Vietnamese Literature

About 60 percent of modern Vietnamese words are of Chinese origin. Many basic words, like geographical terms, were adopted from mono tonal Mon-Khmer languages, while tonality came from Tai.

Nobody knows for sure the origin of Vietnamese proverbs and folk songs in terms of their inception and authors. Vietnamese proverbs and folk songs, however, are orally transmitted and incessantly edited throughout generations.

Among the 54 Vietnamese ethnic groups some have had their own scripts for a long time and some have not preserved their ancient scripts. As a matter of fact, some ethnic groups consisting of some hundreds of individuals living in remote areas have their own languages.

From an early period a special ideographic script known as chữ nôm was also devised for transcribing spoken Vietnamese.

During the 1,000 years of Chinese rule over what is now northern Việt Nam, chữ Hán (classical Han Chinese, also known as chữ nho) became firmly established as the language of the Vietnamese royal court and would remain so until as late as 1918 when the ancient system of mandarin examinations was finally abolished.

The first real flowering of modern Vietnamese literature took place in the north under the influence of the romantic styles, themes and techniques of French literature.

Prior to 1945 comparatively few southern writers had achieved recognition or success, but against a background of relative stability, prosperity and artistic freedom in the late 1950s and early 1960s a small but active literary scene began to emerge in South Việt Nam, initially under the influence of a circle of writers, linguists and educators who had relocated from the north.

Modern Vietnamese literature finds its roots during the French colonial period, when popularisation of the romanised script quốc ngữ finally allowed it to break free from the restrictions of classical Chinese literature.

Vietnamese proverbs are concise statements expressing deep thoughts, practical knowledge, and experience-based judgments, covering all aspects of Vietnamese life, and bearing some flavour of a particular culture.