Title page from a Han-Nom edition of 'Kim Van Kieu' (The Tale of Kim'); woodblock printed in Hanoi; 1932. Chu Nom is an obsolete writing system of the Vietnamese language. It makes use of Chinese characters (known as Han Tu in Vietnamese); and characters coined following the Chinese model. The earliest known example of Chu Nom dates to the 13th century. It was used almost exclusively by the Vietnamese elite; mostly for recording Vietnamese literature (formal writings were; in most cases; not done in Vietnamese; but in classical Chinese). It has almost been completely replaced by Quoc Ngu; a script based on the Latin alphabet.