The silent man searching for ancient Vietnamese characters
It can be affirmed that the person who has spent his whole life searching for the ancient Vietnamese script like Mr. Do Van Xuyen, is truly unique up to this moment. Thanks to people like Mr. Do Van Xuyen, the ancient Vietnamese script of our nation has the opportunity to be revived, contributing to the immortal vitality of the nation.
(Baonghean) -It can be affirmed that, the person who spent his whole life searching for ancient Vietnamese script like Mr. Do Van Xuyen, is truly unique up to this moment.
Thanks to people like Mr. Do Van Xuyen, our nation's ancient Vietnamese script has the opportunity to be revived, contributing to the nation's immortal vitality.
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Researcher Do Van Xuyen (Tan Dan ward, Viet Tri city, Phu Tho) has been quietly dedicating his efforts to finding and deciphering ancient Vietnamese script for many years. Mr. Do Van Xuyen affirmed: "During the founding of the country, under the Hung King dynasty, we had a brilliant education system. The Vietnamese people had a written language before the Chinese people."
I went to Viet Tri at his invitation before the inauguration of the ancient Than Quy (March 29, 2009, the 4th day of the 3rd lunar month, at Thien Co Temple, Huong Lan village, Trung Vuong commune, Viet Tri city - the place to worship the couple of teacher Vu The Lang, the 18th Hung King, who taught the two princesses of Hung Due Vuong, Tien Dung and Ngoc Hoa), because I knew he was the first person to date to successfully decode the ancient Bach Viet script.
Seeing that I wanted to ask but was hesitant in our first meeting, he happily said:
- More than 50 years ago, when I returned to the Land of Ancestors, I was just a 20-year-old enthusiastic teacher. I don't know if it was predestined fate or not, but one time when I took my students to work, I dug up many ancient stone and bronze objects with strange patterns that looked like writing. Being curious, I discovered that in many places people also dug up many similar sites. So I quietly began my journey of exploration and discovery. I kept wondering: 3,000 years ago, our people crafted a series of extremely sophisticated bronze drums, reaching the pinnacle of art, as well as the quintessence of a brilliant civilization, surprising the entire modern civilized world. So did our people at that time have a written language?
I found the Thai Tho Tu script discovered by Pham Than Duat in 1855, also in the Northwest region. Then I read the book Thong Giam Cuong Muc by Chu Hi of the Song Dynasty which said: "During the 5th year of the Tang Nghieu Dynasty (2352 BC), the people of Nam Di Viet came to pay their respects and offered a large turtle...". According to ancient Chinese history, "during the time of King Nghieu (2357 BC), a Viet Thuong envoy came to the capital in Binh Duong (north of the Yellow River - present-day Son Tay province) to offer a sacred turtle, more than three meters square, with the word Khoa Dau engraved on its back, recording events from the time the heavens and earth first opened onwards." King Nghieu ordered it to be recorded and called it Quy Lich. Our book Linh Nam Chich Quai also clearly recorded this.
What is the Khoa Dau script that Hung Quoc Vuong gave to King Nghieu, the script that teachers in the Hung Vuong era taught widely? In a copy of the Jade Genealogy from the Tran Thai Tong era, it is also recorded: "Nghieu the, Viet Thuong thi kien thien tue than qui, boi huu Khoa Dau" meaning that during the Nghieu era, Viet Thuong nation gave a thousand-year-old divine turtle with the Khoa Dau script on its back. Researcher Le Trong Khanh also mentioned the Khoa Dau script of our people in prehistoric times. Luckily, I found a set of 17 characters called hoa tu (looking like a burning flame) written by Vuong Duy Trinh (in 1903, Governor of Thanh Hoa) in "Thanh Hoa quan phong" printed in 1903, claiming that this was the ancient Vietnamese script remaining in the Northwest. Vuong Duy Trinh wrote: "Because the ten provinces (Northwest region) are remote border areas, our people still preserve that script. In other places, Si Nhiep (186) forced them to abandon everything to learn Han characters". Looking at the flickering letters like flames, I could not help but feel emotional. I felt a sense of responsibility towards the cause of my ancestors.
- Sir, as far as I know: According to the latest report of Ar Kan san University, USA, "there are up to 6,000 other languages that are dying and half of them are at risk of extinction in the 22nd century. In ancient times, humans used from 10,000 to 15,000 different languages. Now there are about 6,000 languages and they are decreasing. According to the prediction of this University, by the year 2,100, only about 600 languages will exist. So will our ancient Vietnamese script fall into such cases? If we only base on the Fire script, is there enough evidence to prove the existence of ancient Vietnamese script?
- I looked in the preface of the Vietnamese - Portuguese - Latin dictionary published in 1651 in Rome, where the author Alexandre de Rodes wrote: "For me, the most talented teacher was a native teenager. Within three weeks, he taught me all the tones of that language and how to read the words", in my opinion that language is ancient Vietnamese.
According to my field research trips, along with the research works of scholars at home and abroad: One of the most brilliant achievements that our ancestors built since prehistoric times is the achievement of education. During the Hung King period, we had an education system with schools, teachers and students. Our ancestors invented writing paper. I have worked hard to research and translate the names of 18 teachers from the Hung King period from the 6th Hung King and many names of famous students in history.
In the book: "The formation and development of ancient Vietnamese script", published by the Institute of Culture in 1986, Professor Le Trong Khanh cited: "Many ethnic groups in the Bach Viet have used Khoa Dau script since the time of Phuc Hy - Than Nong to write their ethnic language. So, do the Kinh - Lac Viet ethnic groups no longer have written documents? In Vietnam alone, Khoa Dau script has been used for a longer time. It was still used until the time of Si Nhiep, although Si Nhiep banned it, our people still used it". Many researchers: from Ha Van Tan, Le Trong Khanh, Bui Van Nguyen, Tran Ngoc Them... to Vuong Duy Trinh, Truong Vinh Ky, and even foreign researchers in England, Czechoslovakia, America, France, especially China: From Luc Luu, to Hua Than, Trinh Tieu... all affirmed: Ancient Vietnam had its own writing system...
I am truly impressed, because through many sources of information, I know that he is not a scientist, has no professional salary, and has many serious illnesses, but whenever he hears of a strange writing, he does not care about his old age or weak health, but immediately goes there with passion, a sense of responsibility, and a very high scientific working method. He has set foot in the wild mountainous areas of Quang Binh province, researching the ancient writing on leaves of the Coi ethnic group, to Nghe An, Thanh Hoa, Hoa Binh, Son La... Researching Thai, Lao, Thai, Nepalese, Cambodian... On many trips, he had to mortgage his small pension. In 2003, after a trip to Sa Pa to research ancient writing on stone, he was bedridden for four months, and at times it seemed he would not survive. Perhaps the talent, the heart of a true teacher and researcher, the responsibility to his ancestors, to his country, and the belief in the culture of a nation with thousands of years of civilization have given him strength.
He gave me the book series: "Summary of initial results on the process of searching for ancient Vietnamese script" and: "On the conjecture and proof for the existence of ancient Vietnamese script", because he knew that I had lived and taught in the Northwest for 30 years, and had a little understanding of ancient Thai script.
In his eyes seemed to light up a fire:
- What makes me and the researchers more confident is that the characters we found have the same shape and structure as the characters found on stone, on pottery, on bronze drums... The typical and unique artifacts of the Lac Viet people throughout thousands of years of history. That confirms that: They come from the same origin, from a very ancient time. We believe so because the characters we found have a unique structure, which can only be created by people with Vietnamese moral traditions and identity. Traces of this character are still fully preserved in the Vietnamese language, which is the most important condition for affirming the origin of a character.
We believe that, because on the path of searching for this type of character during the wandering from 187 to 1621, we suddenly saw the shadow of the character from the Hung King's time present in the early structure of the National Language in the library of the Holy See, in the capital Lisbon and a few other places to be able to initially conclude that: The Hung King's character has not been lost. Only, to avoid the disaster of destruction due to the sinister plot of foreign countries, this special character took full advantage of the opportunity, when Western civilization flooded into Vietnam in the 16th - 17th century, quickly borrowed the Latin shell to disguise, integrating into the ranks of the most civilized characters of humanity.
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He affirmed:
- Vietnam is the only country in Asia that has Latinized its writing, because Vietnam already has ancient Vietnamese script, a type of script following the Alphabet, similar to Latin. Father André Palmeiro, before A.de Rhdes, in 1632 when he came to Vietnam, in his short article used 4 ancient Vietnamese scripts. Priest Iginio Văn Tín, in his handwritten book on national history from 1659, persistently practiced converting from ancient Vietnamese script to Latin script. Even Father Filip Binh, who was born at the same time as King Quang Trung in Hai Duong. During the last 30 years of his life in exile in the capital city of Lisbon - Portugal, Bishop Binh focused day and night on writing over 20 books, every page deliberately inserted ancient Vietnamese script, not only in the structure, but also in the original words: "When I die here, please ask someone to send these books back to the country for you to use"! 200 years have passed, today we understand his deep meaning: He wanted to preserve traces of ancient Vietnamese characters in the national language, so that one day his descendants would have a basis to find the priceless assets of their ancestors, which the political situation at that time did not allow him to speak directly.
In 2005, on the occasion of his visit and work in Phu Tho province, President Tran Duc Luong discussed with Mr. Xuyen about ancient Vietnamese script and encouraged him to continue his research. Recently, Mr. Xuyen also had a report to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Thien Nhan on this issue. At the end of 2007, at the Elderly Culture Center, more than 40 scientists listened to him report on new discoveries of ancient Vietnamese script. Professor Tran Phuong, former Deputy Prime Minister, highly appreciated his discoveries.
I understand that in the coming days, the Vietnam Elderly Cultural Center will organize a workshop on ancient Vietnamese script, with the participation of leading Vietnamese language experts.
Thanks to people like Mr. Do Van Xuyen and other researchers, the ancient Vietnamese script of our nation has the opportunity to be revived. The children of the country of the Dragon and Fairy, in the sense of compatriots with thousands of years of civilization, have more reliable data on cultural traditions, contributing to the immortal vitality of the nation.
I keep wishing that: If the work of Mr. Xuyen and his research team were included in the list of national key projects and had a source of funding from the State and sponsors, how great would that be!
Please note that Mr. Xuyen's time is running out, although his enthusiasm is limitless!
Tran Van Hac
