2019-3

【摘要】

This article offers a periodization of Nôm history. The criteria established in this study include those aspects of grammatology, linguistics (historical phonetics), textology, the interaction between languages and writing systems and the historical-social context. We propose that the history of Nôm can be divided into the following seven main periods: (a) Proto Nôm (8th–9th centuries); (b) Archaic Nôm (10th–12th centuries); (c) Ancient Nôm (13th–15th centuries); (d) Ancient-Middle Nôm (16th–17th centuries); (e) Middle Nôm (18th century–1884); (f) Modern Nôm (1884–1945); (g) Contemporary Nôm (1945–present). As a medium of transcribing the Vietnamese language, Nôm script has a history of nearly 12 centuries in parallel with the history of the Vietnamese language. The tendencies of grammatological transformation go in the same direction with the transformational tendencies of the Vietnamese language as well as of Vietnamese socio-cultural history.