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.

As a component of Chinese vulgar characters, the character wen (文) not only serves symbolic functions but also conveys ideographic meanings. Furthermore, its dissemination has led to the emergence of numerous Chinese vulgar characters incorporating the wen (文) components. According to the unearthed literature, the inherited literature and the extraterritorial literature, the wen (文) components exhibits more than ten functions, categorized into three types: symbolic function, combined symbolic and ideographic function, and ideographic function. The former two types primarily reflect its inheritance in neighboring countries, while the latter indicates its diffusion beyond the region. Overall, although the function of the wen (文) component is generally consistent outside its native the domain, it has engendered new forms of vulgar characters, thereby broadening the repertoire of Chinese characters, and these vulgar characters are not devoid of rationale. Analyzing its developmental trajectory and dissemination bears significance for understanding the history of Chinese character evolution and dissemination.

This article introduces the Korean “vulgar characters” recorded in the “Jaseo Jibyo” (《字書輯要》) written in the late Joseon Dynasty with the addition of Dong-vulgar corrupt characters (referred to as “Dong-su characters”), and to clarify its academic significance for the purpose. The article contains a total of 117 vulgar Chinese characters, which were probably written in the late 19th or early 20th century. It includes various common and special characters that were seen at that time, so that we can understand the use of common characters in the late Joseon Dynasty. For this reason, this article has made the “Popular Characters”, and compared with the square-printed edition “Shiwencuo” which preserved the alien society at that time, and obtained the universal use of the common characters. The “vulgar words” are divided into four categories: “①omit, ②add, ③replace, and ④symbolize”. Then, taking the characters (國guo), 伩(儒 ru), and (聖sheng) as seen in the “Dong-vulgar characters” as examples, the cultural awareness hidden behind the characters is analyzed in detail, in order to navigate the cultural research of variant characters. Attached is the “Popular Character Catalog” attached to the “Manuscript Addition and Deletion of Yeomlag Pung-a”(《增删濂洛風雅》) collected by the author for comparison and reference.

The study of Chinese vulgar characters is one of the important contents in the study of modern Chinese characters, and it is also one of the important contents in the study of the dissemination of Chinese characters. Based on the 81 poems and more than 300 folk characters in the Vietnamese Chinese document “Giới Hiên Collected Poems”, this paper explores the nature of Chinese vulgar characters and related issues. The nature of Chinese vulgar characters can be characterized from the perspective of Chinese character shape, structure and function: Vulgar characters are used by the civil community, with different forms of different forms, different components of the composition of the word, often used to record and correspond to the orthography of the Chinese character. Clarifying the nature of “vulgar characters” is of great significance to its ontology research, modern Chinese research, and Chinese character dissemination research.

Korean official documents use Chinese characters in a long term, but how to ensure the physical accuracy of Chinese characters and the consistency with Qing Dynasty, these problems have always troubled the North Korea manners. Moreover, the Chinese characters imported into Korea produced variant forms (different from the Chinese characters which in the Ming and Qing Dynasties) in the process of development and dissemination. Among them, most of them is Korean character. This paper through the comparative study between Chinese characters and Korean characters, preliminary explore the forming reasons of Korean folk characters, and based on these studies to analyze the Korean “quality profile”, to provide research materials which help to explore the problems about the development and the existence of characters during them are sowing outside.