Nguyễn Thuyên or Hàn Thuyên (

Bắc Ninh Bắc Ninh () is a city in the Northern Vietnam, northern part of Vietnam and is the capital of Bắc Ninh province. The city is the cultural, administrative and commercial center of the province. The city area is 82.60 square km, with a populat ...

) was a 13th-century Vietnamese official and writer. According to ''

Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư The ''Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư'' ( vi-hantu, 大越史記全書; ; ''Complete Annals of Đại Việt'') is the official national chronicle of the Đại Việt, that was originally compiled by the royal historian Ngô Sĩ Liên under ...

'', in 1282, he composed a piece of writing, throwing it into the Red River to chase away a

crocodile Crocodiles (family (biology), family Crocodylidae) or true crocodiles are large, semiaquatic reptiles that live throughout the tropics in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia. The term "crocodile" is sometimes used more loosely to include ...

, similar to what the

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...

official and writer

Han Yu Han Yu (; 76825 December 824), courtesy name Tuizhi (), and commonly known by his posthumous name Han Wengong (韓文公), was an essayist, Confucian scholar, poet, and government official during the Tang dynasty who significantly influenced t ...

once did. As a result, Emperor

Trần Nhân Tông Trần Nhân Tông (7 December 1258–16 December 1308), Vietnamese name, personal name Trần Khâm, temple name Nhân Tông, was the third emperor of the Trần dynasty, reigning over Đại Việt from 1278 to 1293. After ceding the thron ...

gave him the surname Hàn. He is known as the first one to compose Vietnamese poems in

chữ Nôm Chữ Nôm (, ) is a logographic writing system formerly used to write the Vietnamese language. It uses Chinese characters to represent Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary and some native Vietnamese words, with other words represented by new characters ...

, although his works did not survive. Following the Chinese model, he divided the six tones of Vietnamese into "flat" (平) and "sharp" (仄), and used this distinction as the metrical foundation of his poems. The poets after him followed this practice.

References

*'' Zhongguo da baike quanshu''. First Edition. Beijing; Shanghai: Zhongguo da baike quanshu chubanshe. 1980–1993. {{DEFAULTSORT:Nguyen, Thuyen People from Bắc Ninh province Vietnamese male poets Trần dynasty officials Vietnamese Confucianists 13th-century Vietnamese poets Trần dynasty poets