Society

Part 3: Relearning the mother tongue

Nam Phong • September 1, 2025 11:36

Despite their small population, the O Du people have their own language. However, due to many ups and downs and having to live among other ethnic groups for hundreds of years, most of the O Du people have switched to speaking the Khmu and Thai languages.

Content:Tien Hung - My Ha;Technique: Nam Phong • September 1, 2025

Despite their small population, the O Du people have their own language. However, due to many ups and downs, having to live among other ethnic groups for hundreds of years, most of the O Du people have switched to speaking the Khmu and Thai languages. In recent years, they have begun to relearn their mother tongue, not only to communicate but also to find their roots.

In Vang Mon village (Nga My commune), Mr. Lo Thanh Binh (77 years old) has long been considered the teacher of the O Du language for the whole village. Because he is a rare O Du person who can still communicate in his mother tongue, even if it is just simple sentences. “I only know less than half. But because I want the young generation not to forget, I still have to use it every day. I am not a teacher, I just teach the people as much as I know, also for the purpose of preserving it,” Mr. Binh said with a smile.

Before moving to Vang Mon village, Mr. Binh lived in Xop Pot village (old Kim Da commune). This is one of the villages with the largest population of O Du people. Before Vang Mon village was established, according to Mr. Binh, there were only 7 households. In Xop Pot village, the majority are Thai people, so these 7 households often use Thai to communicate. Because of that, the O Du language is gradually forgotten by the O Du people themselves.

“Unlike many other O Du people, both my parents are O Du, so even though we speak Thai when we go out, we communicate with each other in O Du at home. That’s why I know more. But after my parents passed away, O Du was rarely used in the family, so after a long time, I gradually forgot it,” Mr. Binh said.

However, 20 years ago, when the majority of the O Du people were moved to Vang Mon village to live in a concentrated area, Mr. Binh was one of five people who could still speak the O Du language. Among them, Mr. Binh was considered the one who knew the most vocabulary. When the O Du community was gathered in one village, living together, the elders in the village began to think about restoring their ethnic language. Since then, Mr. Binh's house has often been visited by relatives, just to learn a few sentences of the O Du language.

In response to the wishes of the people, Nghe An province has established a project to restore the O Du language. In 2010, Nghe An province also sent a delegation to Laos to learn at the O Du village in Laos. In 2017, Tuong Duong district (old) also established a delegation, bringing many O Du people with good communication skills to Laos to learn the O Du language. "There is a village over there where only the O Du people live. Their ancestors moved from Tuong Duong district (old), upstream of the Nam Mo river to there several hundred years ago. Because they live together in one village, they still maintain the O Du language quite a lot," said Mr. Lo Van Tinh - one of the people who joined the delegation to Laos to learn. Mr. Tinh then suggested inviting people with good communication skills to Vang Mon to teach the language. The village chief and the elders there nodded in agreement and seemed very happy with this proposal.

Not long after that, O Du language classes were opened right in Vang Mon village. Many people were eager to attend the classes and according to the local government's summary, 210 people attended these classes for 14 days. After organizing these classes, many elderly people like Mr. Tinh and Mr. Binh often used the O Du language to communicate. However, according to Mr. Binh, because the vocabulary is not large and not easy to remember, new learners also easily forget and find it difficult to use it for regular communication.

"Because I'm old, it's hard to learn, and the study time is short, so I haven't learned much. We hope to open more classes like this, or organize for O Du people who are good at communication to go to Laos to study and then come back to teach the people," said Mr. Lo Thanh Binh.

Along with learning their mother tongue, after being gathered in Vang Mon village, the older O Du people also began to yearn to find their ethnic traditional costumes. But at that time, after decades, the O Du people were used to wearing the costumes of the Thai and Khmu ethnic groups, and no one even remembered clearly what their ethnic traditional costumes looked like.

The person who contributed to the recovery of the traditional costumes of the O Du is Mrs. Vi Thi Dung (81 years old). Mrs. Dung said that her father was Thai, her mother was O Du, and she later married an O Du man. Since the age of 10, she has learned to weave and sew. "In the past, life was hard and miserable. When she returned to Vang Mon, the O Du people gathered together in one village. Other communities all had traditional costumes, but the O Du people no longer had their own costumes. I also felt sad," Mrs. Dung said. When the restoration of the costumes was still unknown, a woman in the village brought Mrs. Dung a traditional skirt and shirt of the O Du women left by her husband's grandmother, which had been kept in a chest for more than half a century.

From this costume, Ms. Dung began to explore patterns, embroidery and weaving details to restore traditional shirts and skirts. Ms. Dung began to gather a number of skillful and textile-loving women in the village to teach weaving and embroidery and sewing techniques, creating traditional costumes including shirts, skirts and scarves of the O Du people. Nghe An province then also supported the people with 20 weaving looms. Many O Du women who were taught to weave shirts and skirts were very interested in this job. "The women were very happy, some of them finished weaving and embroidering and brought them to me to help cut and sew with thread to make it more secure. Now almost every family has traditional costumes to wear," Ms. Dung excitedly said.

Similar to Mrs. Dung, Mrs. Lo Thi Nga is also Thai, married to the O Du people for more than 30 years. When she was young, Mrs. Nga was taught by her mother how to weave and sew clothes, so she also loved this job. After successfully restoring traditional clothes for women with Mrs. Dung, Mrs. Nga came up with the idea of ​​restoring traditional costumes for men. Luckily, in her father-in-law's pile of old things, there was a set of clothes for O Du men. She took this outfit out to learn about the stitches and threads.

Compared to women's clothing, the traditional clothing of the O Du men is simpler, but requires dyed fabric and sturdy seams. After many days of research and consulting with the elders in the village, Mrs. Nga also found this secret and started sewing the shirt. The shirt she made was exactly like her father-in-law's old shirt, making everyone admire. The shirt had a round neck, buttons, and a serious, elegant style. From the style of this shirt, Mrs. Nga successfully recreated the traditional pants of men.

After successfully restoring the traditional men's costume, Ms. Nga taught the craft to many women in the village and many of them were able to make it themselves. Up to now, this traditional costume has become popular with the O Du people. The image of women embroidering and chatting, which had previously disappeared, has now reappeared in the O Du village. Currently, all O Du families have traditional costumes to wear on holidays, Tet, weddings... Children also have a set to wear on flag-raising days or major holidays.

“Currently, traditional costumes not only serve the O Du people, but many tourists also often come to buy them. In addition to shirts and pants, there are also Piêu scarves,” said Ms. Luong Thi Lan - Secretary of the Vang Mon village Party Cell.

To preserve the O Du culture, Nga My Commune People's Committee recently established the O Du Folk Song and Dance Club. The club has nearly 30 members, including village elders and elderly O Du people. Among them, the elderly are responsible for instructing dances that still bear the remaining O Du identity. This club meets regularly every month and also participates in performing arts on holidays, competitions, and exchanges. In addition, in recent years, Nga My Ethnic Boarding Secondary School has also devoted many lessons in the local education program to teaching O Du culture to students...

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