Improving the national language: Impossible!

The proposal to improve the national language by Associate Professor Dr. Bui Hien is receiving many controversial opinions from linguists and the community.

Associate Professor, Dr. Pham Van Tinh - Photo: VVTuan

Speaking with Tuoi Tre, Associate Professor Dr. PHAM VAN TINH - General Secretary of the Vietnam Linguistics Association - said:

- Since the birth of the national language, hundreds of years have passed with many proposals for improvement and change, but all of them are difficult to implement. From the beginning of the 20th century until now, there have been many proposals for improving the national language. Professor Hoang Phe once drafted a 60-page proposal for improving the national language.

* So what do you think about the proposal to improve the national language that is causing a stir in public opinion?

- Associate Professor Dr. Bui Hien is a respected linguist and teacher, and his interest in improving the national language is very admirable. It's just that bringing up this issue now seems out of place.

Since its formation and introduction into life, the national language has revealed many inconsistencies. Because the number of Latin alphabets is not enough to correspond to the Vietnamese phonetic system, people had to create other letters to write them all, such as: đ, ă, ô, ơ, ư, nh, ng(h), th, tr... Many researchers have recognized these inconsistencies in advance and have tried to improve them, but have not been able to.

The reason is very simple because the national language has been deeply ingrained in the subconscious and accepted by the community, used for hundreds of years, so change is very difficult.

Just one change in the Vietnamese language system will lead to a series of consequences such as textbooks having to be rewritten, students' writing style having to change, government documents having to be redone, millions of people having to change the way they read and write...

In addition, Mr. Bui Hien's opinion is a report included in the proceedings of the September 2017 linguistics conference organized by the Vietnam Linguistics Association and Quy Nhon University.

So I was a little surprised that the proposal did not deserve such a great deal of attention. Perhaps it was strange that the community reacted so strongly, even with some insulting words, claiming that the proposer was crazy.

I have not read the entire work of Mr. Bui Hien and he also said that he has only made some initial proposals. So we do not have to worry that just because of his opinion, tomorrow we will have to read a text with completely different characters than today.

Previously, Professor Cao Xuan Hao had the view of analyzing sentences according to the topic-predicate structure with many reasonable factors, supported by many scientists. But if implemented, there will be many consequences, because up to now we still write sentences according to the subject-predicate structure.

First graders in Nam Tra My (Quang Nam) learn to spell Vietnamese - Photo: Tien Thanh

* Can you say more about the unreasonable points of the national language?

- The advantage of the national language is very clear: the system of phonetic letters and orthography, spelling go together. Say it like you write it. It is because of its simplicity and convenience that it was popularized quickly and is easy to learn. The unreasonable thing is that the system of letters to correspond to phonemes is not uniform and not the same.

Normally, each phoneme should correspond to one symbol. But nowadays, there are phonemes that have three symbols such as c, q, k; or two symbols such as ng, ngh... The letters c, k, q can be simply merged into one character c or k. However, just changing this detail has caused chaos in the writing and education system.

* How do internet language and youth language affect the development of Vietnamese?

- Youth language is sometimes a bit excessive with slang and conventional characters used only in small communities, but it's not as alarming as people think.

Internet language or youth language are both parasitic in the national language, on the basis of the common language of the whole people. The thing is, although it does not have a big impact, it easily creates a feeling that makes people misunderstand and incorrectly assess that Vietnamese has changed.

There have been many proposals for improvement.

Since the early 20th century, many people such as Professor Hoang Tuy, Nguyen Van Vinh, Ngo Thuc Lanh, Le Kha Ke, Hoang Phe, Nguyen Lan... have discussed improving the writing system and standardizing the Vietnamese language, but none of them were feasible.

Therefore, the issue of improving the national language will not be feasible. Vietnamese itself also has to change to gradually reduce the unreasonableness.

That is why Mr. Bui Hien's proposal became out of place and was not supported by the majority of the community. However, that is the author's decades-long research and is not yet complete. This is also just a personal proposal, so the community does not need to worry too much.

According to TTO