Viet Nam is a multidimensional society with 54 ethnic groups embodying vast cultural, language and musical diversities. True to nature, our entire group couldn't be more diversely passionate and dynamic as far as our backgrounds, philosophical values and approaches. The wonderful common link is that we're all proud of our heritage in our own ways. We're in a unique position as Vietnamese diaspora which helps to further diversify our perspectives on presenting the multifaceted Viet Nam.
VIETNAMESE SPEECH AND WRITING
1. Speech: the Language.
The origin of Vietnamese language is the subject of debate among linguists.
But according to Professor Nguyễn Đình Hoà, Faculty of Letters (Saigon University) the Vietnamese lexico has in common with the Khmer, several nouns denoting parts of the human body, members of the kingship system, species of local flora and fauna, farm tools as well as some pronouns and some numerals.
On the other hand, Vietnamese has the same final consonants as Thai, and like Thai, it makes use of pitch level. Although it is evident that Vietnamese did not have its origin in Chinese, but the influence of Chinese has always been strong in Vietnamese.
Thousands Chinese words and expressions have been incorporated into the Vietnamese language, although the pronunciation has changed.
2. The 6 tones and their phonetic symbols.
Vietnamese is a monosyllabic language having - tones. A word can be repeated with any one of 6 tones to indicate different meanings. The tones are represented by the following signs:
No marker, mid level: Ex. Ma (plantom, ghost)
( ' ) high rising: Ex. Má (cheek)
( ' ) low-falling: Ex. Mà (but, which, who)
( ? ) falling-rising, constricted: Ex. Maû (tomb)
( ~) high-rising, broken: Ex. Mã (horse)
( . ) low-falling short, constricted: Ex. Mạ (young rice seeding)
There are several mutually intelligible dialects in Vietnamese. We have a different, subjective distinction of tones between northern, central and southern dialects, not including those of high-landers.
Concerning the tones in the Vietnamese language, some authors suggested that Vietnamese was originally and basically a polysyllabic language. And it was later simplified by way of contraction due to the influence of the languages of continental Asia, most particularly Chinese which is essentially monosyllabic.
Thus some words which were polysyllabic in the 17th century have now become monosyllable by way of contraction.
3. Systems of writing.
a/ Chữ Nho
Vietnamese was first written using the Chinese writing system called Chữ Nho. Beginning sometime around the 9th century, following the period of Chinese domination, all government and official transactions, education, correspondences and literature used the Chinese characters.
This chữ nho system was still used by scholars until a few decades ago, and in fact, Vietnamese still request the services of scholars skilled in chữ nho for lettering the banners and placards which are traditionally found at weddings, funerals and festivals.
b/ Chữ Nôm
Vietnamese writers, however, desired a language of their own in which to transcribe the national history and literature. Gradually a new writing system known as Chữ Nôm - vulgar or demotic script - was evolved.
Nguyễn Thuyên or Hàn Thuyên, a poet of the 13th century, is believed to be-if not the inventor, the man responsible for spreading and popularizing chữ nôm. Hàn Thuyên was a native of Thanh Lâm district, Hải Dương province. He received the Thaùi Sinh degree, equivalent of a Ph. D. in letters, in 1256, during the reign of Emperor Trần Thái Tôn (1225-1257). In this system, two Chinese characters were usually combined, one of which indicated the meaning of the Vietnamese word, while the other indicated the pronunciation.
The chữ nôm system however was never accorded recognition as the official language.
c/ Chữ Quốc Ngữ
Around the 17th century, catholic missionaries developed a Romanized script to represent the Quốc Ngữ (national language) in order to translate prayer books and catechisms.
The Quốc Ngữ (Latin alphabet) is generally said to have been invented by Alexandre de Rhodes, a French Jesuit missionary whose, Portugese-Latin-Vietnamese dictionary was published in 1651. Monsignor Pigneau de Behaine (18th century) and Monsignor Tabert (1838) later continued the works of Alexandre de Rhodes.
The Quốc ngữ was adopted and was taught in schools, won more and more favour with the public, and officially became popular, especially when Viet Nam was under French domination (1864-1945). At the beginning of the present century, Nguyễn Trường Tộ, a great Vietnamese reformer, presented to the Royal Court a petition requesting the adoption of the Quốc ngữ as the official writing. His request was not accepted, because Sholars of the time were reluctant to abandon older traditions. Only after the abolition of the triennal examinations in Chinese characters, 1915 in North Viet Nam, and 1919 in Central Viet Nam, the Quốc Ngữ became the accepted form of popular and national writing.
What does the word "Vietnam" mean?
Many foreign visitors, as well as many Vietnamese, have been thrown for a loss by this question. Because the geopolitical connotations of the word allow a better understanding of the history of the country, the answer is of interest to more than etymologists.
In Vietnamese, Vietnam is written in two words, Viet and Nam. Viet is the name of an ethnic group and Nam means "south". VietNam, then refers to the country of the southern Viet people. We can draw a parallel with the name Yugoslavia (Yugo=south, and slavia=country of the Slavs): country of the Southern Slavs.
In Vietnamese, south (Nam) often evokes what pertains to Vietnam while North (Bac) evokes China. Thus, Thuoc Nam means Southern (Vietnamese) medicine while Thuoc Bac refers to Northern (Chinese) medicine. Nuoc Nam, Southern Country, is a synonym for Vietnam.
Before beginning to talk about the Southern Viets, let's take a look at the peopling of Vietnam. The ethnic groups that today make up the Vietnamese people belong to a group born of a cross between the Mongoloids who came down from the North and the original Austronegroid inhabitants.
In this multiethnic melange, the Viet people lived with other groups in a territory extending from south of Yangtze River in present-day China to the northern part of present-day Vietnam.
Among the many groups of Viet peoples, those in the south created a cultural identity in the Red River basin during the Bronze Age, before the formation of the Chinese Empire. This "Celestial Empire" created in the third century BC, absorbed all of the ethnic groups of the above-mentioned territory, including many groups of Viets. Only the Southern Viets resolutely preserved their national identity, resisting assimilation despite a thousand years of Chinese domination followed by numerous later conquests. This ethnic group of Southern Viets today makes up 86% of the population of Vietnam.
Before the 1945 Revolution, the world knew Vietnam as Annam, a name given to it by the French colonial administration. After reclaiming national independence, the revolutionary government rejected the pejorative name "Annam" which had first been used by an even earlier colonial administration, the Tang (Chinese) and Annam meant the "pacified South". The country then retook the old name Vietnam that had been officially adopted by the Nguyen Dynasty in 1804.
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