Template talk:Châu bản triều Nguyễn

Notes on this template upon launch

I would like to explain a few "creative decisions" I made during the drafting of this template. Almost all of the sourcing of these different categories of documents comes from the National Archives of Việt Nam and additional content is mostly from existing categories. But I should also explain why I "left the Classical Chinese and Romanised Vietnamese languages black", that is because the languages by themselves are notable to include (as the Nguyễn Dynasty only issued official documents in 4 (four) languages), but to actually have such categories would be as "generic" as a category entitled "Documents of the United States in English" or "Documents of Brazil in Portuguese". Meanwhile Chữ Nôm was primarily used during the reign of the Gia Long Emperor and French was used for specific situations such as official translations for the French administration or for documents issued specifically dealing with the French or ordered by the French.

According to the National Archives of Việt Nam the number of Châu bản triều Nguyễn in their archives is 773 (seven-hundred-and-seventy-three) original volumes, equivalent to about 200,000 (two-hundred-thousand) documents of 11 (eleven) of the 13 (thirteen) Nguyễn Dynasty Emperors.

Regarding the various topics this actually started with the "Documents of the Nguyễn dynasty relating to the Hoàng Sa and the Trường Sa archipelagos" as in the modern era THE ONLY reason why Châu bản triều Nguyễn are even brought up is the Hoàng Sa and the Trường Sa territory dispute. Even the addition of the Châu bản triều Nguyễn to the UNESCO world heritage ("Với những giá trị nổi bật đáp ứng khá đầy đủ các tiêu chí về hình thức và nội dung như tính độc đáo, xác thực, tầm ảnh hưởng khu vực và quốc tế, năm 2014, Châu bản triều Nguyễn đã được UNESCO công nhận là Di sản tư liệu thuộc Chương trình Ký ức thế giới Khu vực Châu Á – Thái Bình Dương và năm 2017, Châu bản được UNESCO công nhận là Di sản tư liệu thế giới." - Ths. Nguyễn Thu Hoài) was done in order to "verify Vietnamese sovereignty over the Hoàng Sa and the Trường Sa archipelagos". Meanwhile the other "Topics" are essentially "back-creations" based on different categories of Nguyễn Dynasty seals and a number of exhibitions and curated releases by the National Archives of Việt Nam.

While there are around 200,000 (two-hundred-thousand) preserved documents of the Nguyễn Dynasty period, the National Archives of Việt Nam only periodically releases a small number of them to the public.

Regarding the documents of the French protectorate of Annam and the French protectorate of Tonkin these are somewhat more complicated to categorise within this framework, that is because the French protectorates of Annam and Tonkin were technically the Nguyễn Dynasty but in both countries 2 (two) governments existed, a French protectorate government and the continued existing indigenous bureaucracy. These two (2) governments overlapped a lot and the point where one started and the other ended is quite blurry, only Hanoi, Haiphong, and Tourane were directly ruled French cities and the rest of Annam and Tonkin were technically a part of the Nguyễn Dynasty. For this reason these categories shouldn't belong in the main Nguyễn Dynasty documents category but should be listed as "a (sub-)type" of the documents of the Nguyễn Dynasty.

Regarding the differences between Châu điểm (硃點), Châu phê (硃批), Châu mạt (硃抹), Châu sổ (硃数), and Châu cải (硃改); these are different categories of authentication, however, I don't have the books that properly explain how to identify the different types of red text but I will have to find this information later, so it's a "work in progress" for now. --Donald Trung 『徵國單』 (No Fake News 💬) (WikiProject Numismatics 💴) (Articles 📚) 20:16, 12 September 2022 (UTC)