I'm not sure what you mean. Why would it be Nom in any case? It's the
current form. HaNoi has the grave for the A and circumflex for the O
with the bottom dot. It took me awhile to satisify myself that the
bottom dot was part of the Latin character set. I didn't remember it
but it's been awhile since I studied the subject in high school. There
was a time Latin was required by some Universities for admission.
Today if you want a good high school education go to college.

Jim

Scott Dorsey wrote:
> Space Cowboy > wrote:
> >Amazing. The official language is Guoc Ngu based on Latin character
> >set used by Catholic missionaries in the 17th century. It could
> >accomodate the tonal sounds. It evolved from Chinese to Western
> >characters. Maybe our resident language expert can add more. Thai
> >Nguyen is a province north of Hanoi noted for premium green teas. I'd
> >like to find some Vietnamese form of pu from the area that borders
> >Yunnan. It is part of the swath of mountainous jungle called Upper
> >India which contains the tea trees which became the cultivated bush in
> >China.
>
> Originally there was a written language called "Nom" (with a circumflex
> over the O), which used chinese characters but was phonetic. It was
> _very_ rapidly replaced with the current latin alphabetic method... by
> the late 19th century there were only a handful of historians who could
> read Nom.
>
> If you walk around cities in Vietnam, you'll see inscriptions in buildings
> in Nom all over the place, and not a single one of the people passing by
> know what they mean. This is kind of sad.
>
> My suspicion is that the notation you're seeing on the tea boxes isn't
> Nom at all, but is actual Chinese. It's easy enough to find out by
> using a Chinese dictionary.
> --scott
>
> --
> "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."