chu nom

• chữ nôm, Chu Nom

Borrowed from Vietnamese chữ Nôm.

• (US) IPA^(key): /t͡ʃuː ˈnoʊm/

chu nom (uncountable)

1. (historical) A writing system formerly used for Vietnamese, based on Chinese characters.
   • 1997, Wm. C. Hannas, Asia's Orthographic Dilemma, page 83:

     Chữ nôm was known only by the 5 percent or less of Vietnam's educated population, who used it not as a primary medium but rather as an aid to learning Chinese and for recording folk literature.

   • 1998, Kevin Bowen, Ba Chung Nguyen, Bruce Weigl, editors, Mountain River, page xxiv:

     To write a vernacular word, Chu Nom used two Chinese ideograms—one to indicate the meaning, the other the sound.

   • 2016, Christopher Goscha, The Penguin History of Modern Vietnam, Penguin, published 2017, page 106:

     [P]olitical reforms along Western lines […] included […] developing modern science, agriculture, and commerce, and even creating a national writing system based on chu nom: ‘Have we not talented persons able to devise a script which will transcribe our national language?’

• mounch