Professor Phan Van Truong - Advisor To The French Government On International Trade - Don’t Be Worried That The Vietnamese Language Would Ever Go Dark

According to Decision No. 930/QĐ-TTg approved by the Prime Minister on August 3rd 2022 upon the Project of setting a day for the honoring of the Vietnamese Language among the Vietnamese communities overseas for the period between 2023 and 2030, the date of September 8th has been chosen to be the official day on which the Vietnamese Language is honored. This Project has been launched to enable Vietnamese everywhere to preserve, honor, and popularize the beauty and the value of the Vietnamese Language, and to contribute to the elevation of the pride in and the promotion of the cultural identity of the Vietnamese people at the same time. Below is Prof. Phan Van Truong's opinion about this special day for honoring the Vietnamese Language.

SEPTEMBER 8TH HAS BEEN CHOSEN TO BE THE DAY FOR HONORING THE VIETNAMESE LANGUAGE AMONG THE VIETNAMESE COMMUNITIES OVERSEAS, STARTING FROM 2022. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THIS?

Of course what every Vietnamese citizen hopes for is that our language - the Vietnamese Language – be honored forever and ever, be practiced on every utterance, in every place, at every time. The Vietnamese Language is learned, and even loved, by a large number of foreigners, though not so widespread yet.

Vietnamese is the language of a highly cultured people, and the evidence of this lies in the immense number of works written in this new type of script that our people has produced in such a short time in history since the Latinized script was first introduced. This shows that our people have been equipped with adequate culture and skill to make the “new type of script” our own unique property in a relatively short time. Few peoples have been able to do this, obviously.

I am always proud of the sheer number of books on literature (both in verse and in prose), on philosophy, on research; the large quantities of magazine and newspaper critical articles, all of which have been issued in such a record minimum of time. My pride is founded on the wealth of the language, as well as on the Vietnamese people’s ability to internalize cultural materials of different origin. This is the proof of a powerful and original people. Now it is a very good thing to set aside a particular day to honor our people’s language. However, we should not be worried that the Vietnamese language would ever go dark. 

Each of us just need to love the language, to preserve it, to study it and improve it, so that it will become richer, more melodious, more colorful, more rhythmical, and that is enough. It is my belief that all of us are actually doing just that all the time now.

YOU LIVED AND WORKED IN FRANCE FOR MANY YEARS, AND YOU WERE AWARDED THE ORDER OF THE LEGION OF HONOR OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC ON ACCOUNT OF YOUR SERVICE TO THE COUNTRY. YOU WERE ALSO AWARDED A MEDAL OF HONOR BY THE VIETNAMESE GOVERNMENT FOR YOUR NOTABLE WORK IN EDUCATION. CAN YOU GIVE US FURTHER DETAILS ON THESE ACHIEVEMENTS?

Medals are actually the symbols of recognition of one’s contributions in the  past. The important thing here is what and how many more contributions we are going to make in the months and the years ahead. 

What amazes me is that I myself am still enthusiastic enough to create value for the young generations to take as an example. These people are youthful, active, charming, and eager to create value for themselves and for their homeland in the process. It is quite natural that I would like to be part of that cool and rich spring of value. I strongly  believe that many people are doing the same things now. I have chosen to tell you about the journey of my life. I have committed enough follies, have made wrong choices, have suffered discouraging failures. Unwanted things aside, though, I have had a number of achievements that amaze even me myself. I have written books which young people have enough patience to read, and which have become their favorites even – the timeless handbooks I mean. 

It was a surprise that my endearment toward the youthful generations here had motivated me to re-learn the Vietnamese language because I had allowed myself to be out of practice at it after half a century living abroad.  And what overjoys me most is my colleagues’ admission that I have successfully restored a number of formerly-used fine terms in the Vietnamese language. Some instances are “nội lực” (inherent power) or “trù phú” (affluence), which had been used by only a few until five years ago but which have become widely used again since. I even coined the new term “cấy nền,” a non-existent term in the known Vietnamese vocabulary, which refers to a working style characterized by transparency, morality, honesty, positivity, no rent-seeking, and above all, equality. This term has also become commonly used now. 

I have been invited by several businesses, schools and colleges, to help them with the job of “cấy nền”  recreating innocence and morality in their work environment, with the intention of bringing about the motivation, enthusiasm, and healthy thinking. These invitations are the rewards that I hardly expected in the past.

WHAT DO YOU THINK NEEDS TO BE DONE SO THAT YOUNG PEOPLE OF VIETNAMESE ORIGIN IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES, AND YOUNG NATIVE PEOPLE AS WELL, CAN TAKE PRIDE IN THE VIETNAMESE LANGUAGE? 

The generations who are the predecessors have a weighty duty here. They themselves should take pride in, and make use of, the Vietnamese language, and they may even undertake the creative job of producing works in the language. Just do that and our language definitely survives complete with its lively color and melodious music, and also develops as a lucid and dynamic language to hand on to successive generations.

It is said that every Vietnamese is a poet or a comedian ridiculing others and even themselves. Vietnamese people are well-known for their talent of “playing with words”, which is, to use words to turn vulgarity into fineness, to expose the meanness and evils for educational purpose. And all this is done in a very gentle and relaxing way. Very few languages can be used to do similar things, with the exception of French maybe. The French language may be used to do the same trick, but it lacks the tonal inflections that our language possesses, which enable us to deliver very humorous effects.

Francisco de Pina and Alexandre de Rhodes, the two Jesuit missionaries who invented the Latinized script for the Vietnamese alphabet, claimed that Vietnamese was the only language that sounds like music, and it is no coincidence that these two names are associated with the history of our language.

Thanks for your sharing.

Saigon New Day

Từ khóa : Giáo sư Phan Văn Trường, Cố Vấn Chính Phủ Pháp, Thương Mại Quốc Tế, tiếng Việt