Nôm

Nôm was a script formerly used in Vietnam. It involved the use of Chinese characters to write Vietnamese. The Van Ban bell, engraved in 1076, has the earliest known example of a Nôm inscription. The earliest surviving Nôm literature dates from the 13th century. The Tale of Kieu is a classic work written in Nôm. The script was in common use until the 1920s, when it was replaced by the Vietnamese alphabet, a form of the Latin alphabet.