ESSAY

KOSUKEGAWA TEIJI AND JOHN WHITMAN

On the Significance of the Glosses in

Vietnamese Classical Chinese Texts

Japanese kundoku (訓讀)

I n Japan, when reading Classical Chinese texts, it has long been the prac-
tice to read and comprehend the text directly in Japanese rather than in
Chinese. This kind of reading in the vernacular is aided by annotations or
glosses using Japanese characters (kana), as well as a variety of symbols,
directly added to the Classical Chinese text. This type of reading kundoku
(訓讀), the characters and symbols added to the text kunten (訓點) or ten
(點), and the process of adding these glosses or reading marks is called
katen (加點).
The kunten glosses added to the opening line of the Shōwa-bon Rongo
shikkai in Figure  「子曰學而時習之不亦悦乎」tell us how this famous
passage was read in the fourteenth century. The Japanese reading is shown in
() below. (a) gives the original Chinese, (b) a romanization of the Chinese
in pinyin, and (c) a character-by-character gloss. (d) gives the fourteenth-
century Japanese kundoku reading, (e) a romanization of that, (f) an analytic
gloss of the Japanese, and (g) an English translation.

() a. 子 曰 學 而 時 習 之 不 亦 悦 乎
b. zǐ yuē xué ér shí xí zhī bù yì yuè hū

Journal of Vietnamese Studies, Vol. , Issue , pps. –. ISSN -X, electronic -.
©  by The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all
requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of
California Press’ Rights and Permissions website, at http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintinfo.asp.
DOI: https://doi.org/./vs.....

29
30 TEIJI AND WHITMAN

FIGURE 1: Shōwa-bon Rongo shikkai (Lúnyŭ jíjiĕ) 正和本論語集解. Copied in

1315, Glossed in 1333. The Tōyō Bunko.

c. Master say learn and time practice it not also pleasant?

d. 子(ノノタマハク)マナムて 時にナラフ 亦ヨロコハシカラ不や
e. Si=no notamaɸ-aku manamu-de toki=ni naraɸ-u. Mata
yorokobashi-karazu=ya.
f. Master=GEN say-NOML learn-GER time=at practice-CONC again
delightful-NEG =Q
g. The Master said, “To learn and sometimes practice it, isn’t this too
delightful?”

The reader can see from example () that the Chinese and vernacular Japa-
nese readings of this famous passage are quite different, due to linguistic
differences between the two languages. Chinese is an uninflected, isolating
language. In terms of the written language, each character represents
one morpheme, usually a word. The word order is subject – verb – object,
like English. In contrast, the word order in Japanese is subject – object – verb.
Japanese is an agglutinative language. Many morphemes that are independent
 ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE GLOSSES IN VIETNAMESE CLASSICAL CHINESE TEXTS 31

words in Chinese are affixes (usually suffixes) in Japanese. Thus, for example,
the Chinese negative word 不 bù in (b) is realized as the negative suffix -
karazu in the Japanese kundoku version (d–e). Japanese marks the gram-
matical function of noun phrases by postpositions such as genitive =no and
locative =ni in (d–e). None of these are present in the Chinese original text;
instead, they are supplied by the Japanese vernacular reader.
It might seem that the Japanese kundoku in this example is simply
a translation of the Chinese vernacular text. But it is important to under-
stand that kundoku reading was not merely an option; it was the primary
way for a Japanese reader in the fourteenth century to read the text, to
vocalize it, to explain it to others, or to understand it. Kundoku reading was
not an individual act of translation, but rather a way of producing a vernac-
ular reading following more or less fixed practices, guided by kunten glosses.
For example, the vermillion dot visible at the lower left hand corner of the
character 而 (pinyin ér) indicates that this character is to be read as the
Japanese gerundive suffix -te or -de. The kana (phonogram) gloss マナム in
black ink to the right of the character 學 (pinyin xué) indicates that this
character is to be read manamu “learn,” suffixed with gerundive -de.
Figure  shows the full set of kana (Japanese character) and other glosses
(okototen, or morphosyntactic glosses) found in this manuscript.
The practice of kundoku reading has undergone various changes
since this fourteenth-century example, but the practice itself continues to
the present day. In the first year of middle school (age ), kundoku no
kimari (“the rules of kundoku”) are learned in Kokugo (國語; Japanese
language) class, and in the third year of middle school, the Analects of
Confucius is read and comprehended using much the same reading as the
fourteenth century. It is thus possible with a basic knowledge of Chinese
characters and the rules of kundoku to read the Chinese classics with no
knowledge of Chinese whatsoever.
Opinions as to exactly when kundoku reading began in Japan differ de-
pending on the scholar, but as kunten glosses appear beginning in the late
eighth century in the case of Buddhist texts (butten 佛典) and at the begin-
ning of the tenth century in the case of secular texts in the Chinese classical
tradition (kanseki 漢籍), it is likely that the practice originated some time
before these dates. The point of greatest contention is whether the practice
32 TEIJI AND WHITMAN

FIGURE 2: Table of phonogram (kana) and morphosyntactic (okototen) glosses

in the Shōwa-bon Rongo shikkai (Lúnyŭ jíjiĕ) 正和本論語集解.

began in Japan or originated in other regions or languages. The popular belief

is that it began in Japan (as is stated in middle school texts and most reference
sources). But a similar method of vernacular reading using glossed texts was
practiced in Korea during the Koryŏ (高麗) period, and the style of kunten
glossing used in secular kanseki texts can be found in manuscripts copied
between the seventh and ninth centuries and preserved at Dūnhuáng (敦煌)
in China. Considering these facts together with the route of importation of
Buddhist and secular Chinese texts into Japan, it is not hard to imagine that
Japanese kunten glossators were influenced by these Korean and Chinese
reading practices. Figure  provides as an example the Tōshō-bon Shōsho
(Tángchāobĕn Shàngshū 唐鈔本尚書, Tōyō Bunko), together with examples
of the same section of this text from manuscripts copied during the seventh to
eighth centuries found in Dūnhuáng.
In these examples, the vermillion point gloss on the character 害hài
“harm” indicates that in this context the character is to be given, in place
of its usual Japanese reading sokonau (“harm’’), a reading as the question
word nanzo (“why”). Similarly, the character 畏 wèi has been marked with
 ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE GLOSSES IN VIETNAMESE CLASSICAL CHINESE TEXTS 33

FIGURE 3: Tōshō-bon Shōsho 唐鈔本尚書, Dūnhuáng manuscript Shàngshū 敦

煌本尚書P.2516, Dūnhuáng manuscript Shàngshū 敦煌本尚書 P.2643.

a vermillion point gloss, indicating that it is to be read not as osoreru

(intransitive “fear”) but as odosu (transitive “to threaten”). This type of
glossing indicating a marked or unusual semantic usage is known as 破音
(點), Japanese haon (ten), Chinese pòyīn (diăn). It is clear that the Japanese
glossators consulted a source annotated similarly to the Dūnhuáng texts in
glossing their text. Pòyīn were added when a character was to receive a non-
canonical reading. Thus in Figure , the vermillion pòyīn mark on the
character 害 indicates that this character is not to receive its usual Middle
Chinese reading ɦɑiH (“harm”), but rather the pronunciation of 曷ɦɑt̚
(“why”). By the time of Middle Chinese, the pronunciation of the two
characters had become similar, so that 害ɦɑiH was often written for 曷
ɦɑt̚ . The second example involves the pòyīn mark on the character 畏wèi
(MC ʔʉiH, Old Chinese *ʔuj-s). Note that the vermillion dot is placed in the
same place in the Japanese text and the two Dūnhuáng texts. In this case
again, the noncanonical pòyīn reading reflects phonological changes in Chi-
nese. In Middle Chinese, transitive “to threaten” ʔʉi (OC *ʔuj) was
34 TEIJI AND WHITMAN

canonically written with the character 威 (Modern Mandarin wēi). Its

intransitive counterpart, OC *ʔuj-s, was derived by the suffix *-s. and usually
written with the character 畏. But by Middle Chinese, coda -s had eroded,
leaving its trace in the form of the qusheng (去聲) “departing tone.” The
pòyīn mark here indicates that 畏 is to be read exceptionally with the level
tone (平聲) of the transitive verb.
In the original Chinese texts, pòyīn often had a phonological basis, as in
these examples from the Dūnhuáng Shàngshū manuscripts. Reapplied as
Japanese kunten glosses, the pòyīn tell the Japanese reader to substitute
a totally different word in the Japanese kundoku reading. Thus 害, normally
read in Japanese as sokonau “harm,” is to be read here as nanzo “why,” and
畏, normally read as osoreru (intransitive) “to fear,” is to be read here as
odosu (transitive) “to fear (something).” What is important is that in this
case the reading tradition established in China has been transmitted in the
form of Japanese kunten glossing. The Shàngshū examples in Figure  also
show that punctuation has been added in the same locations in this portion
of the Japanese Tōshō-bon and the Chinese Dūnhuáng texts. In sum, we see
as a result of textual transmission—not just of the text but of glosses, punc-
tuation, and other annotations—that learners comprehended the Chinese
classic we know as the Shàngshū in the same way in tenth-century Japan as
in seventh- to eighth-century Táng (唐) China.
When we compare the glossing patterns for these types of vernacular
readings of Classical Chinese texts as used in Japanese, Korean, and Viet-
namese (discussed in the next section), we find ) patterns common to all of
these languages; ) patterns found only in Japanese and Korean; and )
patterns found only in Vietnamese and Chinese. We can interpret these
patterns in the following way: when texts inscribed in an isolating language
such as Chinese (which packs a large quantity of information into a single
linguistic form, i.e., the word) are to be read in an agglutinative language
such as Japanese or Korean (which express information through combina-
tions of various linguistic forms), there is an increased amount of informa-
tion that must be newly added to express agglutinative forms not present in
the isolating source language (i.e., Chinese). For the same reasons, the task of
the Vietnamese glossator is different from the glossator of agglutinative
languages such as Korean or Japanese. In contrast to differences like these
 ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE GLOSSES IN VIETNAMESE CLASSICAL CHINESE TEXTS 35

based on typological differences between the target languages, much of the

basic procedure for processing a classical text for reading—the work of
collation (校勘 jiào kān), paragraphing, understanding sentence and phrase
structure, identifying proper names, preparing references and notes—can be
considered to be shared regardless of differences in target language. We
represent this in the general scheme in Figure , showing the interaction
of language typology and the reading process.

FIGURE 4: The interaction of language typology with the process of learning

and glossing a text.
36 TEIJI AND WHITMAN

Classical Chinese Texts in Vietnam (Texts in the

VNPF-NLV collection)
There is a debate as to whether Classical Chinese and hán nôm (漢喃) texts
in Vietnam were given a type of kundoku (訓讀) or vernacular reading.
Regardless of the ultimate outcome of this debate, Nguyễn Thị Oanh has
demonstrated through a careful survey of inscribed stele (石碑) from the Lý
(李) and Trần (陳) dynasties and hán nôm materials compiled in every
dynasty after the Lê (黎) the clear existence of vernacular reading—reading
Classical Chinese texts in Vietnamese—in each of these periods. Further-
more, the Japanese scholar Iwatsuki Junichi, broadening the concept of
kundoku 訓讀 or vernacular reading, has investigated the documented
practice of reading in Vietnamese from the perspective of what he terms
“interpreting Classical Chinese in one’s own language” (漢文を自言語で解
釈する Kanbun wo jigengo de kaisyakusuru).
Based on this research, we describe below how Vietnamese hán văn (漢
文) and hán nôm materials can be understood in light of reading practices
for Classical Chinese texts and the glosses added in the process of reading.
Currently, the Vietnamese Nôm Preservation Foundation (Hội Bảo Tồn Di
Sản Chữ Nôm 會保存遺産喃) is constructing and releasing a digital archive
of the hán văn and hán nôm materials comprising a collection that they
digitized for the National Library of Vietnam (NLV), as well as a smaller
collection housed at the Buddhist temples of Thắng Nghiêm and Phổ Nhân.
Using this digital archive, we begin by introducing the features of the glosses
in the VNPF-NLV collection.

Quantity of Texts and Number of Glosses

Relevant holdings in the VNPF-NLV collection include: Classics (經部: 
texts), History (史部:  texts), Philosophy (子部:  texts), and Literary
collections (集部:  texts), totaling a published figure of , texts.
Because the earlier classification system used by the VNPF did not conform
to the four-way traditional classification, the jīngshū 經書 were included not
in Classics (經部) but placed in History (史部); however, at present the
classification has been amended as in Table . Of the  texts categorized
as Classics (經部),  contain some kind of glossing, thus comprising % of
the total in this category. This percentage is lower than the figure of % for
 ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE GLOSSES IN VIETNAMESE CLASSICAL CHINESE TEXTS 37

TABLE 1: Date of copying and publication of Classical Chinese and Hán Nôm
materials in the NLV.

the  old manuscript copies of secular Chinese classical texts in Japan to
the fourteenth century, or the percentages in Dūnhuáng (Chinese) manu-
scripts surveyed (% for mss. from the Stein collection; % for the Pelliot
collection), but it is possible that the percentage would rise if texts other than
the Classics category were surveyed.
We cannot say anything conclusive until materials other than the Classics
category are surveyed, but if it is the case that the glossing of these particular
texts reflect a broader reading practice, then focusing on the glossing pattern
found therein should provide important clues as to how hán văn and hán
nôm texts were received in Vietnam and how they were understood.

Types and Coloration of Glosses

Annotations added to the text include symbol glosses or marks such as
punctuation (kudōten 句讀點), vermillion lines (shubiki 朱引: to be ex-
plained below), pòyīn (破音), reference marks (hyōten 標點), reading marks
(dokushofu 讀書符), and highlighting marks (chūjifu 注示符), as well as
romanized quốc ngữ glosses. The former (symbol glosses or marks) are
typically inscribed in vermillion (a minority in black ink), while the latter
(romanized quốc ngữ glosses) are inscribed in black, vermillion, blue (all of
these may be in pen ink). The fact that the symbol glosses are in vermillion
matches the practice in Dūnhuáng and Japanese glossed texts, confirming
38 TEIJI AND WHITMAN

FIGURE 5: Thư kinh đại toàn (Shūjīng dàquán 書經大全) R.1277.

that this was part of the overall glossing practice throughout the Sinosphere.
We might note that while Vietnamese and Chinese are both isolating lan-
guages, the two languages do have differences in word order; thus we might
expect to find inversion glosses (返讀記號, 返點) of the sort found in
Japanese and Korean, but none have been found. This may be a distinctive
feature of the reading process for hán văn and hán nôm texts in Vietnam,
and it may also indicate a different strategy for coping with the main dif-
ference in Chinese and Vietnamese word order: noun phrase-internal order.
Figure  illustrates the glosses in the opening section of a copy of the Shūjīng
dàquán (Vietnamese Thư kinh đại toàn 書經大全) published during the
Nguyễn Dynasty, in the th year of Tự Ðức’s reign () (R.). A
classification of these glosses is given below.

 Lower right of character: Punctuation (kuten 句點 clause separation

marks and tōten 讀點 reading marks are not distinguished).
 Circle mark: In the case of the proper name Kŏngzĭ 孔子, it is between
the characters of the name; in the case of Shùn 舜 and Yáo 堯, it is
aligned to one of the strokes of the character. Annotations picking out
 ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE GLOSSES IN VIETNAMESE CLASSICAL CHINESE TEXTS 39

proper names of persons may be seen as reverence marks, also found in

medieval Chinese practice.
 Short vertical line to the right: Names of dynasties and books: (夏, 唐,
後漢, 虞書, 舜典, 春秋, 説文).
 Long vertical line to the right: Reference mark (標點; highlighting 注
示符 and reading 讀書符 marks, alongside multiple characters).
 Right side marks: Reference marks (highlighting 注示符 and reading
讀書符 marks).
 Marks on the four corners of characters (semicircle)：Pòyīn 破音
(indicating that a character is to be read not with its original meaning
but a derived meaning).

Scope of Glossing
We find glossing in a number of different hán nôm contexts. Take, for
example, the Nguyễn Dynasty Bảo Đại  () edition of the Minh đạo
gia huấn 明道家訓 (R.) in Figure , where each character in the hán
văn text is glossed in romanized quốc ngữ for both its Sino-Vietnamese
pronunciation and its meaning in Vietnamese, while at the same time the
corresponding chữ nôm is printed on the right. Glossing (here in its
extended sense of katen 加點, “adding marks”) is not confined to the main
text but extends to inserted notes (割注) and headnotes above the upper
margin. In the case of glossed secular Chinese texts in Japan, there is a debate
as to whether annotation in the form of inserted notes extends to texts
outside the Classics (經部) category; in the case of Vietnam it is as yet
unclear whether this kind of distinction based on the content of the Chinese
text exists. In the example of the Nguyễn Dynasty Minh Mạng  ()
edition of the Thượng dụ huấn điều 上諭訓條 (R.) in Figure , where
hán nôm annotations in the format of inserted notes appear embedded in
the hán văn text, the annotation appears only in the hán văn main text.
Compare this with the manuscript copy of the Chu dịch thượng kinh quốc
âm ca quyết 周易上經國音歌訣 (R., Figure ), in which hán văn and
hán nôm are vertically juxtaposed in upper and lower blocks of text, and
glossing appears in both the upper hán văn and the lower hán nôm text. This
may have to do with the layout of these texts. We see from these examples
40 TEIJI AND WHITMAN

FIGURE 6: Minh đạo gia huấn âm. FIGURE 7: Thượng dụ huấn điều
明道家訓 R.1555 上諭訓條 R.580

FIGURE 8: Chu dịch thượng kinh quốc ca quyết

周易上經國音歌訣 R.1722
 ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE GLOSSES IN VIETNAMESE CLASSICAL CHINESE TEXTS 41

that there are cases of detailed glossing such as the Thư kinh đại toàn 書經大
全 in Figure , where the glosses extend not only to the main text but to the
inserted notes, but there are also examples of very sparse glossing, where in
a single volume there may be only a few pages or a few lines containing
glossing. In addition, glosses are not limited to a single variety per text; we
find instances where, for example, vermillion and black ink glosses have
been repeatedly added to a text.

Sino-Vietnamese Reading Annotations

We find examples of annotations of the Sino-Vietnamese reading of a char-
acter inscribed around its periphery in romanized quốc ngữ. Fascicle  of the
Nguyễn Dynasty Bảo Đại  () print edition of the Ngọc Hoàng phổ độ
tôn kinh 玉皇普度尊經 (R.) in Figure  has intensive annotations of
Sino-Vietnamese readings in romanization. Many of these differ from stan-
dard Vietnamese orthography, raising the possibility that, if they are not
errors or misreadings on the part of the glossator, they may be of value for

FIGURE 9: Ngọc Hoàng phổ độ tôn kinh 玉皇普度尊經 R.3934.

42 TEIJI AND WHITMAN

our understanding of the history of Vietnamese and dialect studies. This

material awaits future study.

Chữ Nôm (字喃)

As pointed out by Iwatsuki Junichi, there exist “printed books where beside
every Chinese character in the original text there are smaller size chữ nôm
annotations.” These annotations have a format that we might go so far as
to term “mixed hán tự/ chữ nôm style” (in Japanese, hán tự/ chữ nôm
majiribun 漢字字喃交じり文), as they contain both ) portions where the
Sino-Vietnamese reading is directly inscribed and ) cases where the mean-
ing of the character is written in chữ nôm. In the Nguyễn Dynasty Thành
Thái () print edition of the Dương tiết diễn nghĩa 陽節演義 (R.),
麻 is given as an annotation for 而, and is given as an annotation for
行 and 爲. The annotations represent Vietnamese mà (“however”) and làm
(“do”) respectively.

FIGURE 10: Dương tiết diễn nghĩa 陽節演義 R.1958.

Pòyīn (破音)
In Dūnhuáng secular Chinese materials, pòyīn glosses are limited to rela-
tively simple, everyday characters. Within the Dūnhuáng materials, in the
Stein collection,  secular Chinese texts (late th to the late th century)
contain  character (types) glossed with pòyīn; in the Pelliot collection, 
texts (mid-th to mid-th century) contain  characters (types) with
pòyīn, for a total of  texts and  character types. By way of comparison,
 ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE GLOSSES IN VIETNAMESE CLASSICAL CHINESE TEXTS 43

TABLE 2: Comparison between Pòyīn-glossed characters in Vietnamese and

Dūnhuáng manuscripts.
Appeared in
Appeared in Did not both 易經大全
Dūnhuáng ms. appear and 三字經演音

易経大全 朝易傳長比説少重分數思當處累 奇識縱探輔 朝易傳長少重

夫相好將舍告泥從見幾間 (5字) 強分放從
(25字) (10字)
三字經演音 更燕易行分樂曾爲傳從重朝位長 論放召主載
少予賈鮮使(19字) (5字)

the preface of the Dịch kinh đại toàn 易經大全 (R., Kāngxī , )
contains pòyīn on  character types: 朝, 易, 傳, 長, 比, 説, 少, 重, 奇, 識, 強,
分, 數, 思, 當, 處, 累, 夫, 縱, 相,放, 探, 輔, 好, 將, 舍, 告, 泥, 從, 見, 幾, 間
(listed in order of appearance). When we compare this with the pòyīn on 
character types in the Tam tự kinh diễn âm 三字經演音 (R., date of
copying unknown), which includes 更, 燕, 論, 易, 放, 行, 分, 樂, 曾, 爲, 傳,
從, 重, 召, 朝, 位, 主, 載, 長, 少, 強, 予, 賈, 鮮, 使 (listed in order of
appearance), we can see (as shown in Table ) that many of the characters
glossed with pòyīn are the same. Whether or not the scope of pòyīn glossing
differs across periods and regions or languages is a question that requires
further study, but there is no question that this type of glossing is a defining
feature of the Sinosphere.

Distinguishing Proper Names (Vermillion Sidelines:

Shubiki 朱引)
Figure  groups all the symbols marking proper names (personal names,
book titles, dynasty names) in the opening section of the Thư kinh đại toàn
書經大全 (R.). There are exceptions, but it is fair to say that distin-
guishing proper names was a widely used method for studying not only
Classical Chinese texts but for mastering foreign language texts in general.
The method of distinguishing proper names we see in Vietnamese hán văn
and hán nôm materials shows interesting parallels with the method of shu-
biki 朱引 “vermillion sidelining” found in Late Middle and Early Modern
Japanese kanbun (漢文) texts, as shown in Figure , suggesting a possible
relationship between the two methods.
44 TEIJI AND WHITMAN

book or dynasty person

氏 、
FIGURE 11: Proper name identification in the 書經大全 R.1277.

era name

dynasty
official

person

book
place
FIGURE 12: Japanese sidelined proper names in vermillion (Shubiki ).

In the case of the Japanese practice, most sources claim that it began with
Japanese kanbun kundoku (漢文訓讀; vernacular reading) only after the Late
Middle Japanese period (cf. 大漢和辭典, 言語學大辭典, 国語學大辭典,
etc.), but this merely reflects the fact that the earliest attestations of the term
date back only to the Nippo jisho 日葡辭書 Japanese-Portuguese dictionary
(). The method itself of using vermillion sidelining and vermillion lines to
distinguish proper names of special interest is widespread across the Sino-
sphere. In Japan, Dazai Shundai’s 太宰春臺 Wadoku yōryō 倭讀要領
(printed in ) is often pointed out as an early example where vermillion
sidelining is used in for proper names, place names, and book titles. For early
examples of the practice, we can point to Dūnhuáng manuscripts from the
seventh century where noun phrases are distinguished by vermillion points.

Classical Chinese Materials in the Thắng Nghiêm Temple

(勝嚴寺)
We will next discuss the  texts held by the Thắng Nghiêm temple (勝嚴
寺). The types and contents of the glosses found in this collection are exactly
the same as found in the VNPF-NLV materials. The percentage of glossed
texts is % (/ texts), as compared to the % (/ texts, Classics (經
部) only) in the VNPF-NLV materials. Given that this figure for the Thắng
Nghiêm temple materials excludes  texts whose image cannot be viewed
(TN. 新刊德生錄, TN. 禪林寶訓合註, TN. 禪林寶訓合註,
TN. 四分戒本如釋語, TN. 直指歸元), the percentages of glossed
materials can be considered to be almost the same.
 ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE GLOSSES IN VIETNAMESE CLASSICAL CHINESE TEXTS 45

TABLE 3: Classification of Thắng Nghiêm temple 勝嚴寺 materials by glossing.

However, it should be noted that the composition of the VNPF-NLV and

Thắng Nghiêm temple collections are different: in the VNPF-NLV collection
Buddhist texts are included in the Philosophy (子部) section, and comprise
only a small portion of the overall collection. In contrast, Buddhist texts
comprise about half of the Thắng Nghiêm temple materials, and the fact that
these materials are unglossed contributes to the overall low percentage of
glossed materials. Buddhist materials at Dūnhuáng also contain relatively little
glossing. This can be attributed to the fact that secular classical Chinese texts
were used for learning, and utilized glossing as part of the pedagogical process.
In contrast, it seems likely that Buddhist texts were copied or printed and then
held as objects of veneration, or to be donated to the temple, attaining signif-
icance as objects of religious belief. In opposition to this situation with
Dūnhuáng materials and Vietnamese hán văn and hán nôm materials, in
Japan we find vigorous glossing of Buddhist texts, with over  glossed
Buddhist texts still extant from the ninth century alone.
Let us next compare the appearance of the glosses in the Thắng Nghiêm
temple Địa tạng bồ tát bổn nguyện kinh (Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva Pūrva-
praṇidhāna Sūtra; Chinese Dì zàng pú sà běn yuàn jīng 地藏菩薩本願經,
TN.) with the unglossed NVL exemplar of this book (R.).
The dates of both the Thắng Nghiêm temple text and the NLV exemplar
are unknown, but they most likely date from the second half of the nine-
teenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century. Both have punc-
tuation and pòyīn as part of the printed text, and appear to be from the
same woodblock. There are no glosses added to the NLV xylograph, so we
have no way of knowing how the owner read the text (or indeed if it was
read at all). On page , line  of the Thắng Nghiêm temple text in Figure 
46 TEIJI AND WHITMAN

FIGURE 13: Địa tạng bồ tát bổn nguyện kinh 地藏菩薩本願經 TN.055 (Glossed)
and R.165 (unglossed).

a vermillion pòyīn gloss is added to the upper right-hand corner of the

character 爲, indicating the variant reading of “for the benefit of.’” Since
the VNPF-NLV xylograph lacks a carved pòyīn as well, we can conclude
that it was the owner of the text at the Thắng Nghiêm temple who read
爲 in 爲南閻浮提衆生 as “for the benefit of the sentient beings in the
Jumbūdvīpa.” By examining materials like this containing the same text, it
may be possible to clarify the process by which such Buddhist texts were
introduced into Vietnam.

Conclusion
By studying the phenomenon of glossing in hán văn and hán nôm texts, we
can gain a better understanding of how Literary Chinese was introduced into
Vietnam and understood there. By comparing two or more texts with the
same content, each with their own glossing, we may be able to understand
whether the process of acquiring and comprehending the text was an
 ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE GLOSSES IN VIETNAMESE CLASSICAL CHINESE TEXTS 47

entirely individual matter or whether, as in modern Japanese kundoku, the

method of reading was to some degree fixed. Phonogrammatic glosses in
romanization may help us understand diachronic and regional dialect
differences.
A note of caution: in the process of collecting and processing hán văn and
hán nôm texts, discarding those which appear to be “damaged” due to
handling or writing scribbled on the text risks destroying materials that are
invaluable for our understanding of the process of adapting and inventing
hán văn and hán nôm. We would like to conclude by emphasizing how
important it is to collect and appropriately process as quickly as possible the
large quantity of unprocessed hán văn and hán nôm materials that lie wait-
ing in Vietnam’s universities, research centers, and temples.

T EIJI K OSUKEGAWA is Professor in the Faculty of Humanities at Toyama

University and Chair of the Steering Committee for the Society for Research
in Kunten Language (Kuntengo gakkai). He has published widely on the
glossing of Chinese secular texts in Japan and China, and on the history,
functions, and comparative study of vernacular glossing in East Asia as
a whole. This article follows on several research trips to Vietnam.

J OHN W HITMAN is Professor and current Chair of the Department of

Linguistics at Cornell University. His research focuses on the structure and
history of Chinese, Japanese, Korean and other languages of East and
Southeast Asia.

ABSTRACT

Vernacular reading—reading Classical Chinese texts in the local vernacular

—was practiced throughout the Sinosphere, everywhere people adopted
Chinese characters to write and read. Recent research indicates that it took
place in Vietnam as well. In this paper, we introduce the variant of this
practice found in Japan: kanbun kundoku (漢文訓讀). We then use the
extensive documentation of the annotation, glossing, and punctuation of
texts in Japan and China to identify similar practices in Vietnamese texts.
Using materials digitized by the Vietnamese Nôm Preservation Foundation
for the National Library of Vietnam (NLV) as well as materials housed at
48 TEIJI AND WHITMAN

Thắng Nghiêm and Phổ Nhân temples, we identify reading glosses, pòyīn,
proper name glosses, reference marks, and punctuation, added in black or
vermillion ink depending on the type of annotation. We suggest that further
study of such annotations will help clarify the ways in which Vietnamese
readers learned, studied, and read Classical Chinese.

KEYWORDS: Classical Chinese, glossing, hán văn, hán nôm, kundoku

(訓讀), punctuation

Notes
. John Whitman’s work on this essay was supported by the Laboratory Program
for Korean Studies through the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea
and the Korean Studies Promotion Service of the Academy of Korean Studies
(AKS--LAB-).
. Abbreviations used in the glosses for fourteenth-century Japanese are: GEN
genitive, NOML nominalizer, GER gerund, CONC conclusive, NEG negative,
Q question.
. The first kugyŏl (口訣) glossed text discovered and studied in Korea was the
Kuyŏk Imwang-kyŏng (舊譯仁王經 Humane King Sutra, old translation), found
at Munju-sa 文珠寺 Temple in Korea in . Korean kugyŏl glosses were added
in that text. For a concise description of these glosses, see Fujimoto Yukio 藤本
幸夫, Kodai chosen no gengo to moji bunka [The language and script culture of
premodern Korea 古代朝鮮の言語と文字文化], in Kotoba to moji [Words and
scripts『ことばと文字』], edited by Kishi Toshio 岸俊男編 (Tokyo: Chūō kōr-
on-sha, ), –.
. Ishizuka Harumichi 石塚晴通, Rōran ▪ Tonkō no katenbon [Glossed texts of
Lóulán and Dūnhuáng 楼蘭・敦煌の加点本], Bokubi墨美 (Kyoto: Bokubi-
sha, ); Ishizuka Harumichi 石塚晴通, Tonkō no katenbon [Glossed texts of
Dūnhuáng 敦煌の加点本], in Kōza Tonkō [Lectures on Dūnhuáng 『講座敦
煌』] , edited by Ikeda On 池田温 (Tokyo: Daitō shuppan-sha, ); Ishizuka
Harumichi, “The Origins of the Ssŭ-Shêng Marks,” Acta Asiatica  (): –
; Ishizuka Harumichi 石塚晴通, Shōten no kigen [The origin of tone marks 声
点の起源], in Nihon kanjion shi ronshū [Studies on the history of Sino-Japanese
『日本漢字音史論輯』], edited by Tsukishima Hiroshi築島裕 (Tokyo: Kyūko
shoin, ); Kosukegawa Teiji, “Tonkō katenbon wo meguru kenkyū kadai”
[Issues in research on glossed Dūnhuáng texts 敦煌加点本を巡る研究課題],
Toyama Daigaku Jinbun Gakubu Kiyō 富山大学人文学部紀要, Toyama
Daigaku Jinbun Gakubu, .
 ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE GLOSSES IN VIETNAMESE CLASSICAL CHINESE TEXTS 49

. Fujimoto, Kodai chosen, .

. See references in footnote .
. Nguyễn Thị Oanh, “Betonamu no ‘kanbun kundoku’ ni tsuite ― Lingnan đổ lỗi
嶺南摭 wo chūsin ni” [On Vietnamese “kanbun kundoku” with a focus on the
Lingnan đổ lỗi 嶺南摭怪 ベトナムの「漢文訓読」について―『嶺南摭怪』を
中心に], Resume of a paper is provided in at the International Workshop on
Textual Exchange (Kundoku) and Sinographic Information(国際ワークショップ
「典籍交流(訓読)と漢字情報」)(Sapporo: Hokkaido University, );
Nguyễn Thị Oanh, “Betonamu kanbun kundoku to sono shiryō ni tsuite” [On
Vietnamese kanbun kundoku and its materials ベトナム漢文訓読とその資料につ
いて], in Jiāng hù shídài Rìbĕn hànxúe yánjiū zhū qīngxiàng: Sīxiǎng wénhuà piān
『江戸時代日本漢学研究諸傾向：思想文化篇』[Trends in research on
Japanese Sinology in the Edo period: Thought and culture, eds. Zhang Baosan 張
寶三and Yang Rur-Bin 楊儒賓 (Taipei: National Taiwan University Press,
); Nguyễn Thị Oanh, “Betonamu no kanbun kundoku ni tsuite” [On
Vietnamese kanbun kundoku ベトナムの漢文訓読について], Kuntengo to kunten
shiryō 訓点語と訓点資料 ().
. Iwatsuki Junichi 岩月 純一, “Betonamu no “kundoku” to Nihonno “kundoku”
― Kanji bunkaken no tayōsei ― [Vietnamese “Kundoku” and Japanese
“Kundoku” ― diversity in the Sinographic cultural sphere ―. ベトナムの「訓
読」と日本の「訓読」―「漢文文化圏」の多様性―], in Kundoku ron ―
Higashi Azia kanbun sekai to Nihongo ―『「訓読」論―東アジア漢文世界と
日本語―』], eds. Nakamura Shunsaku 中村春作 et al. (Tokyo: Benseisha,
): –.
. An earlier outline of the Vietnamese materials is given in Kosukegawa Teiji 小助
川貞次, “Betonamu no katen shiryō ni tsuite” [On Vietnamese kunten glossed
materials ベトナムの加点資料について], Kuntengo to kunten shiryō 訓点語と訓点
資料 (). We use the Vietnamese term hán văn to refer to Literary Chinese
texts, and use the term hán nôm to refer to mixed texts that at least partially
include text written in vernacular Vietnamese using the script known as chữ nôm.
. Kosukegawa Teiji 小助川貞次, “Higashi Azia kundoku shiryō toshite no Tonkō
katenbon no igi” [The significance of Dūnhuáng glossed texts as materials for
kundoku (vernacular reading) in East Asia 東アジア漢文訓読資料としての敦煌
加点本の意義], Kokugo kokubun kenkyū 国語国文研究 (), Sapporo:
Hokkaido Daigaku Kokugo Kokubun Gakkai, –. The terms used here for
various gloss, punctuation, and annotation types are the Japanese ones, together
with the English equivalents given in John Whitman, Valerio Luigi Alberizzi,
Masayuki Tsukimoto, Teiji Kosukegawa, Tomokazu Takada, Miyoung Oh and
Jinho Park, “Toward an International Vocabulary for Research on Vernacular
Readings of Chinese Texts (漢文訓讀 Hanwen xundu),” Scripta  (): –.
50 TEIJI AND WHITMAN

. Imre Galambos, “Punctuation Marks in Medieval Chinese Manuscripts,”

Manuscript Cultures: Mapping the Field, eds. Jörg Quenzer and Jan-Ulrich So-
bisch (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, ): –.
. Iwatsuki Junichi, “Betonamu,” –.
. Kosukegawa, “Higashi Azia,” –.
. Kosukegawa Teiji 小助川貞次, “Kutōten no kinō kara mita Higashi Azai
kanbun kundoku shi” [The history of kanbun kundoku in East Asia seen from
the function of punctuation 句読点の機能から見た東アジア漢文訓読史],
Kuntengo to kunten shiryō 訓点語と訓点資料 ().
. Tsukishima Hiroshi 築島裕, Heian jidai kuntenbon ronkō (kenkyū hen) [Studies
on Heian period kunten texts (research volume) 平安時代訓点本論考(研究
篇)] (Tokyo: Kyūko shoin, ).
. Scholars in Japan point out that the vernacular reading method or kundoku of
specific Buddhist texts varies from sect to sect. Kobayashi Yoshinori 小林芳規,
Heian Kamakura jidai ni okeru kanseki kundoku no kokugoshiteki kenkyū
[Research on kundoku in Heian and Kamakura period Chinese classical secular
texts from the standpoint of the history of Japanese 平安鎌倉時代に於ける漢籍
訓読の国語史的研究] (Tokyo: Tokyo University Press, ) has argued for the
existence of the same phenomenon in the reading of Classical Chinese texts.
. Vietnamese glossed Classical Chinese texts are kept in the history laboratory of
Humanities and Social Science University in Hà Nội and in the linguistics
laboratory of Humanities and Social Science University in Hồ Chí Minh City. On
the stylus gloss (dry point) in Vietnamese texts, Nishimura Hiroko 西村浩子,
“Kanji bunkaken ni okeru kakuhitsu bunken no hakkutsu chōsa narabi ni hikaku
kenkyū” [A survey of and comparative research on drypoint glossing n the
Sinosphere漢字文化圏における角筆文献の発掘調査並びに比較研究] (Japan
Society for the Promotion of Science Research Grant Report, ) has
mentioned and we have confirmed that the stylus inscribed reference number “J.
” is written on the left side of the title “東洋文庫展観書目甲” on the inner
cover of “東洋文庫展観書目甲” (The Toyo bunko ) which is kept in the
École française d’Extrême-Orient in Hà Nội.