Reversal marks and gloss reading in Vietnamese Hán Nôm manuscripts

Mirroring the glossing traditions of literary Sinitic in Japanese kanbun kundoku and Korean sŏktok kugyŏl, Vietnam has also been theorized to have a similar system for vernacular interpretation of classical Chinese texts. While Japanese and Korean glossing practices have been extensively studied, evidence for Vietnamese equivalents has remained understudied. This article provides an examination of reversal marks in Vietnamese Hán Nôm manuscripts from the Cảnh Phước Collection currently held at the University of Kyoto. Several of these manuscripts have extensive glossing in the Nôm script. The reversal marks provide evidence of gloss-based reading practices, indicating a method for reordering classical Chinese syntax to match Vietnamese word order.