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作者：Anonymous 在 罕见奇谈 发贴, 来自 http://www.hjclub.org
Vietnamese2020 Writing Reform Proposal
By dchph
DRAFT
A note on this English version
Abstract
Introduction
The present state of the Vietnamese writing system
Vietnamese and its Chinese factors
Vietnamese and Chinese commonalities
Vietnamese: an isolated language? Garbage!
The politics of polysyllabics
Why does the current system need reform?
The weakest links
The other pictures
Polysyllabic writing fosters an ability to think abstractly and collectively
Accuracy facilitates data processing
How to reform the current Vietnamese writing system?
Polysyllable correctness
Setting the mindset
No old-fashioned hyphenation -- get rid of this once and for all!
Spring into action
Conclusion
Appendices
x X x
A NOTE ON THIS ENGLISH VERSION:
This English version of "Sửađổi Cáchviết TiếngViệt" is to address the subject matter with a perspective for the Vietnamese readers. However, it is also intended for those English speakers who may be interested in Vietnamese language issues, not know much about the Vietnamese language, and unaware that the Vietnamese words cited in this writing are actually written in a proposed combining formation. After all, this is what it is all about.
This version is more descriptive than what is discussed in the Vietnamese proposal since certain facts may appear so obvious to the Vietnamese, but not to non-native speakers. On the other hand, some viewpoints are intentionally left out in the Vietnamese version because, though they may appear to non-native readers by and large as supportive arguments, those matters can become emotionally offensive to Vietnamese readers. They, indeed, touch on some sensitive issues that make up a person's national pride in his or her own cultural heritage. Because of that, native readers may react unfavorably and not accept certain arguments regarding the genetic composition that has made up both the Vietnamese people and their language as we know today. Consequently, those very issues may have negative effects on other arguments which are good and worthwhile otherwise.
Therefore, the author of this writing is asking for the understanding that the main point raised in this propsal does count, that the current Vietnamese writing system is in an urgent need for a new polysyllabic system reform, and that this is not an academic thesis or scientific research after all since some hypotheses need futher studies. In any cases, this is an original writing, yet an elaborate analysis of the needs for reforming the current Vietnamese writing system and a serious proposal of how to make it better.
INTERNET NOTE: Please be patient. It may take a while before the entire page is fully loaded.
The same with the adjacent appendix page.
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ABSTRACT
Why Vietnamese2020? Vietnamese2020 is a new Vietnamese writing system in the years to come and that should be the way Vietnamese will be written in the year 2020. This is a proposal and analysis of the needs to reform the current Vietnamese writing system into the new Vietnamese2020, which will have a slightly different appearance from what it is known today.
This proposed writing reform, above all, ideally would expose monolingual native learners to symbolic patterns that would have positive effects on abstract and collective thinking by means of a polysyllabic way of writing, i.e., writing all syllables of a word in a combining formation. This is a part of the human cognitive process to be achieved via, one among other things, its pre-defined text strings of whole words that appear repetitively in peculiar shapes in their whole entirety and would resemble much more like graphical representation of concepts rather than individually syllabic spellings as in the case of the current monosyllabic writing of the Vietnamese language.
In fact, in a polysyllabic formation meanings of words, tightly bound to their symbolistic shapes that are made of combined syllables and those symbols, are to achieve the same effects as those of ideographs. In English or German writing systems polysyllabic words show that type of symbolistic characteristic and, in a way, they are usually perceived abstractly through varied shapes of respective long text strings. On the contrary, with the Vietnamese monosyllabic writing system, readers have to, mentally, go through the process of, firstly, recognizing each one of those separately written syllables, making sense out of it individually, and only then, lastly, being able to comprehend meanings of the final mentally assembled words. In fact, polysyllabic scripts enable readers' brain to absorb larger batches of continuous text strings, which will render similar visual effects as those of ideograms. As a result, we will recognize the conceptions of words right away simply just by catching the sight of continuous strings of polysyllabically combined words. Those who have already possessed advanced knowledge of a foreign language, especially German, might have already experienced such highly visual effects.
Being an inferior form, a monosyllabic writing system can only represent one syllable at a time as in the case of the present Vietnamese orthography. That is to say, only a portion of concept is conveyed in that one syllable. It is not hard to see that if all databases had been built the way as a monosyllabic "Vietnamese dictionary" is structured in a monolingual native Vietnamese speaker's brain then the world might have come to know different kinds of databases far less ideal than what the computing world has achieved to date!
As a matter of fact, Vietnamese is no longer a monosyllabic language, but, in writing, syllables which make up a polysyllabic word are still written separately, just like the way the Vietnamese had handled block-written Chinese characters before the end of 19th century. For example, in today's Vietnamese orthography words like "học bổng" (scholarship), ''bâng khuâng" (melancholy), "bâng quơ" (vague), "ma tuý" (narcotic), and thousands of others, obviously dissyllabic in nature, are still written in separate syllables as such. Writing that way is exactly the same as breaking those polysyllabic English words into separate syllables as "scho lar ship", "me lan cho ly", "va gue", or "nar co tic", etc.
It does not matter in what language, monosyllabic writing is illogical and unscienific. The cited dissyllabic Vietnamese words above should be accurately written in combining formation as "họcbổng", ''bângkhuâng", "bângquơ", "matuý", respectively. That polysyllabic way of writing will precisely represent the true dissyllabic characteristics of today's Vietnamese. Again, if English had been written the way Vietnamese is, it would have never become the technical language tool in the modern computing technology with such popularity worldwide as it is enjoying today.
A society progresses if its language progresses. Stagnance of Vietnamese monosyllabic way of writing, as a result, has hampered Vietnam's advancement in many ways including those of developments in computing fields. It is painful to reform, but we have to do it.
This new proposed writing system, ideally in a sense, will lay out a foundation for building blocks of polysyllabic principles. Its final results will lead to the development of new guidelines to build a standardized polysyllabic writing system. In the long run, this new Vietnamese polysyllabic orthorgraphy purposedly will foster children's ability to learn things abstractly and collectively. At the same time, this will also create a favorable condition for data processing fields to progress properly, which, in return, will stimulate economic development.
Please join us in this writing reform effort NOW by starting to write Vietnamese in the combining formation of syllables for each word-concept. For now emails and internet postings are a few good places to begin with. In practice, while awaiting official orthography guidelines, hopefully, from a governmental body such as a national language academy, the easiest way for those who already know a foreign language, when in doubt, is to think of an equivalent word in English or in another common foreign language since all of them is totally written in polysyllabic formation as having been known to the world as of the present day. For example, for "although" we have "mặcdù", for "blackboard" > "bảngđen", "faraway" > "xaxôi", and so on. With regard to building a successful polysyllabic writing system, the German writing system is highly recommended as a good model to serve as a referent framework or building block model to devise a new Vietnamese script.
Let's be the first pioneers of a new Vietnamese language reform to set new polysyllabic standards in the years to come! Do not think that you are going to waste time on something unrealistic. It is a noble cause that will benefit our nation in terms of stimulating our children's abilities to think abstractly and collectively, which is the foremost reason behind this proposed Vietnamese writing reform. If we all go for it or simply just say "yes" to the proposed reform, our voice will be heard and our dream will become a reality. All you need is to act, quickly.
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INTRODUCTION
A striking characteristic of languages is their enduring existence over the time and they are the least likely succumbed to sudden changes. In its long history of progress a language must have undergone changes in certain ways, especially its writing system, at certain time. Writing reform has been in many a case a necessary phase in the course of societal development that many countries have gone through.
It is time for us all to come to terms that today's global internet does, in fact, require the current Vietnamese writing system be changed in order to not only become more precise in writing for effective communication, but also create a favorable condition to accommodate logical structural changes in Vietnamese data processing areas.
Today's Vietnamese writing system does not truely reflect dissyllabic characteristics of its spoken language. As a result, it is no longer adequately suitable for today's increasing demands in data processing. This is one of the imminent and main reasons behind this proposal. The other reason, equally important, is that a new polysyllabic Vietnamese writing system will facilitate and foster our children's ability to think abstractly and collectively.
In terms of Vietnamese data processing, this new proprosed writing system will put forward a foundation for a reform framework. Its new writing structure will help build more accurate data schemes for electronic representations and analytic contextual language databases. Translating algorithms will be simpler and more accurate. A translation machine, a much needed tool to translate English webpages for Vietnamese momolingual speakers, as a result, will be possible since codings will be structured and indexed around more logically built databases. That is how a polysyllabic reform will certainly bring about with its uniform and accurate semantic language codes. Consequently data sorting, spelling, lexicographical categorizing and indexing, header tagging for searching and many other computing aspects in Vietnamese will become easier.
All of these areas have been formidably difficult to implement given the current way of writing Vietnamese. In Vietnamese dissyllabic words constitute a majority in the Vietnamese vocabulary. This new reformed Vietnamese writing system will be based on a dissyllabic principle, that is, all two-syllable words shall be written only in a combining formation to represent truely the dissyllabic characteristics of the spoken language. This new polysyllabic way of writing will be able to address some problems in computing fields, such as those caused by the old monosyllabic way of writing by reducing as few as possible the number of concepts or meanings associated with each dissyllabic word through the combination of two related syllables in writing within their word boundary as demonstrated by their vocal expressions.
On the other hand, writing reform is also much needed for another even more pressing reason, equally important and not the least, that is, to help monolingual Vietnamese speakers, starting with native-speaking youngsters, develop mental abilities to acquire academically cognitive intelligence. The new polysyllabic way of writing Vietnamese suggested in this proposal will foster children's collective and abstract thinking skills through a highly symbolistic writing system, namely multi-syllable words written in combining formation. Just imagine, with a quick glance at large batches of continuous text strings and by simply catching the mere overall sights of those symbolic shapes, we will immediately be able to absorb and process the concepts that those polysyllabic written words convey without intermittent delay as we do in our current way of monosyllabic writing system. This cognitive process of linguistic acquisition, undoubtedly, will help us read faster and think more abstractly.
Given those factors, writing reform is deemed as a necessary and urgent matter since it will ultimately benefit the country scientifically as well as economically in the long run. In the past, matters of writing reform, one way or another, have never been considered as a national issue partly because many obstacles in its implementation are seemingly overwhelming, especially when it comes to changing people's writing habit of the whole nation.
If the majority of us has recognized the shortcomings and weaknesses of the current writing system as to be pointed out later, we all should join in this reform initiative to build up momentum for a popular movement. Only then we can raise awareness and voice demands of this type of writing reform to prompt the Vietnam's government for actions such as putting that matter on a state's agenda, at least to initiate the first phase to establish a language academy reponsible for devising a reform master plan. Only then our goals in a writing language reform will be no longer a dream.
With these ideas in mind, the following sections are to examine the writing reform matter in a more detailed analysis covering some aspects of the present state of the Vietnamese writing system, why it needs reform, and how to reform it.
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THE PRESENT STATE OF THE VIETNAMESE WRITING SYSTEM
In this section we will examine some of characteristics of Vietnamese and forms of its scripts that have been changed through the ages to help us understand better about shortcomings and weaknesses of the present Vietnamese writing system.
1) Vietnamese and its Chinese factors
In my latest research entitled Introduction to Sinitic-Vietnamese Studies I have demonstrated that Vietnamese vocabulary stock contains an ovewhelming portion of more than 90% words of Chinese origin. This fact is based on a new dissyllabic approach to help discover more of the Vietnamese etymology of Chinese origin.
This section will quickly explain the reason why there exist so many Chinese words in the Vietnamese language, including those of basic lexicons. The implication of this argument is that if Chinese has already been classified as a polysyllabic language by the world's large universities' renown linguistic circles, then Vietnamese should be considered as such, too. The point raised in this matter is to establish a rapport of linguistic similarities between the two languages which is a premise to recognize the polysyllabism, or to be exact, dissyllabism, of Vietnamese, the underlined motive for this proposed writing reform.
The historical fact that Vietnam had gone though a millennium of Chinese domination, from 111 BC to 936 AD, is one among prominent factors which had played an active role in the integration of Chinese vocabularies into the Vietnamese language. In its evolution Vietnamese has absorbed thousands of words from the ancient to contemporary times with dialectal variations of the Chinese language (to be mentioned only as "Chinese" in general thereafter) throughout different stages of development of the Vietnamese language by way of both borrowing and localizing a great number of Chinese words.
The Chinese linguistic influence is a direct result of waves after waves of Chinese migrating population from China. Their immigrating path has been a southward movement towards the then Vietnamese terrains for over the past 2000 years long before and after Vietnam gained independence from China in 936 AD. Those Chinese migrants, generally, had been of a mixture of poor peasants fleeing from ravaging wars and hunger back in their homeland, exhausted long-march soldiers on endlessly conquering missions, and a great number of disgraced political exiles along with their accompanied family. Many of them, probably mostly men, had chosen to settle or be married into Vietnamese families and they never returned to their homeland.
Over the years and many generations later most of these Chinese immigrants had totally been assimilated into the Vietnamese society and identified as parts of the larger dominant Vietnamese ethnicity known as "Kinh" among many other ethnic groups. This assimilation process must have been occurring rather slowly and gradually over the years since all descendants of those immigrants appear totally Vietnamese along with the full integration of their dialectal elements, which have been carried over with them to the new but similar cultural environment, into the Vietnamese language.
It is not hard to appreciate this Chinese factor in Vietnam's history since can find the same analogy in modern time with a fraction of Vietnamese women having given birth to more than 50 thousand Amerasians during the preiod of less than ten years between 1963 and 1973 when the American soldiers were present in South Vietnam. Similarly back in time in the history of Latin American nations, we have also seen the transformational similarities in the biological and linguistic compositions which make up the peoples currently living in all those countries.
The linguistic penetration of vast Chinese lexicons into Vietnamese vocabulary stock is also the results of forceful imposition of the use of the Chinese language on the local people by the Chinese conquerors during their one thousand years of occupation of the then Vietnam. Undoubtedly the Chinese influence since then had gradually found its way into all layers of the Vietnamese language permanently, from the upper scholarly vocabulary stock down to the basic linguistic stratum, which have been used widely in all walks of daily life as we have seen today.
This linguistic adoption process had been spreading long before and after Vietnam's having victoriously gained independence from China in the tenth century. Interestingly, from that time the old feudal Vietnam had also voluntarily adopted the Chinese writing system in full at first as the official written language of the land. Later on, the creation of Nôm characters the transcribe Vietnamese based on the Chinese block writing system with modifications had been put into unofficial use until the end of the 19th century. Consequently, there had emerged in Vietnamese two common vocabulary stocks, widely known as the HánViệt (the Sino-Vietnamese) and the HánNôm (the Sinitic-Vietnamese or Vietnamese lexicons of Chinese origin, including those older loanwords from ancient Chinese). (Read more in Introduction to Sinitic-Vietnamese Studies).
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1) Vietnamese and Chinese commonalities
Vietnamese and Chinese share most of the linguistic attributes including those unique characteristics, e.g. basic vocabulary stock, morphemic compounds, dialectal and colloquial expressions, grammatical markers, classifiers, and functional words. Those characteristics are something so linguistically specific and peculiar to those languages of the same linguistic family, which used to be believed one of the Sino-Tibetan languages. To say the least the apparent traces of the Vietnamese basic lexicons seem to have originated from the same linguistic roots as those of Chinese. The influence of the Chinese language on Vietnamese was dated as far back as to China's Qin-Han Dynasties started in 221 BC or might even have taken place earlier. In fact, culturally inundated words of ancient Chinese origin such as "đủa" 箸 (chopsticks), "bếp" 庖 (kitchen), "canh" 羹 (broth for soup), "bàn" 案 (table), "ghế" 椅 (chair), "tủ" 匵 and "củi" 櫃 (cupboard), "vuquy" 于歸 (bridal wedding ceremony), "thángchạp" 腊月 (December), and the like are still being in use in the Vietnamese language while they are no longer in use in the modern Chinese language. Specifically in this cultural context, there is no doubt that Vietnamese has adopted most of Chinese words for its own use.
The vocabulary list grows densely if it is to include more of old-time words that both Chinese and Vietnamese are still using now. Some of those words are "thánggiêng" (正月 January), "Tết" (春節 Spring festival), "TếtÐoanngọ" (端午節 Late Spring Festival), as well as those of numerous basic ones which might have originated from the same roots such as "cha" (爹 father), "mẹ" (母 mother), "anh" 兄 older brother), "chị" 姐 older sister), "canh" (羮 broth), "thịt" (腊 meat), "ăn" (吃 eat), "uống" (飲 drink), "lúa" (來 whole rice grains), "voi" (為 elephant), "trâu" (牛 water buffallo), "cọp" (虎 tiger), "lửa" (火 fire), "lá" (葉 leave), "đất" (土 soil), and the list continues on. (See more in Appendix B).
This language absorbing process had been continuously going on long after Vietnam's gaining independence from China. Recent evidences carved on tablets, unearthed in Vietnam in the late 1970's, show many Sinitic-Vietnamese words originated from the lexicon usages as recently as of China's Ming Dynatsy in the 16th century. Furthermore, the linguistic influence in this respect has continued all the way to the modern time with those up-to-date words such as "khôngdámđâu" (不敢當 it's not so), "baxạo" (三八 be all mouth), "tầmbậy" (三八 nonsense), "bạtmạng" (品命 risky behavior), "phaocâu" (屁股 chicken's butt as a delicacy), "dêxồm" (婬蟲 lecherous), etc. Pending a substantial proof of a linguistic genetic affinity, these underlined commonalities purposedly raised here are to attempt to establish a relationship of the two languages. They both have long been sharing the common linguistic roots that actually had started hundreds of years before the first Han Dynasty's Chinese invading armies ever set their feet on the then Vietnam's soil. (See more in Appendices)
The historical development of Vietnamese has also seen the adoption of Chinese ways of coining new vocabularies for its own use, especially in creating dissyllabic words, or words that are comprised of two syllables those two-syllable compounds that are made up with meaningful syllables. Just like those of Chinese counterparts, Vietnamese syllables, in most cases, can be used independently with each individual syllable as a word itself with its own meaning. That is, those syllables can be treated as independent words just like the original Chinese characters which have given rise to them.
Throughout this transformational process, addtionally, there exist also composite dissyllabic words, i.e, those words with two syllables of which either or both can not be used as an independent word. In fact, many dissyllabic words have emerged as whole words of one unit which can be used only in their entirety. Those pairs of syllables that make up dissyllabic words have become more dependent on each other to render a whole concept and cannot be further separated into smaller meaningful parts.
In Vietnamese we can easily find composite words formed with those combined syllables. They have permanently become dissyllabic and morphemic in nature, each of which might have lost its original meaning if separated, for example, "càgiựt" (ill-behaved), "càlăm" (stammer), "cùlần" (unworldly), "càmràm" (whining), "lãngnhách" (nonsense), "xíxọn" (talkative), "dưahấu" (water melon), "basạo" (be all mouth), etc ... and numerous other words amounted to the thousands in number. (See more in Appendix B)
For the matter of proving the dissyllabism in Vietnamese, simply we can randomly pick samplings from multiple pages from a Vietnamese dictionary and they will show that the existing dissyllabic words are accounted for well over two thirds of its contemporary vocabulary altogether. Vietnamese is certainly no longer a monosyllabic language, as a matter of fact, and it has become more and more dissyllabic and polysyllabic in nature. In all, today's Vietnamese vocabulary stock consists of a great number of two-syllable or dissyllabic words has become dominantly one of the main characteristics of present-time Vietnamese, which characterizes the true nature of dissyllabism of the Vietnamese language. Unfortunately, the current Vietnamese romanized dissyllabic words are not clearly and accurately presented because they are actually written in separate syllables with a white space in between.
The implication of this fact is that Vietnamese has transformed itself from simplicity to sophistication, that is, from a monosyllabic to dissyllabic language, vocally, however, its written forms are still in their original state where the romanized words are still in its mirrored imitation of each Chinese character for each syllable. For the matter of scripting forms, we can recall that for the first 60 years or so since the romanized writing system had been put into the offical use those dissyllabic words were hyphenated to reflect the fact that the Vietnamese vocabulary stock had evolved from monosyllabic words into dissyllabic words. That was how dissyllabic composite and compound words were written with a hyphen in between in the early days to signify their dissyllabism in their entirety.
However, some Vietnamese linguists have argued that, as a matter of fact, historically, Vietnamese has evolved from polysyllabism to monosyllabism and then finally emerged as dissyllabism -- i.e. containing characteristic of multi-syllabic, uni-syllabic, and bi-syllabic word language, respectively -- thanks to a great deal of influence of Chinese that had exerted directly on the Vietnamese language during a long span of over one thousand years under the Chinese domination in Vietnam's history.
Were Vietnamese originally a polysyllabic language as suggested as such? That could have been the case at certain point of time in history. Vietnamese, since its earlier stage as demonstrated in many earlier form of Nôm scripts, had already had forms of complex consonantal initials and polysyllabics -- containing a characteristic of multi-syllabic words -- just like some other regional languages in the Mon-Khmer language family.
Their viewpoint is notable due to the fact that the Vietnamese language itself might have not been solely a monosyllabic tongue originally. Evidences can be found in the so-called pure Vietnamese lexicons of which the two syllables always go together in pairs, for instance, màngtang (temple), mỏác (crown of the head), đầugối (knee), khuỷtay (elbow), bảvai (shoulder), cùichỏ (elbow), mồhôi (sweat), cùlét (tickle), etc. and one even finds some polysyllabic words such as xấcbấcxangbang (in tatters), bảlápbảxàm (talking nonsense), (gió)heomay (breeze), (ngủ)libì (sleep soundly), (cờ)bayphấtphới (flying flag), (mưa)lấtphất (drizzle), (nhìn)chămbẳm, (nhìn)chằmchặp (gaze steadily), lộnxàngầu (in chaos), mêtítthòlò (totally attracted to), (thở)hồnghộc (breathe shortly), bađồngbảyđổi (temperamental), lộntùngphèo (in chaos), tuyệtcúmèo (it's fabulous), bachớpbanháng (absent-minded), bãithama (graveyard), etc. All of those words plus many others cannot be separated into meaningful separate syllables.
Polysyllabic nature can also be taken into account if a few complex consonantal initials as in bl- of "blời" (the sun), "blăng" (the moon) which had been still in use until the 17th century as recorded in the ancient Nôm characters themselves with two separately written characters and earlier romanized Vietnamese-Latin or Vietnamese-Portugese dictionaries. The case of "blời", "blăng" could have later evolved into "mặttrời" and "mặttrăng" by way of b > m, then m [m] sound became vocalized into "mặt". If this is the case such sound a change is just like the case of "khlong" that had evoled into "khủnglong" (dinosaur) in Chinese. In this specific illustration, in historical phonology, the possibility of bl- to have evolved into a simple consonant retroflex tr- (not completely the same as English complex tr-) is very high. Another possibility is that they were simply dissyllabic words of "mặttrời" and "mặttrăng", but since both compounds were pronounced quickly, those missionaries who heard the contracted form in certain dialects which made the initial sound strings appear as complex consonantal clusters had eventually transcribed them as "blời" and "blăng", respectively!
On the other hand, in a farther path Vietnamese might have evolved from monosyllabism to polysyllabism, then, again, to monosyllabism, and lastly, back to dissyllabism. The reason for this hypothesis is that we can not absolutely ascertain that many "characters" transcribed in the ancient Nôm had actually been polysyllabic words or monosyllabic words started with complex consonantal initials!
At the same time, however, it should be taken into consideration that the patterns that make up those cited words tend to show the developing trend of dissyllabism in nature. The implication of this phonetic development shows that Vietnamese might have evolved from monosyllabism to dissyllabism, that is, from simplicity to sophistication.
The notion of dissyllabism in Vietnamese is also based on the fact that many dissyllabic words are composed of synonymous syllables. This characteristic is opposed to that of monosyllabism of a large number of stand-alone one-syllable words existing in the Vietnamese vocabulary stock.
The very reason for those dissyllabic words having come into existence is that they had been meant to avoid homonyms in monosyllabic words which may mean different things and have become more and more specific and specialized in concrete meanings. The same is true for those modern Chinese dissyllabic words with two synonymous syllables, which have been coined the same way as those of Vietnamese. In fact, today's Vietnamese appears to show clearly that it is a language of dissyllabism in nature as found in this kind of synonymous compounds, that is, many of these words are comprised of two elements, or syllables, which are almost synonymous with each other, e.g., tức|giận (mad/angry), trước|tiên (firstly/initially), cũ|kỹ (ancient/old), kề|cận (by/near), gấp|rút (urgently/quickly)...
Why do all these matters have to do with this Vietnamese language proposed reform? It is further to prove that Vietnamese is solidly a polysyllabic language since it shares all attributes and characteristics of the Chinese language, which is considered largely as a polysyllabic language by most of the world's large research institutes regarding the true nature of Chinese language. This issue appears simple and straightforward, but for some people it is not easy to see that Vietnamese is a dissyllabic language. That is why it is so Chinese about the Vietnamese language, both so intertwined with each other that research on one language would be incomplete without relating to the other.
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3) Vietnamese: an isolated language? Garbage!
Characteristics of dissyllabic synonymity as described above have somehow misled some specialists of Vietnamese into considering Vietnamese as an isolated language, i.e., structurally both word and sentence compositions are merely made of separate syllables called words. What they might have meant is that Vietnamese is still in its earlier stage of development, which has not fully evolved into a structurally mature language in which word forms change to reflect tenses and cases to indicate time and syntactic relation.
That concept is opposed to that of a composite language, a newly coined concept used in this writing. Composite language indicates a notion parallel to the concepts of inflectional languages where word and sentence structures are based on derivative forms like those used in English. In Vietnamese composite words syllables function as integral components in word formations, not much different from English radicals and affixes, for example, for "vănsĩ" we have "writer", "nghệsĩ" "artist", "quốcgia" "nation", "quốctế" "international", and so on.
We can also treat many Vietnamese composite elements, i.e. "affixes" and "radicals" or roots and suffixes, exactly the same way as what those terminologies mean since they effectively render similar compositions in English since those "affixes" are used as materials to build complete word-concepts. Besides, in Vietnamese we also have particles that make words such as "maulên" "(be) quick", "bànvề" "talk about", "ănđi" "go ahead and eat", adverbs "nhấtlà" "especially", "chonên" "therefore", unique classifier-words such as "bầutrời" "the sky", "quảđất" "the globe", "khuônmặt" "face", "bàntay" "hand", and reduplicatives "bànghoàng" "being stunt", "bồihồi" "sorrowful", "bẻnlẻn" "timidly", "bộpchộp" "hasty", etc. This type of words brings Vietnamese even closer to Chinese than any of the Mon-Khmer family of languages in which no similar connotative structures are found.
For those who have naively said that Vietnamese does not have "grammar" simply because it does not indicate cases and tenses by way of inflectional affixes (a notion that has given rise to the opposite concept of an isolated language), let's point out that "grammar" is what constitutes particular sets of internal rules in a language. In the case of Vietnamese with its composite linguistic charateristic, there also exists is a unique grammatical function that also encompasses the notion of structured sentences which are built with grammatical markers and particles, e.g. "rồi" "already", "sẽ" "will", "đã" "have (in perfect tense)", "bị" (a grammatical form of passive voice), "vìvậy" "therefore", "chodù" (though), "lên", "đi", "thôimà" (particles indicating actions)... As a matter of fact, the way Vietnamese "complete" sentences are built today has been strongly influenced by French grammatical structures. Earlier Vietnamese writings indicate quite clearly how Vietnamese sentences were built. Interestingly enough, until the present time, Vietnamese word orders and senctences are still perfectly legitimately complete with an absence of implied subjects or objects. This syntactical feature is quite relatively unique. It demonstrates that usages of both words and sentences set the "tone" to indicate the exact meanings which composite sentences are supposed to convey. The following examples will give you an idea what all these linguistic composite notions are about:
"Ðã biết vậyrồi saocòn mắcphải?" ("If you've already known so, how come you still did that?"),
"Chodù thếnào đichăngnữa, cònnuớccòntát." ("No matters what, let's give it a best shot.")
"Thậtlà ngu thấyrõ, cơhội đếntay chẳnghiểusao lạiđể vuộtmất?" ("That's really stupid! How could he let that opportunity slip away?"),
"Ănno rồi chỉbiết ngủ thôi. Chả làmnên tíchsự gì! ("He just eats and sleeps, good for nothing!")
The illustrations cited here are those made with connotatively composite structured sentences, where particles play an important role in delivering the intended messages. We can clearly see that the manipulation of words has effectively rendered a particular tone for each sentence, which in turn sets forward the connotative implications of the absence of grammatical subjects, objects, or tenses.
Another way to look at one of the composite characteristics of the Vietnamese language is to examine the following examples of word structures in Vietnamese as in artist = nghệsĩ, singer = casĩ, writer=vănsĩ .... Hypothetically if suffix conventions like -sĩ = -s as that of English -ist, -er, -or..., exist in the Vietnamese language then we will have:
nghệs (artist), văns (novelist), hoạs (painter), nhạcs (musician),
or -gia = -z, then we will have:
tácz (writer), luậtz (lawyer), sángchếz (inventor),
or sự- = s- then we will have:
stình (circumstance), scố (incidence), sviệc (matter), sthể (situation),
or -thuật = -th then we will have:
kỹth (technology), nghệth (arts), math (magic), mỹth (art),
or f- = phi then we will have:
flý (illogical), fquânsự (demilitarized), fnhân (inhuman), fliênkết (non-aliance), fchínhphủ (non-governmental)...
Therefore, -s, -z, s-, -th, f- in a way could be treated as suffixes which can function exactly as those same elements in the English language. The implications of this analogy tell us that Vietnamese vocabularies with composite structures have in parallel some of the derivative characteristics of an inflectional language just like English or French. After all written languages as they appear in present forms are just products of symbolic conventions.
In addition, modern Vietnamese is highly dissyllabic in nature even in those sentences of which single words seem unrelated but they are vocally said as if they were paired syllables in two-syllable words, which are supposed to convey a complete notion along with adverbal particles, for instance:
"Ăn lẹ | cho xong | rồi đi!" ("Finish eating then go!") or
"Chờ mãi | không thấy | nó tới | tụi nầy | mới đi!" (We have been waiting, but he didn't show up, then we go!)
Not much particular about that way of saying since that kind of connotatively structured sentences are quite common in Vietnamese daily conversations. In folkloric lyrics, that kind of structurally dissyllabic rythm is quite populous, such as
"Yêu nhau | cởi áo | cho nhau |,
Về nhà | dối mẹ | qua cầu | gió bay!"
"To love is to give [my cloth to you] even though I had to tell lies to my mom [that I had lost my outfit because the wind blew it away over the bridge on my way home.]"
In this kind of sentences, all pronouns and tenses are totally implied within the dissyllabic-oriented boundary.
Again, to make this point clear, these connotative composite sentences are not formed simply by just having syllables or words put together as "isolated language theorists" suggested. They are built with composite structures with a series of connotative composite words, or word-concepts, that have synthetically blended together, with or without grammatical markers, to denote the messages clearly enough without being mistaken to whom they are addressed and when actions have taken place.
In a highly inflectional language such as Russian, we have cases, i.e., nominative, accusative, dative..., in which order of words can be shuttled around anywhere in a sentence and the intended meanings do not change and will be understood. In Vietnamese words cannot be manipulated in the same manner, but implications of composite sentences, which are built mostly with composite words, deliver the same message effectively that speakers have in mind to without the need to specifically and explicitly identify any subjective and objective pronouns, or tenses.
That composite words and sentences are impartible syntactical features of the Vietnamese language, spoken casually and naturally by any native speakers on any occasions, makes Vietnamese a composite language, not an isolated one, since the composition of those sentences are not simply a total or combination of individual words. Good examples of "isolated language" sentences are those made by young kids who start picking up the language, any languages, forming childish phrases or sentences by simply assembling separate words without regards to any grammatical or semantic connotations whatsoever.
If you, especially non-native speakers, are still unclear what all these composite concepts are about, it is not surprising because they actually require a good command of Vietnamese of a native speaker's level of fluency to appreciate that kind of connotatively built sentence structures, for now just take our words for that. How many non-native speaking specialists in Vietnamese have ever mastered the Vietnamese language beyond the "isolated" level, seeing only separate syllables in a sentence, to this sophisticated native level of fluency in order to be able to utter that kind of sentences in a natural way as Vietnamese do, let alone just doing superficial researches with a conclusion that Vietnamese is an isolated language? They are all wrong -- garbage in garbage out! Can anyone name the most renown forein-born specialists in Vietnamese who are truely fluent in the language at such native level?
It is time now to remind those who are still tailgating the ideas that Vietnamese is an isolated language, and a monosyllabic one as a result for that matter. This is to further emphasize the urgent need for changing the way Vietnamese is now being written as if it actually were what it has been wrongly labelled all along.
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4) The politics of polysyllabics:
On the contrary, surprisingly, while the dissyllabic nature of Vietnamese is obvious to most non-native "learners" of Vietnamese, "the specialists" in Vietnamese always get it wrong the first time and keep insisting that it is a monosyllabic language. In studying Vietnamese, foreigners will have to learn not only monosyllabic words but also dissyllabic ones. Mere knowledge of individual syllables may barely help them recognize and pronounce most of available syllables in Vietnamese To be truely proficient in the language they have to study dissyllabic words in their entire form. For them, just simply putting syllables together to form two-syllabe words will not help much in mastering the language. Just like studying Chinese, for non-native speakers, an ability to recognize a supposed minimum of two thousand individual characters doesn't make them intelligently comprehend thousands of other dissyllabic words which are within the range of those characters. Similarly, just like us non-native speakers of the English language, the mere recognition of Latin roots, acquired through knowledge of a Roman language such as French, in this language may give them some clues for meanings of words of the same origin, but surely it is insufficient to master usages of those words. Strictly speaking, we have to learn words in their polysyllabic entirety, not just portions of their radicals or syllables.
The dissyllabic characteristic in Vietnamese can be also easily observed by non-native speakers with a little bit knowledge of the language or linguistics. On listening to a series of complete Vietnamese sentences, they will be able to tell apart the boundaries of words in continuously spoken sound strings as commonly used in daily conversations or news broadcasts. That is because in speech the Vietnamese dissyllabic words are obviously uttered with a pairing pattern in a chained text string. Let's say if X represents a syllable, then their sound patterns will appear to those non-native speakers as something rythmic like XX XX X XX XX X XX.... being said in a continuous manner which shows a clear pattern of unbroken paired sounds.
To Vietnamese speakers, actually, this pairing pattern, configuratively speaking, has long been melodious rythms in their ears through popular poetry and folk songs where paired syllable words are best reflected naturally. Unfortunately, this is not exactly what they look like in writing since Vietnamese words have long been always written separately as X X X X X X X...., syllable by syllable. This way of writing certainly has already obstructed the natural evolution and progress of the Vietnamese language in whole, and, consequently, more importantly, done harms to native young speakers' brain development, as well.
In the past centuries prior to the 20th century, the sole writing form of Vietnamese known before that time had long been the Chinese script itself. The development of Chinese vocabulary has been a referential framework and its vocabularies become the raw materials for creation of new Vietnamese dissyllabic words. Since the 10th century afterwards, the Vietnamese people felt they need to express themselves in colloquial Vietnamese, i.e., its own unique sounds and expressions, so they had created the Nôm scripts, or Vietnamese block writing scripts, by using Chinese characters as sources with some modifications to compose Nôm words.
Around the 16th century when western missionaries came to Vietnam to spread their gospels, they must have encountered difficulties in having had to deal with both Chinese and Nôm scripts at the same time in order to translate their religious bibles into Vietnamese. So it was not a surprise that they had cleverly invented an ealier form of Quốcngữ (the preliminary form of romanized Vietnamese orthography) to serve their preaching purpose. In the process of transcribing Vietnamese speech they had recognized the dissyllabic characteristics of Vietnamese words for which they had inserted hyphens between two syllables of a word to create a dissyllabic word-concept, for instance, gia-đình, đồng-bào, ăn-năn...
As a new romanized writing system began pitching in at the turn of the 20th century, hyphenation in writing dissyllabic words had been the norms and put into active use all the way towards the end of the 1960s. At present time, nevertheless, except for its usage in mostly academic work, most of native speakers write dissyllabic words with their associated syllables separately with a white space in between as we all know. As a result, today's Vietnamese orthography appears illogical and unscientific and no longer reflects the true nature of the spoken language any more.
The fact that with only the existence of a large amount of dissyllabic Sino-Vietnamese compounds such as "tổquốc" (country), "phụnữ" (woman), "giađình" (family), "cộngđồng" (community), etc., plus two-syllable Sinitic-Vietnamese composite and compound words such as "sinhđẻ" (give birth), "dạydỗ" (educate), "lạnhlẽo" (cold), "nhờvã" (depend on)... in addition to such a large number of so-called pure Vietnamese words existing in the language today such as "mặccả" (bargain), "bângkhuâng" (melancholy), "ngọtngào" (gently sweet), "mồcôi" (being an orphan), "hiuquạnh" (deserted and tranquil), etc.... (See more in Appendices) it is more than enough to designate Vietnamese as a dissyllabic language, absolutely so.
In real world, any languages on earth nowadays are downright polysyllabic. It is easy to reach that conclusion because in a monosyllabic language we will have a limited number of vocabularies. How many are there possible combinations of consonants and vowels to create sensible one-syllable words? In the case of Vietnamese a quick calculation can tell us that. At our last count they number at about 24,000 combinations, but not all "sounds" are utilized, for example, tưp, nhửng, cunh, lẻp, phèp, tac, etc... therefore, only an estimate of 12,000 "sounds" appear in today's Vietnamese one-syllable words. If tones are not accounted for as those in the Mon-Khmer language family and let's assume an imaginary "monosyllabic language" exist, that language may have only 6000 one-syllable words to live with. In comparison, in English the total number of meaningful words can reach well over 500,000 terms. Just only in the last two decades alone in the computing field there have been thousands of new words being coined and added to the English vocabulary. So in general, if there still exist a "monosyllabic language on earth", it must have been a dead or a nearly extinct language! We hope this statement will kill the idea that Vietnamese is a monosyllabic language once and for all.
For the purpose of gaining more understanding the dissyllabic characteristics in Vietnamese, we can further compare it with English. In some respect, Vietnamese and English share somewhat similar characteristics in terms of functional radicals, which appear as syllables in Vietnamese. It is nothing new about the English language as a polysyllabic language. However, if we filter out all loanwords of Latin and Greek origins, we will be able to identify a great number of words of Anglo-Saxon origins which will suggest their monosyllabic roots, for instance, "go", "keep", "run", "walk", "eat", "sleep", "morning" (< morn), "evening" (< eve) "before" (be+fore), "forward" (fore+ward)... With those basic vocabularies, we can easily equate pure Anglo-Saxon words to those of "original" Vietnamese lexicons with common monosyllabic characteristics -- comparatively speaking because each cited Vietnamese word below might have had a Chinese origin -- such as "ăn" (吃 eat), "uống" (飲 drink), "đái" (尿 urinate), "ỉa" (屙 to shit), "đi" (去 walk), "đứng" (站 stand)... (See more in Appendix B)
Someone may say we cannot compare the two languages of different kinds, just like oranges and apples, since English is an inflectional language that has the word formation made up of radicals plus affixes such as eater, keeper, walker, sleeper... while Vietnamese is an "isolated language" (again, this is an incorrect notion that needs to be corrected as "a composite language" with the new whole ideas behind this term)? Why not? As we have discussed in the foregoing section, the Vietnamese equivalents to those cited English words above are the solid cases of words such as artist = nghệsĩ, singer = casĩ, writer = vănsĩ , etc., of which, interestingly, "sĩ", "giả", or "gia"... for that matter, cannot be independently used, exactly as in the cases of "er", "ist", "or"... in English! In its history of development the English language has readily absorbed foreign elements and, at the same time, their way of forming compound words has given rise to many compounds such as "therefore", "anybody", "however", "nevertheless", "blackboard", "gunship", "eyebrow", etc. This English word formation is completely the same as the composition of the equivalent Vietnamese compounds of "vìvậy", "bấtcứai", "tuynhiên", "bảngđen", "tàuchiến", "chânmày", respectively.
When we write those English words we never separate them into smaller syllables, but we do so in writing Vietnamese, even though many cut-off syllables of dissyllabic words themselves no longer convey the original meanings as they are originally with associated syllables.
Let's examine a few more of other kind of dissyllabic words of composite nature for illustration: bâng/khuâng, hồi/hộp, mồ/hôi, tai/tiếng, mặc/cả, cù/lét.... (meaning "melancholy", "breathing taking", "sweat", "infamous", "bargain", "tickle", respectively,) and thousands of other words of the same nature. Have you ever wondered what exactly each of those cut-off syllables means in Vietnamese? They, indeed, do not make any sense at all, at least in today's usage. Nevertheless, all of them has been mercilessly broken into separate syllables in writing! These words do have meanings only when they go together in pairs in the combining formation of the associated syllables which make up those words. This significant proof firmly shows that Vietnamese is a dissyllabic language.
If the legitimate designation for a pollysyllabic language is to base on the fact that its vocabulary stock contains a large number of polysyllabic words, then only with the existence of all dissyllabic words of Sino-Vietnamese and Sinitic-Vietnamese of Chinese origins in Vietnamese alone, which are undoubtedly innumerable, we can easily classify it as a dissyllabic language. In any cases, the illogical and unscientific way of writing Vietnamese monosyllabically has incapacitated the normal functions of a multi-syllabic language which can effectively serve as a powerful tool for abstract and collective thinking and data manipulation.
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WHY DOES THE CURRENT WRITING SYSTEM NEED REFORM?
As a matter of fact, nothing is new about this proposed reform. In the past several renown Vietnamese scholars such as Lãng-Nhân Phùng Tất-Ðắc (now living England), Trịnh Nhật (Australia), Dương Ðức-Nhự, Ðào Trọng-Ðủ, Phạm Hoàng-Hộ (the later two authors both actually had books published in dissyllabic writing form), and other supporting advocates such as Hồ Hữu-Tường, Nguyễn-Ðình Hoà, Bùi Ðức-Tịnh, etc., had voiced their opinions about the polysyllabic nature of Vietnamese and pointed out shortcomings and weaknesses in the current writing system. However, as time had gone by their viewpoints seemed to have lost in vain during Vietnam's period of the most ferocious wartime in the 20th century.
Fortunately, today's progress in the computing technology and emergence of global internet have given us a new window of opportunities, once again, to raise the ideas of reform by means of the web and in other electronic forms like emails and internet postings to spread the words and to actually experiment a new and better way of writing.
Below are some of other reasons why Vietnamese writing needs a reform as, in fact, have been repetitively pointed out here and there in this paper so far. Here we go again to discuss these matters further more in details, this time to focus on the point that how the replacement of current writing system with the one that conforms with a polysyllabic principle, i.e., writing multi-syllable words in the combining formation, will help process informaton faster and efficiently, both mentally and electronically.
1) The weakest links
The present state of Vietnamese is a result of continuous evolution over the time with some inevitable changes along the way in order to have gained a prominent position as it appears today. As we all may have known, for hundreds of years before the beginning of the last century, the Chinese script had been used to conduct official businesses, record history, and compose literary works. Even though the Nôm script was created to transcribe the Vietnamese language, but its limited usage had been confined virtually within literary circles only. It seemed natural having been that way before because, historically speaking, there used to exist a belief, that might be true, that Chinese and Vietnamese both are descendants from the same Sino-Tibetan languistic family instead of the Mon-Khmer branch of the Austroasiatic language family as suggested by some new theories initiated by André Haudricourt 50 years ago or so.
So, alas, one would say, our language is seen as not genetically affiliated with Chinese and now we even have our own script of even more superior romanized orthography, so why should we be bothered with the long-gone past? Some others may also argue that spoken languages might have changed phonologically over the time, but their writing system needs not to change at all, for example, English having been spoken differently to a certain degree from its actual spellings and still survived all turmoil times anyway. Predictably, they would say the need for the Vietnamese writing reform does not exist and is not an urgent and necessary matter anymore.
Just a quick look at some of opponents' anti-reform reasons will reveal that none appears substantial. (See some pro and con debates in Bìnhluận về "Sửađổi Cáchviết TiếngViệt" - Vietnamese Forum) This kind of resistance to change will appear in force for sure as in any reforms, but it seems to come mostly from some conservative wings other than from those who appreciate and understand the core matter of reform with an abstract and collective perspective.
For such large magnitude of reform with its far reaching impact on society, anticipation of such resistance to reform is not hard to foresee. One could imagine centuries ago how strong the resistance had been from an opposing camp of elderly scholars against those Nôm innovators who had broken traditonal roles to go about their own business in recording sounds of the past. The Nôm reformers had surely been rediculed for their ideas of advocating an unconventional forms of writing un-Chinese characters which were regarded so sacred by those diehard Vietnamese confucianists.
Their comrades in arms in our contemporary time are also having all the very same reasons for not reforming. They will probably fight to their death to preserve the backward way of writing as we are having today. It is oddly enough for us just to imagine in the next hundred years down the line our descendants would wonder how could we still have had such a retrograde writing system having been in use until the 21st century? The opponents argued that writing reform will create chaos in many related areas. This short view on this matter has obstructed a broader sight of many more long term benefits that associate with the writing reform.
Go out and ask any reform opponents and they may be able to give you enough reasons for not going with the reform and you will find out that their excuses are mostly unsubstantial and more sentimental ones. Someone would say the new way of writing does not look good and people will be confused and misunderstood. The first reason seems so subjective and the latter certainly unfounded. This change-resistant mentality and reserved attitudes towards reform are the weakest links in the progressive chain where all destructive harms, such as backwardness in sciences and lack of an ability to think abstractly and collectively among our children and monolingual adults alike, break in with full force.
Of course, if we wish to realize a radical reform, we can revolutionize a new way of writing by revamping the whole existing system completely to include cases of "derivatives" and even eliminate the diacritical marks being utilized in the current Vietnamese orthography altogether once and for all.
However, that is not exactly what this proposal is all about. If that kind of total reform succeeds learners of Vietnamese as a second language will welcome it whole-heartedly. They will find it easier to learn only full concepts in their whole logical and meaningful entities presented as completely formed words instead of those individually written with separate syllables. Specifically for this matter it is obvious with Vietnamese classifiers, for instance, "con đường" (road), "bầu trời" (the sky), "quả đất" (the globe)... "con" goes together with "đường", "bầu" with "trời", and "quả " with "đất". Non-native learners would not wonder again why sometimes we use the classifiers "con-", "sự-" and sometimes "bầu", or "quả"... They may ask why we couldn't simply just use one classifier "con" or "cái" for everything for the sake of convenience? Of course, we could not get rid of them since this is one of the main characteristics that makes up our language. Interestingly enough, if those words are to be written in combining formation, e.g., "conđường", "bầutrời", "quảđất"... that subtlety will be resolved beautifully since each concept-word is presented in its entirety and wholeness.
Indeed, there are not so many classifiers in Vietnamese, but it is because the way all those classifiers are cut off from their accompanied words fails to indicate clearly which classifier should go with which word. Our illogical way of writing has confused them greatly. This is also another reason to be taken into reforming consideration because Vietnamese classifiers are the ones among major characteristics that set the Vietnamese language apart from others in the Mon-Khmer branch of the Austroasiatic languistic family distinctively. In the meanwhile, Chinese, a neighboring language associated closely with the Vietnamese language in most aspects, is recognized as a polysyllabic, or dissyllabic for this matter, language, so with all the similarities the two languages share Vietnamese should be considered as a polysyllabic one.
As a matter of fact, our actual goal of reforming today's Vietnamese writing system is not of the matter of convenience for foreigners to study the language or for similar insubstantial reasons. We also do not advocate reform with total changes in transforming modifiers and classifiers in the Vietnamese current writing system into suffixes, e.g., -s, -z, f-, con-, sự- etc. or dropping diacritical marks altogether and the like.
What has been discussed so far is all about the inaccuracy in the current transcription of dissyllabic words in Vietnamese, which has been unfaithfully scribed and shouldn't be so because that is not precisely the way dissyllabic words are spoken in real world. That is, in spoken Vietnamese, pairs of syllables in dissyllabic words are vocally delivered only in one complete utterance of chained sounds with each word pronounced continuously as a whole unit.
So, why are the words broken apart in writing? Someone would say it is because of our habit, and using a language is a habit, so it is best to go with the norms. Also, the way we write Vietnamese now has been understood and widely used by all people from North to South, all books from the old days till now being printed in the monosyllabic form, all street signs being written as such, etc. Changes would only complicate the matters even worse. The newly suggested combining forms do not make the scriptings look pleasing to the eyes aesthetically. The dissyllabic words written in combining formation are difficult to read and write, costly to implement and so on.
We must recognize that the way we are now scribing the Vietnamese language as if it were monosyllabic and "isolated" in its current writing form is apparently unscientific and illogical and that relects a retrograde mindset of us as native speakers of Vietnamese! We all may feel indignant at that statement, but unfortunately, it is the truth, yet that still seems to be an understatement.
Let's get some concensus and capitalize on the shortcomings and weaknesses of the current writing system so that we all can understand the matter fully. Only then we altogether will be able to find acceptable ways to reform it accordingly. If we let this matter go its own way, the natural development of the current writing system will be the avoidance of the reform matter altogether and that will do more harms than good. We must understand that the worst are those invisible harms through the way we perceive things with only monosyllabic materials in our brain. If our people continue thinking the same old way, we are indeed fortifying an already formed gene ready to pass down to the next generations. Inevitably, years after years, this biological condition will mold our youngsters' brains knowing to think only i
作者：Anonymous 在 罕见奇谈 发贴, 来自 http://www.hjclub.org |
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