Literary Chinese in Vietnam

Literary Chinese (Vietnamese: Hán văn, văn ngôn; chữ Hán: 漢文, 文言) was the medium of all formal writing in Vietnam for almost all of the country's history until the early 20th century, when it was replaced by vernacular writing in Vietnamese using the Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet. Literary Chinese was the official language of Vietnamese governments (except the Hồ and Tây Sơn dynasties) until it was replaced by the French language in 1884.

The language used in Vietnam was the same as that used in China, as well as in Korea and Japan, and used the same standard Chinese characters. It was used for official business, historical annals, fiction, verse, scholarship, and even for declarations of Vietnamese determination to resist Chinese invaders. Literary Chinese was briefly replaced by the Vietnamese language (written in Chữ Nôm) as the official government language during the Hồ dynasty (1400–1407) and the Tây Sơn dynasty (1778–1802).