%0 Journal Article
%T Graphemic borrowings and transformations from Sinitic: The case of Qu£¿c £¿m Thi T£¿p
%A Tr£¿n Tr£¿ng D£¿£¿ng
%J Journal of Chinese Writing Systems
%@ 2513-8510
%D 2018
%R 10.1177/2513850217748808
%X Abstract This essay studies Vietnamese demotic N£¿m characters used to transcribe Sinitic loanwords in the text of Qu£¿c £¿m Thi T£¿p [Poetry Collection in the National Language] by Nguy£¿n Tr£¿i (1380¨C1442) using an interdisciplinary approach that combines graphology, historical phonetics, and etymology. The text under study (with 11,067 unique instances of N£¿m characters) has 1434 N£¿m characters used to transcribe Sinitic loanwords, with 8040 instances of recurrence. These N£¿m characters are divided into 10 categories, along two principal groups: (A) N£¿m characters that are borrowed from Sinitic; and (B) N£¿m characters that are self-generated. Statistics shows that the major trend of N£¿m characters used to transcribed Sinitic loanwords is from borrowing (93.3%), while the minor trend is from self-generation (6.7%). Group (A) of N£¿m characters mainly uses the method of graphemic borrowing from Sinitic, while group (B) uses two principal methods of graphemic creation: phono-semantic compound and phono-equivalent compound. The results show that basically the system of N£¿m characters used to transcribe Sinitic loanwords inherits the graphological tradition of Sinitic as expressed on the following levels: (a) graphemic components from radicals and existing Sinitic characters; (b) methods of graphemic creation including phonetic loan and phono-semantic compound. However, the methods of graphemic creation and the evolution of the graphic form of N£¿m characters all follow the common trends of the histories of N£¿m characters and the Vietnamese language
%K etymon
%K N£¿m character
%K Sinitic etymograph
%K Sinitic loanword
%K Sino-Vietnamese pronunciation
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2513850217748808