> I know what you mean, but as I have been fooling around with it, I can tell you that it's not that bad! Memorising characters is slightly harder than Chinese itself BUT it's not impossible as I have already memorised in excess of 1000 Vietnamese invented characters in the past few months.


> Actually, you really don't! I know very little about Classical Chinese and I have memorised 1000 invented characters plus many Sino-Vietnamese characters too.


> Revival of Chu Nom is unnecessary and in this age quite impractical as the Quoc Ngu script is the more suited script. It's easy to learn and has proven its worth. Also, Chu Nom may have been used officially until as recently as 1939 but there are a large number of modern words that had not yet been scribed.


> Yes, Chu Nom as a written script in general probably has more strokes than Chinese itself. In terms of standardisation - this has never happened unfortunately so there are many ways to write lots of words.


> Even if Chu Nom doesn't become officially used again, it's an undeniable legacy of the Chinese influence on Vietnamese language. Hence, it must and fortunately is being preserved by various non profit organisations.

Just had a thought...what if I invented my own characters for modern Vietnamese words that had no character made for it? It would be interesting to get Chu Nom organised, standardised and maybe even modernised by having modern characters made?!

Preservation of Chu Nom is one thing, but how about:

1. Organising existing characters.
2. Standardising them.
3. Coining new characters for modern words.
4. Creating a typable font for it.

I think it would be quite an interesting thing to do. I mean...if Tengwar (artificial) has already been made into a font - why not fool around a bit with Chu Nom? I understand that Chu Nom might never again be reinstated as an official writing system of Vietnamese, but what's to stop it from becoming an unofficial writing system? Thoughts anyone?

AFAIK The Unicode Standard does consider Chu Nom variants.

Yeah I know, but I'm interested in creating modern characters hehe.
Here are 3 examples:

1. foreign film
2. to watch TV
3. a hyperactive child

Cool idea!
But it seems that languages these days are more focused on simplifying their orthographies rather than complicating them.

Here's a cute song I managed to transcribe from Vietnamese Quốc Ngữ into Chữ Nôm.

Click here to listen!



Yêu Một Người Phải Chăng Lầm Lỗi

Em có biết tim anh từ lâu đã khắc tên em?
Em có biết em như cơn mưa đến nhanh vội tan?
Anh không níu kéo được, đành chờ những cơn gió mang em đến đây.
Tình yêu vẫn khiến bao người đam mê mãi suốt cuộc đời.
Tình yêu vẫn không đến khi bao trái tim luôn vội vàng.
Đợi khi dối lừa nhau, chờ khi tan nát con tim mới hay!
Yêu một người phải chăng lầm lỗi?
Sao lòng người vẫn thường thay đổi?
Chuyện buồn sao vẫn là như thế đến với tôi?
Nếu có thể vui được hoài, vậy chẳng có ai buồn, sẽ không ai buồn đâu.
Yêu một người phải chăng lầm lỗi?
Sao người yêu tôi lại thay đổi?
Chuyện buồn sao vẫn một lần nữa đến với tôi?
Chuyện tình cũ, chuyện tình mới,
Chuyện tình đã hấp hối trong lòng tôi, có ai muốn vậy?
Yêu là sao? Yêu là sao? Đâu phải yêu khiến con tim sẽ đau buồn!
Tôi nhận ra, sẽ đổi thay, người sẽ khôn lớn theo từng tháng năm.
Một người đến, một người đi, con tim đã héo úa phai màu đi, có ai muốn vậy?

__________________________________________________________________________________

To Love Is To Not Make Mistakes

Did you know that my heart has long engraved your name?
Did you know that you are like the rain falling swiftly?
I cannot pull you any closer, thus I'm forced to wait for the winds to bring you here.
Love continues to cause so many people to indulge all their lives.
Love continues to neglect those hearts that beat fast.
It waits until we deceive one another, and only when in pieces do our hearts find out!
To love is to not make mistakes?
Why is one's heart always changing?
Why is the story always like such regarding me?
If one could be in love forever, then noone would be sad, noone would be sad at all.
To love is to not make mistakes?
Why is my love always changing?
Why am I once again part of this story?
An old love story, a new love story,
The stories are bound to die in my heart, who wishes for it to be like such?
What is love? What is love? It's not love that causes our hearts to be hurt!
I realise, there will be changes, one will grow through the months and years.
Someone came, someone went, the heart has been faded, who wishes for it to be like such?

Oops I forgot the 8th character in the second last line = sẽ

It looks like you've really gotten into learning chữ Nôm.

Yeah, just as seriously as I am taking Chinese. They complement one another.

How cool! I think Vietnamese looks absolutely awesome in chu nom, muuuch better than quoc ngu. Actually, it might be kinda cool in the Thai script, now that I think about it. Hehe.

I still like the Idea of using Cyrillic.