Chinese characters originated in China and are self-originating characters used to record and express Chinese. Chinese characters have continuity in the attributes of shape and meaning, show strong vitality, and are unique in the existing world writing system. Chinese characters have experienced a long history of use and development, and the unique phonological structure has contributed to an important transformation in the history of Chinese characters development with an irreplaceable trend. The relationship between the three elements of Chinese character shape, sound and meaning is complex and entangled, and needs to be analyzed in detail for specific issues. The paper bases on the practice idea of interpreting exegesis by sound and makes a new interpretation of the character Yi (医) and Yi (殹) by using academic research results. The meaning of Yi (医) is ‘something used to hide a bow and arrow’. The meaning of Yi (殹) is the same as Yi (医). According to inductive analysis, the characters with Yi (殹) as their radical have the meaning of ‘hidden’. And Yi (殹) further extended the meaning of ‘black’. Then Yi (殹) is often used as a phonetic sign.

The paper intends to clarify several notions of the word, ‘Chounu’ (醜 奴). It is indeed a transliteration word which originated from Xianbei (鮮卑 ) language and was translated into the wolf. In history, the language contact of Chinese and minority languages has created a large amount of transliteration words. There are a lot of variants in Chinese classical literature: for example, ‘Chinu’ (叱奴 ), ‘Tunu’ (吐奴 ), ‘Chilu’ (叱盧 ), ‘China’ (赤那 ), and ‘Zhuonuo’ (綽諾 ). This paper considers that the white wolf (白狼 ) in Guoyu (《國語 》) glossed by Weizhao (韋昭 ) is inaccurate, and the correct interpretation is that the wolf is the totem of Quanrong (犬戎 ) tribe referring to the people of the Quanrong (犬戎 ) tribe. It reveals the value and significance of the study on words consisting of Chinese characters from the perspective of the language contact.

The development of Nom characters is promoted on the basis of and in attachment with Chinese characters, and in this regard the Phonetic Annotation of the Thousand Character Classic 《千字文解音》 compiled in the late Nguyen Dynasty in Vietnam was a very practical textbook for learning Chinese characters and Nom characters. Based on categorizing Nom characters, the paper intends to clarify several notions on Nom characters of the Phonetic Annotation of the Thousand Character Classic. In the beginning, Nom characters can be divided into two major types: the directly borrowed Chinese characters and the independently invented ones. The former includes borrowing sounds, meanings, and both. The latter, according to the components of Chinese character formations, can be divided into the pictophonetic of Chinese characters and that of Nom characters. In the last part of the article, we summarize the relationship between Chinese characters and Nom characters. It is necessary not merely to consider the relationship but to understand the comparisons between them. With the aid of studying Nom characters, we can find that irrespective of whether they are directly-borrowed from Chinese or independently invented, the sound of Chinese characters is the most important feature for them. But we cannot ignore the ideographic parts of Nom characters because they, on the one hand, make up the phonetic deficiency of Chinese characters while promoting the development of Nom characters on the other. In our modern society, Chinese characters and Nom characters came to drift apart, and the latter especially was withdrawn from the historical stage, but the traditional culture of Vietnam is still recorded in literature both in Chinese characters and Nom characters. Moreover, the Nom character is one of the most important representatives of Vietnam’s traditional culture. For this reason solely, this research shall be a great help to further understanding of significant cross-cultural aspects between China and Vietnam, and more specifically of histories related to the spreading, application, and development of Chinese characters in Vietnam.