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Origin of writing in Japan

Before the 4th century AD, the Japanese had no writing system of their own. During the 4th century they began to import and adapt the Chinese script, along with many other aspects of Chinese culture, probably via Korea.

At first the Japanese wrote in Classical Chinese or in a Japanese-Chinese hybrid style. An example of the hybrid style is the kojiki (Records of Antiquity) written in 712 AD. They then start to use Chinese characters to write Japanese in a style known as man'yōgana, literarly "Ten Thousand leaf syllabic script", which used the characters for their phonetic values.

Over time a writing system emerged in which Chinese characters were used to write either words borrowed from Chinese or Japanese words with the same or similar meanings. Chinese characters were also used for their phonetic values to write grammatical elements and these characters were simplified and eventually became two syllabic scripts, hiragana and katakana.

Origin of writing in Vietnam

Vietnam was ruled by the Chinese for over a thousand years from 111 BC - 938 AD. As a result, the official written language was Classical Chinese, known as Chu-nho in Vietnamese, which continued to be used in Vietnam, in parallel with Chữ-nôm and Quốc Ngữ, until about 1918.

Sometime during the 10th century AD the Vietnamese adapted the Chinese script to write their own language and called their script 'Chữ-nôm' (southern script). The earliest known example of writing in the Chữ-nôm script, an inscription on a stele at the Bao An Pagoda in Yen Lang, Vinh Phu province, dates from 1209 AD (Ly Dynasty). It was during the Tarn Dynasty (late 13th century) that the script was systematized and started to be used in literature.

Famous Vietnamese writers who wrote in the Chữ-nôm script include the poets Nguyen Thuyen and Nguyen Si Co (14th century) and Nguyen Trai (15th century), and HoQuy Ly (14th century) who translated Chinese textbooks into Vietnamese and wrote royal proclamations and ordinances.

When western missionaries starting arriving in Vietnam during the 17th century, they developed a new script for Vietnamese based on the Latin alphabet - Quốc Ngữ (national language), which they used to write prayer books and other religious material in Vietnamese. Though Quốc Ngữ was developed by a number of different missionaries and by Vietnamese scholars, the person usually credited with its invention is Alexandre de Rhodes, a French Jesuit missionary.

In the mid 18th century, some schools in Vietnam began to teach Quốc Ngữ, but it wasn't until the beginning of the 20th century that the use of Quoc Ngữ became widespread. Today Quốc Ngữ is the only script used for writing Vietnamese and Chữ-nôm is known only to a handfull of scholars.

Origin of writing in Korea

Chinese writing has been known in Korea for over 2,000 years. It was used widely during the Chinese occupation of northern Korea from 108 BC to 313 AD. By the 5th century AD, the Koreans were starting to write in Classical Chinese - the earliest known example of this dates from 414 AD. They later devised three different systems for writing Korean with Chinese characters: Hyangchal ( 향찰/鄕札 ), Gukyeol ( 구결/口訣 ) and Idu ( 이두/吏讀 ). These systems were similar to those developed in Japan and were probably used as models by the Japanese.

The Idu system used a combination of Chinese characters together with special symbols to indicate Korean verb endings and other grammatical markers, and was used to in official and private documents for many centuries. The Hyangchal system used Chinese characters to represent all the sounds of Korean and was used mainly to write poetry.

The Koreans borrowed a huge number of Chinese words, gave Korean readings and/or meanings to some of the Chinese characters and also invented about 150 new characters, most of which are rare or used mainly for personal or place names.

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