common use characters and how to use them, the illiterate would have known about 20-50 everyday use characters which they would have processed more like pictographs than actual vocabulary. Ex. numbers, liquor, tea, large, small...

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[quote=Quoc Trung]
Thanks for the reply,
 
 Nguoi viet hoi do lam bien hoc chu, doi thang
phap
 dem chu moi, hay sao.
 
 Let's explore the situation more realistic.
 
 After the end of the Tay Son era in 1802, Emperor
Gia Long unified the country and gave it its
modern name. Thanhphohochiminh was Giadinh, Hanoi
was Thanglong, and Hue was the capital. Gia Long
instituted law code and built a bureaucratic
system. Buddism, Taoist and indigenous religions
were forbidden. Military service was used to
strengthen the control of the government, and
corvee labor to built roads, bridges, ports, etc.
Under him all were required to work 60 days a year
with no pay. Vietnam was a complex society, so
don't think people did not know nothing just
because they lived 200 years ago.
 
 Since Gia Long was the first who made Chu Nom the
national script, it is likely that he did not just
say it but also undertook efforts to manifest Chu
Nom in the whole country. An increased literacy
rate could be a result of those efforts.
 
 History repeated one hundred years later, but Chu
Nom was already buried so this time Quoc Ngu was
made the national script. And again, the literacy
rate increased as a result of reforming campaigns.
 
 QT
[/quote]

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