The Vietnamese language and people abroad

[Tuan V Nguyen <t.nguyen@garvan.unsw.edu.au>]

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The Vietnamese language and people abroad

by VO~ PHIE^'N
Translated by Hoa`i An
(This article taken from Journal of Vietnamese Studies, Volume 1, Number
2, January 1989)


The Vietnamese migrant community is relatively young. Because it 
is young and does not have much experience, any event, any 
happening in the community can cause surprise among us, even 
embarrassment. 

One of the frequently raised subjects of discussion is language. 
Thirteen years ago, when we had just departed our country, one 
of our greatestworries was that we could not speak the language 
of the local people. In 1976,in the newspaper DDa^'t Mo+'i (New 
Land) from the State of Washington, the earliest Vietnamese 
newspaper in the U.S. after the 1975 event, there was anarticle 
by a photographer about his emotion, his joy and pride when he 
first heard his little son babbling a few English sentences with 
his Americanplaymates. Seeing that his child was not lost among 
his young friends, he had a feeling of relief, of peace of mind, 
a distinct feeling of being out of danger.

Thirteen years have since passed, and many Vietnamese migrant 
families are now having problems because of the danger of their 
children's not being able to speak Vietnamese. Here and there, 
calls for the preservation of our origins have been heard; 
various cultural organisations have given prizes to encourage 
students to improve their Vietnamese and community libraries 
have been  established to enrourage them to read Vietnamese 
books.

The need to integrate with local life, the necessity to protect 
the characteristics of our natural culture, the degree of 
compromise between these two views: those important subjects 
which have a practical benefit are not the content of my talk 
today. I am presenting to day my reflections about one limited 
topic: a few thoughts on some difference between Vietnamese and 
the languages spoken in countries where Vietnamese have come to 
settle. And about those differences I will speak only of one, 
the concrete nature of the  Vietnamese language. Yes, it is a 
very limited topic that I have the honour of presenting to you 
today.

Among the million Vietnamese people who have left their coutry 
since 1975, until now the majority have come to live in 
countries that use English or French. Between French, English 
and Vietnamese there are many differences. I do not have any 
linguistic knowledge, neither do I know those two languages well 
enough to discuss in depth all the differences. So, the 
following observations are only those of an amateur with no 
expert knowledge.

                                *   *   *
                                    *

I have to say, first of all, that this tendency of the 
Vietnamese language towards concreteness is conspicuos not only 
because it is compared with  English or French but also with 
Chinese which is spoken by a neighbouring people and which has 
had thousands of years of influence on Vietnamese culture. The 
Vietnamese language has borrowed extensively from Chinese and a 
final count will show that the great majority of those borrowed 
terms are abstract words (rite,charity,morality) while the 
genuinely Vietnamese words indicate concrete objects 
(hand,leg,fish,leaf,tree). When he first noticed this 
phenomenon, Du+o+ng Qua?ng Ha`m, a great scholar, did not find 
it surprising. The Chinese had introduced a number of new 
technologies into Vietnam; it was only obvious then that they 
should also bring in new terms related to those technologies. By 
that time, Vietnam had already received from China many ideas on 
how to organize the administration from local to central levels, 
and borrowed ipso-facto many administrative terms (village, 
hamlet, court, mandarin, subject). The Chinese brought with them 
their knowledge in philosophy, religion and the arts, and 
obviously the terms to express these concepts as well (negative, 
positive, honest, disgraceful, good, bad, visceral, vain, real). 
Thus again it is not surprising to find in the Vietnamese 
language many, many words expressing thought, studies, political 
and economic activities which have a Chinese origin and are 
abstract.

What is surprising is the fact that we gradually discover that 
the Vietnamese tend towards concreteness even in those areas 
where other peoples would express themselves in a more abstract 
manner. The most commonly cited examples are the French verb 
'porter' and the English verb 'to carry' for which Vietnamese 
has many equivalent words: a(?m, bo^`ng, ddo^.i, ddeo, mang, 
xa'ch, va'c, ga'nh, bu+ng, be^', be^, khua^n, cho+?, na'ch, 
co~ng, ddi.u, qua?y, khie^ng, etc...

These are not isolated examples, however. On the contrary, we 
can easily find many other similar cases. With the concept of 
'escape' or 'flee', French and English may have a couple of 
words, but Vietnamese has a lot more: do.t, ru't, lu?i, tra'nh, 
li?nh, la'ch, le?n, cu't, xu+o+'c, de, la(n, du`, xe'o, etc...; 
the same thing can be said about 'shouting' for which Vietnamese 
language offers the following terms: he't, tru, ke^u, the't, 
qua't, ga`o, re'o, ru', ri't, re', ga^`m, etc ...

Had you been tempted to conclude that Vietnamese is rich and the 
other  language are poor you would have been in great trouble, 
because there are many cases where Vietnamese has only a few 
expression when French and English offer a lot more. The 
Vietnamese people have only the verb 'no'i' while English has: 
say, speak, lecture, talk, tell, address, chatter, gossip, 
converse, discourse; and French has: parler, dire, bavarder, 
s'adresser, etc... We use only one word 'thi.t' when English 
people distinguish 'meat' from 'flesh' and the French do the 
same with 'viande' and 'chair'.

Is there then a contradiction or inconsistency?. No. Those 
apparently contradictory facts have a common reason: the French 
and the English are inclined towards abstraction while the 
Vietnamese are attracted by the concrete. When we use 'ddo^.i, 
va'c, co?ng' we are in fact describing three different pictures: 
to carry something on our head, to carry something on our 
shoulder and to carry something on our back. From those 
different actions, we cannot extract a common concept, that of 
lifting something. The French and the English have that faculty 
of abstraction which the Vietnamese lack. We distinguish many 
different concrete forms while the English or the French draw 
from those various forms a common idea. That is why they use 
fewer words while the Vietnamese use many more. On the other 
hand, between 'talk,speak, and tell' or between 'flesh and 
meat', there are no differences of form although there are 
differences in meaning, and precisely because the Vietnamese 
have their weakness in distinguishing abstract concepts they pay 
no attention to them and pass over them. Thus the Vietnamese, 
who attach much importance to forms, use many words to express 
different concrete forms whereas the English or the French, who 
attach importance to ideas, use many words to express different 
abstract concepts.

                                *   *   *
                                    *

Let us turn now to the case where the Vietnamese have an 
abstract term already but still prefer using a concrete one and 
even try to coin more concrete terms to replace the abstract 
one, for example, 'love'. With 'love' the Vietnamese did not 
wait to learn it from the Chinese or the French or the English. 
According to history, it is certain that the Vietnamese people 
have known how to love and used the term quite early. We even 
have two abstract term 'ye^u' and 'thu+o+ng' to express that 
extremely important feeling in our life. 'Love' is unlikely to 
be lacking in any human language.

With the Vietnamese, the term - once it appeared in the language 
- has been constantly encroached upon by their tendency towards 
concreteness. Nowadays, only in solemn and serious circumstances 
do they use 'ye^u' or 'thu+o+ng'. In their daily life, 
especially with common people living in villages or centering 
their activities around market places, they are using much more 
colourful terms: trai ga'i (boy girl), chim chuo^.t (bird 
mouse), gio' tra(ng (wind moon), me`o mo+~ (cat fat), ong 
bu+o+'m (bee butterfly), tra(ng hoa (moon flower) etc... or 
sometimes even with the following expression: to` ti', ta(`ng 
ti.u (sticking with each other). Bees and butterflies, moon and 
flowers are concrete objects and animals indicating the idea of 
love through feeling.

Even the act of love making for which the English would say 'to 
make love' and the French 'faire l'amour' (and from Chinese we 
have the Sino-Vietnamese term 'a^n a'i') the Vietnamese would 
also reject abstract terms for, and give their preference to 
concrete expressions such as: ngu? vo+'i nhau (sleep with each 
other), a(n o+? (lit. eat live), a(n na(`m (lit. eat lie down), 
chung cha. (cohabit), cha(n go^'i (lit. blanket pillow).

Using a concrete word to express an abstract notion is a strong 
point of the Vietnamese people. The English 'succeed' or the 
French 'reussir' is used for the passing of an examination; and 
if you do not pass the examination, the appropriate verb is 
'fail' in English and 'echouer' in French. The Vietnamese on the 
contrary, talk of 'dda^.u' (to perch, alight), 'di'nh' (to 
stick, cling), 'tru+o+.t' (to slip, slide), 'ro+'t' (to fall, 
drop). Similarly 'va(.n' which means 'to twist' can be used to 
express the idea of plying someone with questions; 'quay' (to 
turn) can be used to mean 'to subject someone to severe cross-
examination', 'xo?' (to thread) can also mean 'to interfere'.

'Nga^.m' (to hold something in one's mouth), 'nuo^'t' (to 
swallow) and 'go+~' (to disentangle) which are verbs expressing 
concrete actions can be used to  express abstract notions: 
nga^.m ho+`n (to habour a resentment), nuo^'t gia^.n (to control 
one's anger), go+~ to^.i (to exculpate).

Sa('c be'n (sharp) which usually describes the concrete state of 
a knife can be used to express a particular psychological 
quality of a person, which is abstract. Similar use is found 
with chua cha't (sour bitter>harsh), dda('ng cay (bitter 
peppery>painful), ngo.t bu`i (sweet buttery>pleasing).

Lo+`i ong bu+o+'m (words of bees and butterflies) becomes 
'flirtation'; Lo+`i ddu+o+`ng ma^.t (words of sugar and honey) 
becomes 'seductive words'; Nghi~a dda' va`ng (quality of rock 
and gold) becomes 'faithfulness, loyalty'.

Instead of using the adjective 'beautiful' to describe a woman, 
the Vietnamese can use the word 'tho+m' (fragrant). They even 
refer to a social security benefit paid in one state as 'more 
fragrant' than in another state.

The Vietnamese language makes use of the body and of the senses 
a great deal. We can say 'ca'i dde.p ma(.n ma`' (a tasty beauty) 
or 'ca'i dde.p la.t le~o' (an insipid beauty). A person with an 
'ox head' is a stubborn person (ke? dda^`u bo`); with a 'big 
liver' he is a bold person (ngu+o+`i lo+'n gan); with a 'huge 
gall bladder' he is a daring person (ngu+o+`i lo+'n ma^.t'. Once 
again, concrete parts of the body or organs such as head, liver, 
gall bladder are used not to describe people's physical 
deformities but their characters, people with psychological 
qualities.

Vietnamese people allow their senses to be incorporated in 
judgments which should have been a function of reason. They 
'hear' the sky weighing down and themselves become somewhat 
saddened. This is still acceptable because a sense has been 
related to a feeling, an impression. But in referring to an 
unsound argument, the Vietnamese would say 'nghe ba^'t tho^ng' 
(lit. hear not through) or 'nghe kho^ng vo^' (lit. hear not 
enter) which can be roughly translated as 'it sounds 
unacceptable'; referring to wrong behaviour such as a 
discourteous attitude they would say 'tha^'y kho^ng o^?n' (lit. 
see not satisfactory) or 'tha^'y kho' coi' (lit. see difficult 
look at) which can be translated as 'it seems shocking'. The 
notion of right and wrong is judged through reason by most 
people; the Vietnamese however, take it as a matter of the 
senses, the hearing and the seeing.

At this point in time I feel worried because you may say that I 
am biased, that I am purposefully exploiting and magnifying a 
strength of the Vietnamese people. You may say that the use of 
figures of speech to make an abstract notion concrete exists in 
the literature of every country and that it is not a trait 
specific to Vietnam. You may say that people everywhere possess 
a body and know how to put their experience of the body into 
their language and that Vietnam is not unique in doing so. I can 
only say that there are at least two Vietnamese researchers, 
Nguye^~n Ho^`ng Phong (in his collection So+ Tha?o Li.ch Su+? 
Va(n Ho.c Vie^.t Nam - A Sketch of the Literary History of 
Vietnam) and Nguye^~n Va(n Trung (in his Ngo^n Ngu+~ va` Tha^n 
Xa'c - Language and The Body) who had lived before 1975 - one in 
the North and one in South Vietnam - and said, after careful 
research, that what other peoples have done the Vietnamese have 
overdone and that the Vietnamese body has more to say than the 
body of other peoples.