2020年第3期

【Abstract】“Confucian script” 儒字 (chữ Nho) has become a unique name used to refer to the “Chinese script” 漢字 (chữ Hán) in Vietnamese. The integration between Chinese script and Confucianism had progressed through monarchical centuries, motivated by Vietnam’s political tradition. Supported by rulers of the country, Chinese script overwhelmed the difference of languages, became the official writing system, and therefore held great influence on important activities of government such as administration, diplomacy, education, and employment. By looking carefully at how Vietnamese monarchs managed to manipulate the Chinese script, Nôm script, and Confucianism to serve their political purposes, we stress that it was Confucianism that served as the link tying the Chinese script with Vietnamese rulers. This link was so strong that the Chinese script remained the dominant form of writing even with the invention of the “Nôm script”喃字 (chữ Nôm), which was a vernacular system developed to write the Vietnamese language. Furthermore, because Confucianism itself was the spiritual core of the Chinese monarchical structure, Vietnamese rulers learned from the Chinese model by way of the Chinese script when building their own independent state. Confucianism was viewed as the core of Chinese culture.