After the invention of woodblock printing in China, It gradually spread to Vietnam and achieved rapid development. Among the existing Sino-Nôm/Chinese-Nôm Literature, there are many Chinese inscriptions, which are valuable materials for studying the Chinese characters used in Vietnam. This paper analyzes the forms of simplified vulgar characters in Vietnamese Chinese printed texts from the perspectives of inheritance and variation. The inherited simplified vulgar characters, mainly include types such as the adoption of “ancient characters,” cursive script standardization, symbol replacement, and partial deletion. The variant simplified vulgar characters, primarily include types such as cursive script variations, reduction variations, and symbol variations. The purpose of this study is to explore and analyze the acceptance and usage of Chinese characters in Vietnam, in order to provide a reference for the study of Chinese character cultural exchange and mutual learning in East Asian sphere.

There are five main types of Vietnamese orthographic texts among the extant Chinese literature. This paper introduces these five types of orthographic literature and summarizes their main contents as orthographic forms, orthographic sounds, and orthographic meanings to regulate the use of Chinese characters, thus deriving the orthographic criteria reflected in these five types of Vietnamese orthographic literature. In addition, we explore the background of the formation of Vietnamese orthography in relation to the ecology and actual use of Chinese characters in Vietnam at that time, thus revealing the value of Vietnamese orthography to theoretical studies of orthography, to the study on the spreading value of Chinese characters, and to the compilation of dictionaries.