What are Sino-Vietnamese characters?
Q: What are Sino-Vietnamese characters?
A: Sino-Vietnamese characters (Hán Nôm) are Chinese-style characters that can be read as either Vietnamese or Sino-Vietnamese.
Q: How is Han-Viet related to these characters?
A: Han-Viet is a system that allows Vietnamese to read Chinese, which is equivalent to pinyin in English.
Q: When were Chinese characters introduced to Vietnam?
A: Chinese characters were introduced to Vietnam when the Han Empire invaded the country in 111 BC.
Q: Why did Vietnam switch from traditional characters to Latin alphabet in the 1920s?
A: In the 1920s, Vietnam shifted from traditional characters to the Latin alphabet for ease of use and modernity.
Q: What was the purpose of founding the Han-Nom Institute?
A: The Han-Nom Institute was founded in Hanoi in 1970 with the purpose of collecting and studying documents written in traditional script.
Q: How many Sino-Vietnamese Characters have been submitted for electronic encoding?
A: The Han-Nom Institute has submitted a list of 19,981 Sino-Vietnamese Characters for electronic encoding. This includes a core set of 9,299 called Nôm Ideographs.
