The process of forming national language letters

The process of forming the national script lasted more than three hundred years, from the day the first Western clergy set foot on Vietnamese soil to interact with indigenous people until the first Vietnamese newspaper was born with the printed script. It has its own landmark in Europe for it.

According to historians, Portugal's first merchant fleet arrived in Da Nang Bay in 1516, just five years after they poured troops into Malacca (Malaysian Strait). Also in Dang Ngoai, it seems to be much later, and came from Macau (China) that they had previously occupied. Of course, as we know, until 1651 there was a Vietnamese - Portuguese - Latin Dictionary published in Rome, but to have this dictionary (who is the true author is still a point of existence), There must be many missionaries when they set foot on Vietnamese soil, trying to use Latin letters to record the pronunciation and learn the local language. However, as soon as it has been relatively systematically shaped, the national script is still just around the scope of the Christian church. Must wait until the day Gia Dinh Newspaper, the first newspaper printed in the national language, you read it (in 1865), it will go into the public relatively wide; and the following time, the schools taught the national language to open the door, the true national language to the life of Vietnamese society.

Gia Dinh newspaper, the first newspaper printed in national language.

National script: Collective creative work

Who are the pioneers and have the merit in shaping the national language? This problem cost a lot of ink. It is said that the great work belongs to two Portuguese missionaries Gaspar, Amiral and Antonio Barbosa . There are suggestions that the first authors were three Italian missionaries Francesco Buzumi and his two younger colleagues, Francesco de Pina and Cristoforo Borri . Rabbi Francesco Buzumi and a Portuguese cleric named Diego Carvalho came to the South of Vietnam in 1615. At this time Western missionaries were strictly chased by Japanese shoguns. Jesuit Jesus (Jésuites) congregates towards Dang Trong in Vietnam, where Japanese merchants have formed a prosperous trading base in Hoi An. Nine years later, 1624, the new Alexandre de Rhodes was sent to the other five missionaries to visit Hoi An.

The great part of Western researchers as well as Vietnam so far has no merit for a single author but affirms that the national language is a collective creation, each contributing a little; those who go ahead open the way, the next ones are perfect, advanced. Forming the national language is a process. Completing it is also a process that can only be halted, not ended, because it is a growing living body.

The foundations certainly belong to Portuguese Catholics and Christians , Italians, French, Dutch . and Vietnamese people - why not ? Because, in our opinion, the Vietnamese, but anyone else taught Vietnamese to foreign missionaries, and once there were some native believers, though rare, approaching Latin, then They certainly contribute to the recording of the national language with that letter. Westerners go abroad, especially during the expansion of colonialism, few people avoid the tendency to discriminate against indigenous people. If we believe in the words of Alexandre de Rhodes himself, then the Portuguese and Italian missionaries and the Spanish do not want to raise some Vietnamese disciples. There is a historian who put it in his mouth, saying, 'Indigenous people can be martyred, why can't they be missionaries?' Anyway, the first Vietnamese believer was Philippo Binh until he was ordained a priest in Lisbon, capital of Bo.

Why is Alexandre de Rhodes only?

Why are among the authors, the most famous name, the most famous French cleric Alexandre de Rhodes ? According to reputable researchers such as Léopold Cadière, Paul Mus or later, Jean Lacouture, first of all not only because he had the merit of publishing the Vietnamese - Portuguese - Latin Dictionary and writing the first Vietnamese Grammar, but mainly because 'Alexandre de Rhodes if not a creator is the first person to use and promote the national script' (Jean Lacouture). And Paul Mus, Alexandre de Rhodes, who is a linguist of twelve languages, has "approached the national language on the scientific level." He was able to complete the writing of the national script ' (3). There is a point here that requires us to be more or less cautious. The three above, profound researchers, are French. Well, to be frank, the French, though doing science, seem to still carry the "great Dharma blood" in their people, always seeking to honor their fellowmen first; especially from the century called 'light' , the century of eminent thinkers, culture, and science, the century when the light of the 1789 French Revolution really shines on the earth, later on. That is not to say the cases have significant political significance.

In the 40s of the 20th century, when French colonialism in Vietnam really shook up the rising revolutionary movement and the expansion of Japan raised their populous Dai Dong A flag, many The senior of this generation called 2X, 3X has more or less read published works with generous budgets spent by the colonial authorities to build 'Alexandre de Rhodes Bookcase' . In this context, it is easy to understand why the two most revered clergy in Indochina are Alexandre de Rhodes (A Calendar Son Dac Lo) and bishop D'Adran, whose real name is Pigneau de Behaine (Belgium As Ba Da Loc). ), who has a duty to assist Prince Canh to go to Paris to help the hospital, help Nguyen Anh to beat Nguyen Tay Son's house, 'Nhat Son Son ' to more than one hundred and fifty years after the whole of Son Ha will be under French domination. .

How is Alexandre de Rhodes actually?

Rabbi Alexandre de Rhodes.

This problem also cost a lot of ink. Someone said that Vietnamese people should build a bronze statue for him. Some people have concluded that - somewhat unlikely - Alexandre de Rhodes is a guilty person for the Vietnamese people, because this cleric was the first to campaign fiercely with the court of King Louis 14 to make way for French colonialists to invaded Indochina far away. Moreover, as a person, Alexandre de Rhodes was a "plagiarist" , because he brought a manuscript of the Vietnamese - Portuguese - Latin Dictionary by two Portuguese missionaries leaving Macau to leave the San Pauli church to Vatican for publication. and stand my name. Thus, he also blatantly named the author of a memoir of others, etc. Due to his disrespectful status, when the French missionaries were sent by the king with the approval of the Roman Church to the Far East. , not named Alexandre de Rhodes in that group. On the contrary, he was almost exiled to Persia to die there.

Those evaluations must be more or less historical. Considering Alexandre de Rhodes's Tran tales of his Far East trips, readers today recognize that the author is too outrageous about his merit, so much so that his fellow historians themselves It is difficult to compress a half smile.

Alexandre de Rhodes was born in 1591 in the city of Avignon, southern France , from a Jewish family specializing in silk to the Far East. Italian hybrid mother. From a young age, he dreamed of an Eastern promised land rich in rare resources like India and China . Becoming a missionary, he went to Macau on a Portuguese merchant ship. At that time, Bo's merchant fleet was the strongest in the world. The Bo still boasted: 'No Bo merchant ship, no Bo groceries, what do the Jesuits have!' . He went to Dang Trong the first time when he was 33 years old and lived here before seven years, before permanently leaving the Far East. He has the qualities and knowledge of a linguist. When he was a missionary, in addition to his Italian surname, before he took the train to the Far East, he also spent time studying the Portuguese language. At the end of his life, being "half-exiled" to Persia, he also learned to use Persian as the 13th language master. That allows us to explain in part why Alexandre de Rhodes is often cited - beyond the aforementioned reasons - when scholars discuss who is the creator of the national language.

Competition of Bo - French colonialism

The reason why Alexandre de Rhodes was not allowed to return to the Far East with the French missionary group that he had mobilized to establish, some historians explain in the competition between Bo colonialism and realism. French people.

In the beginning, with the Portuguese navigator Magellan discovering Philippine islands in the Far East (1521), the navigator of Colombian Bo Christophe Colomb (Colombian) discovered America (1492), which can be considered as the Portuguese Portugal temporarily dominates the oceans. However, this time does not last long. Competition among European countries is increasingly fierce. The Indonesian archipelago was first discovered by the Bo, falling into the hands of the Dutch. Spanish and French colonialism also rallied, competing with each other and battling with Bo and lower authority of Bo. In this context, 'Alexandre de Rhodes does not forget to be French' (the historian Jean Lacouture). He was active for the French to be present early in the Far East. Although he was indebted to the Portuguese, he dared to surpass the superiors in the congregation and find a way to directly contact the Vatican, etc. For those reasons, 'he was considered by a Portuguese court. The enemy of this country '(Jean Lacouture).

Well let the historians, linguists . continue to argue and explain. For us Vietnamese, anyone who contributes to the development of the Vietnamese people, we are grateful and posterity to honor the foreigners who have contributed on that face depending on their contribution. , no matter who they are. The fact that some places in the North have the temple of Thai thu Si Nhac (2nd century BC), who spread Confucianism into Giao Chau, is the earliest example. I think it is no coincidence that the city named Ho Chi Minh still has two parallel roads, one named Han Thuyen and one named Alexandre de Rhodes. Nor does it not contain a symbolic noble meaning, when it is between these two parallel roads there is a boulevard called Le Duan longer and wider; three roads parallel to cross Nam Ky Khoi Nghia street to properly enter the grand main gate of the Reunification Hall - Independence Palace before 1975.

Léopold Cadière

The French missionary, who lived in Vietnam for 63 years, one of the Vietnamese houses learned the world's first name. The guideline of the monthly magazine is called The Proceedings of the friends of the ancient capital of Hue (BAVH - formerly known as Do in the neck), published from 1914 to 1944, including 121 episodes of great size. Léopold Cadière has published about 250 works of history, geography, culture, customs, customs and beliefs of ethnic groups in Vietnam. His works on the national language are very elaborate. As for finding out what is the true portrait of Alexandre de Rhodes, he returned to study in France and Belgium for over a year (1928-1929) and found 9 different portraits for comparison.

Paul Mus

A very famous Asian house, a member of the French School of the Far Eastern Far East from 1927 to 1944. After the second world war, taught at the University of France, Paris and Yale University, USA. His works are often invoked by Vietnamese foreign universities, including Vietnamese books and sociological studies on a war, 1952; The fate of the French Union, 1954; War without face, 1961; Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, Asia, 1972 . After his death, his lectures at Yale University were gathered and published by a disciple, Dr. John McAlister: Vietnamese and Vietnamese. Their revolution, 1972.

Jean Lacouture

French journalist, writer and historian, the first foreign author to write President Ho Chi Minh's biography, 1967, reprinted in 1976. He is regarded as France's biggest celebrity biographer today. The author of many biographies about Léon Blum, De Gaulle, Pierre Mendès France, Francois Mitterrand, Francois Mauriac, Nasser . The volume of Jesuits, which he called "biographies of many people", 1991- 1992, two episodes, totaling 1,100 pages of large format. In 1946, served as General Leclerc's press attaché in Indochina, many times met and interviewed President Ho Chi Minh, Prime Minister Pham Van Dong, General Vo Nguyen Giap . and Jean Lacouture was considered a among the most proficient in France about the Vietnam era.

Author: Phan Quang.