[jackbl]

Originally Posted by jackbl

Vietnamese language won’t become extinct
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Language evolves as life goes on
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Last week, to mark the launch of our education page, we had several expats talking about the Vietnamese education system and received several feedbacks from Vietnamese readers.

This week, we continue with a topic on languages, especially the Vietnamese mother tongue, which seems to be corrupted by the creation and use of hybrid words by young people.

At the beginning of this week, Kittiworawuthi Pornkanok, a Thai who is studying Vietnamese in Ho Chi Minh City, recalled her experience reading an online article of which she could not make any sense. When she showed the article to friends and teachers, none of them could figure out what the texts written by teenagers were about either.

“There are young people creating and using a special version of their mother tongue in every country. But it seems to me that the issue is becoming prominent in Vietnam as teen language not only exists in writing but also in everyday conversation. Speaking and writing in teen language distort the grammar and spelling standards. It is also a sign that young people show no respect to the beauty of their mother tongue,” commented Kittiworawuthi.

“I hope more people will realize the need to preserve Vietnamese and try to use the language correctly. It is a way to show your pride and respect for your own culture.”

Similar to Kittiworawuthi, Zach Safford, a Briton who is studying Vietnamese, feels irritated when he hears a group of young Vietnamese using foreign language in their conversation. Zach points out that there are some people who “pretend” to forget their mother tongue and try to use some English words to appear “cool.”

“It is a good thing to create an English-speaking environment for yourself. However, do not forget to pay attention to people around you. For example, if you sit in a café by the street surrounded by labors and try to speak English, you may make people around irritated and they will see you as a show-off,” noticed Zach.

Agreeing with Zach, a reader nicknamed yourviet who claimed to have learned 7 foreign languages, revealed his tips for not forgetting the mother tongue and foreign languages:
“I am learning my own mother tongue every day by keeping up with high value literature […] I think language learning is like practicing a martial art, you must practice it every day”, wrote yourviet.

While some expats fear that teen slangs and foreign language influence may destroy the purity of the Vietnamese language, Russian-Czech linguist Ivo Vasiljev assured us that Vietnamese, as any other languages, only evolves rather than being threatened with extinction by any of those factors.

“The choice of words depends on each person’s social position, whether they are young or old, students or businessmen. Hybrid words are only popular among a certain group of people in the society and we do not know whether those words are here to stay. As a result, we should not worry about changes in our mother tongue. What matters is that we should know which position we are in to select the appropriate words to use,” explained Czech professor Vasiljev, who also speaks German, English, French, Korean and Vietnamese.

“Globalization is an exchange of economic and cultural values rather than an invasion of the mother tongue. In a country where there are still people aware of preserving their language and culture, there is no need to fear the impact of globalization at all.”

Do you know that Shakespeare invented almost 1,700 words for his plays, sonnets and narrative poems which later became common English words? New words are born to satisfy people’s need to express themselves. In addition, as American author Martin H.

Fischer once wrote: “Whenever ideas fail, men invent words,” implying that we need new words to put across new ideas to other people and make things happen.

What do you think about the evolvement of language and the effort to preserve one’s mother tongue? Send your thoughts to [email protected]

Have a nice weekend!