Vietnamese Chữ Nôm writing system

Timeline

1. 1200–1300Thăng Long (capital of the Trần dynasty) · VietnamLiterati of the Trần dynasty invented Chữ Nôm on the basis of Chinese characters, applying the phono-semantic and ideographic principles of Chinese characters to native Vietnamese vocabulary, creating phonetic loans, semantic compounds, and phono-semantic characters. Rulers such as Trần Nhân Tông also composed poetry in Chữ Nôm, promoting the initial spread of this writing system among the aristocratic scholarly class.
2. 1400–1700Đông Kinh (Thăng Long) · VietnamNguyễn Trãi composed the Quốc Âm thi tập in Chữ Nôm; Lê Thánh Tông established the Tao Đàn (Poetry Altar) to promote Chữ Nôm literature; in the early 17th century Nguyễn Bỉnh Khiêm wrote the Huyền Ông poetry collection in Chữ Nôm. In the 16th–17th centuries Chữ Nôm entered the mainstream of literary creation, becoming a writing tool parallel to Chinese characters and reflecting the Vietnamese people's strong sense of national cultural identity.
3. 1700–1820Vietnam (throughout) · VietnamThe 18th century was the golden age of Chữ Nôm literature. Nguyễn Du wrote the Tale of Kiều (Kim Vân Kiều) in Chữ Nôm; women writers such as Đoàn Thị Điểm also composed in Chữ Nôm, and the lục bát verse form matured. By this period Chű Nôm had spread beyond the elite and circulated widely among the common people.
4. 1800–1920Vietnam (French Indochina) · VietnamThe French colonial authorities promoted the Latin-alphabet-based Quốc ngữ, popularizing it through official newspapers from 1865; after the founding of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945 it was established as the sole official writing system, and Chữ Nôm completely fell out of everyday use, becoming a specialized skill for historical research and reading old texts.