The early modern Sino-Vietnamese dictionary known as the Chỉ Nam Ngọc Âm Giải Nghĩa contains two prefaces: one written in Literary Sinitic, using Sinitic characters, and one written in Vietnamese, using the “vernacular” script called Chữ Nôm. If read separately, each preface makes independent arguments in favor of “semantosyllabic” graphemes (characters that encode information for both meaning and pronunciation). However, when read as a single, continuous text, the prefaces combine to present a defense of Chữ Nôm—not as a vernacular alternative to Sinitic characters—but as a legitimate augmentation of the intellectual technology they represent, and thus capable of “taming” southern culture and intellectuality into literate civilization