Editing Chinese characters (section)

=== Vietnamese ===
{{Main|Chữ Hán}}
{{See also|Literary Chinese in Vietnam}}
[[File:Tale of Kieu parallel text.svg|thumb|upright=1.1|The first two lines of the 19th-century Vietnamese epic poem ''[[The Tale of Kieu]]'', written in both {{langr|vi|chữ Nôm}} and the Vietnamese alphabet
{{legend|#149f78|Borrowed characters representing Sino-Vietnamese words}}
{{legend|#7671b4|Borrowed characters representing native Vietnamese words}}
{{legend|#da5f00|Invented {{langr|vi|chữ Nôm}} representing native Vietnamese words}}|alt=The characters ｢𤾓𢆥𥪞𡎝𠊛些．𡨸才𡨸命窖𱺵恄𠑬𠑬．｣ corresponding to "Trăm năm trong cõi người ta. Chữ Tài chữ Mệnh khéo là ghét nhau." in the Vietnamese alphabet]]
In Vietnamese, Chinese characters are referred to as ''{{langr|vi|[[chữ Hán]]}}'' ({{lang|vi-Hani|𡨸漢}}), ''{{langr|vi|chữ Nho}}'' ({{lang|vi-Hani|𡨸儒}}; '[[Confucian]] characters'), or ''{{langr|vi|Hán tự}}'' ({{lang|vi-Hani|漢字}}). Literary Chinese was used for all formal writing in Vietnam until the modern era,{{sfnm|Handel|2019|1pp=124–126|Kin|2021|2p=XI}} having first acquired official status in 1010. Literary Chinese written by Vietnamese authors is first attested in the late 10th century, though the local practice of writing is likely several centuries older.{{sfn|Hannas|1997|p=73}} Characters used to write Vietnamese called ''{{langr|vi|[[chữ Nôm]]}}'' ({{lang|vi-Hani|𡨸喃}}) are first attested in an inscription dated to 1209 made at the site of a pagoda.{{sfn|DeFrancis|1977|pp=23–24}} A mature {{langr|vi|chữ Nôm}} script had likely emerged by the 13th century, and was initially used to record Vietnamese folk literature. Some {{langr|vi|chữ Nôm}} characters are phono-semantic compounds corresponding to spoken Vietnamese syllables.{{sfn|Kornicki|2018|p=63}} Another technique with no equivalent in China created {{langr|vi|chữ Nôm}} compounds using two phonetic components. This was done because Vietnamese phonology included consonant clusters not found in Chinese, and were thus poorly approximated by the sound values of borrowed characters. Compounds used components with two distinct consonant sounds to specify the cluster, e.g. {{lang|vi-Hani|𢁋}} ({{lang|vi|blăng}};{{efn|This is the [[Middle Vietnamese]] pronunciation; the word is pronounced in modern Vietnamese as {{lang|vi|trăng}}.}} 'Moon') was created as a compound of {{lang|vi-Hani|巴}} ({{lang|vi|ba}}) and {{lang|vi-Hani|陵}} ({{lang|vi|lăng}}).{{sfn|Handel|2019|pp=145, 150}} As a system, {{langr|vi|chữ Nôm}} was highly complex, and the literacy rate among the Vietnamese population never exceeded 5%.{{sfn|DeFrancis|1977|p=19}} Both Literary Chinese and {{langr|vi|chữ Nôm}} fell out of use during the French colonial period, and were gradually replaced by the Latin-based [[Vietnamese alphabet]]. Following the end of colonial rule in 1954, the Vietnamese alphabet has been sole official writing system in Vietnam, and is used exclusively in Vietnamese-language media.{{sfnm|Coulmas|1991|1pp=113–115|Hannas|1997|2pp=73, 84–87}}