The Debate about the modern Vietnamese writing script

A. Why is modern Vietnamese writing script  similar to Portuguese alphabet? 

Portuguese Missionaries and their Influence on Vietnamese

The Jesuits first arrived in Vietnam from their base in Macau in 1615 at a time when the country was divided into north and south. They conducted missionary activities in both parts of the country, but due to the difficult political and military situation and a delicate relationship with the ruling powers, they suffered expulsion on a number of occasions. The final expulsion came in 1645.

Jesuit missions produced a number of important linguistic achievements in Asia, including Matteo Ricci's romanisation of Chinese and a grammar of Japanese by the Portuguese missionary João Rodríguez (1561-1634), but nowhere was their impact as deep and long-lasting as in Vietnam.

The first Vietnamese-Portuguese dictionary was compiled by Gaspar d'Amiral and the first Portuguese-Vietnamese dictionary by Antonio Barboza, both Portuguese missionaries. Neither of these works is now extant, but they formed the basis of the ground-breaking Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum by Alexandre de Rhodes (1591-1660, picture at left), which appeared in 1651. Rhodes, who was French and not Portuguese, depended heavily on the two earlier dictionaries in compiling his work. The Rhodes dictionary was printed in the Roman script (quoc ngu) and contained over 8000 Vietnamese entries with glosses in Portuguese and Latin.

Rhodes also wrote a catechism in Latin and Vietnamese, divided into eight days, of which the top of the page for the first day is shown at right.

Later missionaries continued to push the quoc ngu script as a means of converting Vietnam to Christianity, and it finally replaced Chinese-based writing systems to become the official Vietnamese script early in the 20th century.

For more information, see Tu Dinh Nguyen's page on Vietnamese lexicography. A brief biography of de Rhodes can be found at the Encyclopedia Britannica.

B. WHY was the script invented?

-To facilitate the learning about the Bible and as means to spread Christianity. Christian missionaries (and ordinary Christians), even to this day, are taught that that it is their sacred duty to spread the message of Jesus, to evangelize to all corners of the Earth, by whatever means necessary. They don't believe in "Hữu xạ tự nhiên hương." Nietzsche criticized sarcastically this attitude of blind belief in the righteousness of the majority. He further trenchantly remarked that Christianity had characteristics of the "slave mentality", and not those of the "aristocrats". If you are really a Christian, you must read Nietzsche and come to terms with his criticisms. 

-The current efforts of those in SIL (formerly known as Summer Institute of Linguistics) follow the footsteps of AdR and his predecessors. Please note that the correct name is Alexandre de (not De) Rhodes. He was French, not Spanish as some fool recently asserted in these forums. The primary purpose of their projects is to help themselves, to make them feel good that they are spreading God's word. Other benefits such as the natives get a writing script that heretofore is nonexistent, and basic education are incidental. 

C. Please note the discussion about AdR has deteriorated from whether or not the Vietnamese people owe the French missionary a gratitude for compiling a dictionary and a catechism to personal attacks with name-calling, lies, and outright insults to Messrs. Huy Thai and Hoang Thuc An. That showed us we cannot have a sensible discourse with stupid and fanatical ignoramuses who are being accustomed to being brainwashed and thus have lost the inherent human capacity to reason and search for facts and truths. 

Messrs. Thai and An have never indicated that they are allergic to the Roman-based Vietnamese writing script. Nor have they written that they are in favor of replacing it with something else. They merely have written that we must understand the context and for what purpose the script was invented. 

Wissai