Vietnamese language on the rise in Japan

[Kiss_of_the_Dragon]

Both Japan and Vietnam still used chopstick to eat their dish.

you forgot to add Korea

 

[AViet]

Quite similar to the movement in Korea to return to Chinese language roots, then.

That's good news for teaching new generations their heritage and prevent undesired foreign influence.

No, I do not think so. This trend must have been started by South Vietnamese journalists, who always feel inferior to any foreigner, whether Chinese, Japanese, white or Khmer, but always feel superior to North Vietnamese, and who always believe that every foreign things are better than Vietnamese ones, especially if they are brought in by North Vietnamese.

That deep inferiority complex now make South Vietnamese live under total domination by North Vietnamese, from education to economy, from science to business and sport. So I believe this is not a good trend to Vietnam.

 

[Kiss_of_the_Dragon]

Quite similar to the movement in Korea to return to Chinese language roots, then.

That's good news for teaching new generations their heritage and prevent undesired foreign influence.

Don't you know we're foreigner to them, I think we should just leave them alone, who care if they lost their heritages, the worst they can still hire Chinese to translate their ancient text book written by their ancestor. Changing script is irreversible once it's done, those Koreans who want to use Hanzi are delude themselves, the best they could do is to send their Children to Chinese school.

 

[Viet]

So true, unfortunately my hometown HK got all the illegal ones on a daily basis, never ending episode since the 70s

HK is traditionally a place for refugees. Pls don't complain. But You are 1,000 miles off topic. We are talking about Vietnamese language in Japan, not illegals in HK. I give you a valuable tip: Viet spoken language is very similar to Cantonese. It won't take you too long to learn our language.

 

[terranMarine]

@grey boy 2 You read that buddy? You try watch some YouTube videos and listen to those Viet language and see if you understand any of it. This joker wants to say Cantonese and Viet language is similar, which means they can understand Cantonese language.

US did much worse damage to Vietnam. We helped you to drive them out. China's support is vital for Vietnamese vicotry over US.

Exactly, the US waged war to Vietnam for 20 years and created trade sanction for Vietnam for occupying Cambodia. US destroyed VN's economy and that ungrateful monkey blames China for all their suffering. AND he has the boldness to say we call them ungrateful. IF China did not help Ho Chi Min to kick US out the US would have raped them and turned them into another dog. VN can now enjoy an independent government thanks to CHINA.

 

[Mista]

However, as great as the Japanese language is, the alphabet themselves are actually quite crap, the Korean alphabet on the other hand is far superior to the Japanese Hiragana and Katakana, I mean seriously why do you need two sets of them? I mean yeah one to differentiate native Japanese words from foreign ones but they should have just created a new proper phonetic alphabet from the ground up like the Koreans did a few centuries back and maybe add a few more sounds later on.

Agreed. It seems unnecessarily convoluted to me to use 2 different phonetic script. When do use which script and many different pronunciation of Kanji makes the Japanese language very difficult to learn, especially for a foreigner with no Chinese character background.

 

[ckf]

It is quite complicated. During Vietnam war, North Vietnam tried to get rid of using Sino-Vietnamese words, like replace "phụ nữ" (women) by "con gái", while the South Vietnamese governments tended to promote using Sino-Vietnamese. For example: for air field, the South used "phi trường" while the North used "sân bay", which is still used until today.

And what are Sino-Vietnamese is also a headache, even for linguists. In many cases, a Sino-Vietnamese word is replaced by a less Sino-Vietnamese one, but actually it is still a Sino-Vietnamese word but more familiar with Vietnamese speakers, because there is no equal "purely" Vietnamese.

But nowadays, I see the trend on most Vietnamese media outlets to use more Sino-Vietnamese, even put the adjective before noun, which is totally un-Vietnamese grammar.

To be honest, although I am pro-China, I am strongly against such trend. I would like to keep Vietnamese identity, keep our own culture, keep our own architecture and never want Vietnam to be a little China. But now, pagoda are built with Chinese architecture (typically the new Bai Dinh pagoda). Media, even anti-China, increasingly use Sino-Vietnamese words, even when not necessary, and many other little things.

I am just curious, what would you define as Vietnamese grammar, architecture, and style? Vietnam is actually quite diverse culturally, but much of that diversty doesn't shine through telescopically.

 

[Viet]

I see quite a few Vietnamese people on my commute in Japan around Shizuoka, mostly laborers and some university students although university students are less obvious since they make an effort to learn and speak Japanese whenever they can and generally after a few years they have quite a good grasp over the language, so essentially they blend into Japanese society quite well, likewise with other East Asian people like Chinese and Koreans.



Regarding the Vietnamese writing language, personally I think Vietnam should have gone the route of Japan and Korea, well more so the overall hybrid style of Japan and the alphabet format of Korea.

One of the main reasons why Japanese is among my favourite languages especially when reading literature is the fact that not only does the Japanese language have Chinese characters, but also their own pseudo alphabet systems (two of them). This hybrid system IMHO provides a very enriching experience when reading because Chinese characters have a lot of deep profound meanings to them which also provides a lot of practicality especially in Science.

And used in conjunction with Kanji is the pseudo alphabet systems. I say pseudo because it's more of a syllabary than phonetic. The alphabet adds a lot of flexibility that the Chinese language doesn't especially when referring to foreign words or making new words (alongside with Kanji or without) which lessens a lot homonyms, Although Japanese still has a lot them and I think it's due to the fact that they started industrializing and opening up relatively late. Had they started developing into a modern nation state independently in say the 17th century ( or earlier if perhaps the Southern Song dynasty in China did not perish) then they probably would have wayyy less European loanwords and more time to phase out a lot of the homonyms, but that's a debate for another thread.

Of course it's already an enriching experience reading Hanzi on their own ( I studied Mandarin before moving on to Japanese which made Kanji super easy to learn because I had already learned up to 4 to 5 thousand Chinese characters by that point. Went all the way to HSK 5 before feeling confident to study on my own).

However, as great as the Japanese language is, the alphabet themselves are actually quite crap, the Korean alphabet on the other hand is far superior to the Japanese Hiragana and Katakana, I mean seriously why do you need two sets of them? I mean yeah one to differentiate native Japanese words from foreign ones but they should have just created a new proper phonetic alphabet from the ground up like the Koreans did a few centuries back and maybe add a few more sounds later on.

IF Korea decides to reintegrate Hanzi into their written language then in terms of reading and writing it would be superior to Japan, although I would still prefer spoken Japanese over Korean - I still love how the Korean language sounds though.

So had the Vietnamese gone the way of a hybrid system like Japan and had a alphabet like the Koreans, Vietnamese would have been among the best language for reading, at least to me anyways. This would have been far better than adopting Latin scripts because part of one's culture comes from the written language. The way writing systems develop depends on the culture, environment and even circumstances around them. Adopting something so foreign cuts off a lot cultural identity.

It's better for an Asiatic country like Vietnam to develop something on their own while not afraid to adopt something from a fellow Asiatic nation like China. Take for instance the English writing system, it came from Latin and then modified to suit it needs but it is still very well within the realms of Europe likewise Japanese and Koreans are within the realms of the Asiatic cultural sphere.

We had for centuries a similar system as the Japanese: chu nom. It is a mix of Chinese and new invented viet characters to reflect Vietnamese pronunciation.

https://www.omniglot.com/writing/chunom.htm

 

[Kiss_of_the_Dragon]

We had for centuries a similar system as the Japanese: chu nom. It is a mix of Chinese and new invented viet characters to reflect Vietnamese pronunciation.

View attachment 423112

https://www.omniglot.com/writing/chunom.htm

Similar system as Japanese seriously , for millennium you guys learn all these from Japan, sure you might combine and change some original character but what is the similarity with Japan.

 

[frequency]

Similar system as Japanese seriously , for millennium you guys learn all these from Japan, sure you might combine and change some original character but what is the similarity with Japan.

What is similar with Japan? we don't like Chinese. Any more questions?

 

[Kiss_of_the_Dragon]

What is similar with Japan? we don't like Chinese. Any more questions?

Do we ask you to like us?

 

[Viet]

Exactly, the US waged war to Vietnam for 20 years and created trade sanction for Vietnam for occupying Cambodia. US destroyed VN's economy and that ungrateful monkey blames China for all their suffering. AND he has the boldness to say we call them ungrateful. IF China did not help Ho Chi Min to kick US out the US would have raped them and turned them into another dog. VN can now enjoy an independent government thanks to CHINA.

Liar. The war would have ended much earlier if China really assisted Vietnam in the war efforts. In reality you did very little to too zero, stopping all support, packing all stuff when the war escalated reaching a new height. Very clever. The destruction, Vietnamese death and casualties in the Chinese invasion of Vietnam far outweigh the little money you have to Vietnam.

It is the USSR that contributed to the victory.

 

[Bilawal Bhutto]

Not to be mean or anything, but isn't the Vietnam language the most ugliest sounding language in the world?

 

[Viet]

Not to be mean or anything, but isn't the Vietnam language the most ugliest sounding language in the world?

Have you ever heard Dutch language? Or some German dialects? You will get headaches. Ok viet spoken language doesn't sound nice, it sounds better in songs.

 

[Bilawal Bhutto]

Have you ever heard Dutch language? Or some German dialects? You will get headaches. Ok viet spoken language doesn't sound nice, it sounds better in songs.

Yea sorry, I was wrong. People say Arabic sounds horrible when spoken. But in songs it doesn't.


But on the other hand, Mexican Spanish sounds genuinely horrible, but in SOME songs it's ok. Overall, Spanish is the winner of the worst language.