Some comments on Quoc-ngu hand-written script by foreigners from 1620 to 1650 cited by Do Quang Chinh

Abstract

The Quoc-ngu script was believed to be initially formed from 1620 to 1650. During this period, Quoc-ngu script existed in the handwritten form made by Western commissioners on duty in Vietnam. Researcher Do Quang Chinh collected and restored some of those written texts, which later were published in “History of Quoc-ngu from 1620 to 1659” in 1972 in Saigon. Perusing evaluations made by Do Quang Chinh, this paper’s author examines statistics on those first written texts to provide more detailed comments about some aspects of Quoc-ngu in its earliest days such as capitalization, word appearance and the change of syllabic construction.