Prof. Dr. People's Teacher Doan Thien Thuat - portrait of a teacher

Professor Doan Thien Thuat was born in Cu Loc village, now Cu Loc street, Nhan Chinh ward, Thanh Xuan district, Hanoi. But his father moved to Hang Bat Su street to study Chinese characters at the age of 5. He lived here and when he grew up, he transferred to study at the French-Vietnamese School. He passed the entrance exam to the Interpreter School, and worked at the "treasury", which is today's Department of Finance. However, only a few years later, he became a private official and was the "head of the court" everywhere, living quite comfortably. Thanks to that, his children were all able to study properly.

Doan Thien Thuat was the second child in a family of four brothers. The eldest brother followed the Revolution before the uprising, was imprisoned by the French, and later became a high-ranking official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He had a positive influence on his younger siblings, first of all his younger brother: Doan Thien Thuat. After the Liberation of the Capital, student Doan Thien Thuat was always the leader, playing an important role in student movements. At the end of his Preparatory year, he was a member of the Executive Committee of the Vietnam Student Union. His younger brother was also on the Executive Committee of the Albert Sarraut School.

Professor, Doctor, People's Teacher Doan Thien Thuat

He was Head of the Department of Linguistics and Head of the Language Department in the Faculty of Philology (1977-1980; 1992-1995).

Passionate about movement activities, but that did not make Doan Thien Thuat's students neglect their studies. Whether in high school or pre-university, as well as later, when they became students of the University, Doan Thien Thuat's students were always well evaluated for their awareness and academic achievements. He was a student of the first course of Hanoi University (at that time, a course only lasted 3 years, but he was the only one with a 4-year University Degree). After he became a lecturer, he was expected to do research in the Soviet Union. He volunteered to attend classes in the fourth year and write his graduation thesis like any normal student to get a 4-year graduation degree with excellent results. Only then would he have enough procedures to submit his application. Until now, whenever talking about Professor Doan Thien Thuat, his classmates all briefly commented that he was a personstudious, careful, serious, creative…

With habits cultivated from a young age, plus a busy lifestyle of both doing union work and studying, when teaching, Mr. Doan Thien Thuat still spent a lot of time self-studying to improve and achieved the degree of Associate Professor (Doctor as it is called today) quite early compared to his friends.

Mr. Doan Thien Thuat has a very standard working style, a unique, serious, detailed, and clear teaching style. Phonetics is often considered a dry and difficult subject to understand, but his lectures are still light and attractive. In teaching, he pays much attention to practice. He has inspired students with unanswered questions, encouraging them to love learning and researching.

He often said: "Self-study is the main thing". During the years of the war against America, in Dai Tu district (Thai Nguyen), he taught a theoretical subject on Phonology. And in the same year, under the light of an oil lamp, he completed the manuscript of the bookVietnamese Phonetics. He devoted all his efforts, bringing all that he had accumulated and especially reviewing all issues under the light of Oriental studies that Professor Nguyen Tai Can had brought back after years of approaching Soviet Linguistics.

Through teaching and scientific research, Professor, Doctor, People's Teacher Doan Thien Thuat has made important contributions, helping to lay the foundation for the country's Linguistics industry/Photo: Thanh Long

The teacher knew that the boundary of a morpheme coincides with the boundary of a syllable. However, he did not stop at the initial and final sounds as in traditional Chinese theory. He was concerned with a reality, we are using the national language and teaching in schools, so we are forced to go to smaller units. He also did not leave out the important element associated with the syllable, the tone, like Western researchers (who do not consider the tone to be a phoneme) and even traditional Northern phonology books. He distinguished three direct elements of the syllable: tone, initial sound and rhyme. Then he talked about the smaller elements that make up the rhyme. The newness of the bookVietnamese PhoneticsCompared to previous books, it is there. It also comes from the characteristics of Vietnamese, which is not an inflectional language but affirms that initial consonants and final consonants are separate units, located in two separate systems, not accepting the concept of positional variation of the same phoneme. That also shows the characteristics of Vietnamese. When this book was published, it caused a big stir at home and abroad. It is a document that is always cited in theses, research works and mentioned at many international scientific conferences. The book has been reprinted many times, and is the basis for compiling textbooks for schools in our country, at both university and high school levels.

Working at a university, in addition to teaching, scientific research is also an equally important task. From the early days of field research on the Muong Ngoc Lac language in Thanh Hoa to later through the guidance of student interns, at Professor Doan Thien Thuat, a training model has been formed:use practice to teach.

When the school was evacuated to Thai Nguyen, the local government (at that time the Viet Bac Autonomous Region) asked the school to help solve a difficulty of choosing the standard Tay-Nung language for use in broadcasting, which experts had previously tried but failed to do. The Linguistics Department launched the first campaign for a month to explore, then decided to send students to do research. One or two teachers took all the fourth-year students, separated from the school, to areas with Tay and Nung people, to live in local houses to learn the language, while still focusing on studying the subject every day. This form of "field study" was carried out in turn each year in one province. In parallel with the fourth-year students, the junior students in the annual internship spread out to collect documents in the remaining localities in the autonomous region. These documents were transferred to the final-year students to do their graduation thesis. Prof. Doan Thien Thuat personally managed the “field study” sessions, and guided all fourth-year students to defend a collective thesis, building a linguistic atlas. He used the mapping method of Geographic Linguistics to find areas where the characteristics of dialects similar in phonetics and vocabulary converge.

All the fourth-year students of the following course also participated in a collective graduation thesis under the guidance of Mr. Thuat. Quantitative methods were applied to accurately find out the common features of phonetics and vocabulary in the dialects that had been identified in the previous work. The popularity of each dialect was also shown on an atlas.

The language of the area was used for broadcasting. The Tay and Nung people in most of the Viet Bac area understood and accepted it. This was a remarkable success.

Professor, Doctor, People's Teacher Doan Thien Thuat is a shining example of a teacher and researcher struggling with life/Photo: Thanh Long

Previous experts followed traditional textbooks, that is, choosing the language of the region with the most developed economic, political, and cultural level as the standard language. This method was based on the following factors:outsidelanguage. It was not successful, because in reality, in the Viet Bac region, there is no region that excels in the above aspects, and if there is, it is the region where the majority of Kinh people reside, with mixed languages. The method of Hanoi University of Science that Professor Doan Thien Thuat implemented is based on the similarities of local languages, that is, based on the factorsinsidelanguage. This is a methodological contribution of general theoretical nature in linguistics.

The two language atlases are the first two atlases made in the linguistic community in our country.

For 5 years, Professor Doan Thien Thuat has traveled back and forth from Dong Van, Quan Ba, Meo Vac, Hoang Su Phi to Ban Gioc (Trung Khanh), working with students to carry out the topic.Determine the standard voice of Tay Nung language. It is no coincidence that in the 70s of the last century, the position of the Language Department of Hanoi National University was highly appreciated. The school chose this topic to participate in the National Economic Achievement Exhibition at Giang Vo during that period.

When the bombs had just stopped in the North, a new research topic was deployed. At the request of the Central Committee for the Protection of Mothers and Children, our country needed to establish for itself indicators for the psychological development of children. Regarding physiology, the Ministry of Health was responsible for implementation. Regarding psychology, many agencies were responsible for it, including language, where the investigation was conducted by the Linguistics Department of Hanoi University. For three years (1971-1974), teachers and students embarked on a new campaign, still led by Professor Doan Thien Thuat. The annual internships of junior students and a large part of their graduation theses focused on investigating the actual language of preschool children. He discussed and assigned tasks with colleagues to research and write articles, and at the same time directly guided students to go to nurseries and families to record pronunciation and write down the words that children achieved at each age. The scope of the investigation includes children in the city, countryside, mountainous areas (Lao Cai), plains (Hung Yen, Hanoi), coastal areas (Quang Ninh). The teacher and his students traveled back and forth to different regions of the country. On this occasion, the teacher personally participated with doctors from the Ear, Nose and Throat Institute to investigate the language of disabled children. The results of the investigation, the papers of the teachers and students were published in the Psychology Conference (published in the proceedings).

Professor Doan Thien Thuat has used his expertise to research and serve in practice wherever needed. He participated with the Institute of Otolaryngology in measuring speech hearing, and with the Voice of Vietnam Radio in measuring the clarity of speech at the end of the transmission line. His students later also participated invoice recognition, and its effects are enormous (in criminal matters, in the military, against terrorism, etc.). In short, more than anyone else, I have seen the applications of Phonetics alone (not Linguistics in general) in medicine, in engineering, technology, in performing arts (cinema, theater, vocal music), and creative arts (poetry). That is why I firmly reject the idea that Linguistics is only a part of the study of Literature.

Professor Doan Thien Thuat, although appearing gentle and quiet on the outside, is actually an energetic person. It can be said that Professor Doan Thien Thuat is a teacher and a researcher struggling with life. If before 1975, from the northernmost part of the country to Ben Hai River, there was no place without his footprints, then after the liberation of the South, he went from Ca Mau Cape to Ben Hai River, when he received the task of being the Head of the inter-ministerial survey team (including representatives of the Ministry of Universities, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Culture and two ministerial-level agencies, the Central Ethnic Committee and the Central Organization Committee) established by the Government to examine the requests of ethnic minorities in the southern provinces who wanted to learn their languages ​​and scripts, in order to determine the state's language policy. Professor Doan Thien Thuat was appointed to do this because at that time he was the only person researching ethnic minority languages ​​and was known by many people. But it was this trip that gave him the earliest opportunity to learn about the panoramic picture of ethnic minority languages ​​in the South Central and Southern regions and paved the way for his research activities in this field.

A few years later, within the framework of scientific cooperation between the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Linguistics and Vietnamese universities in the North, there were several joint field surveys, collecting data on the languages ​​of ethnic minorities in the South. Professor Doan Thien Thuat and his Vietnamese and Russian colleagues enthusiastically researched the Cham language of Thuan Hai, the Cham language of Chau Doc and especially the Khmer language of Southern Vietnam, which had become known when participating in the inter-ministerial investigation team. Unfortunately, the manuscript of the book on the Khmer language of Southern Vietnam written by him and A. Ju. Efimov was completed and waiting to be published in Moscow when the Soviet Union collapsed, so it was lost and the cooperation program was no longer continued. From such activities, Professor Doan Thien Thuat became more attached to this field of research. He has a lot of documents and a wide knowledge of the whole country, but more importantly, he has guided many graduation theses on many different languages, from Xinh mun to Khmu, he has trained a generation of students who are good at practice. They are currently promoting their strengths in key positions of universities and research institutes throughout the country.

The active and enthusiastic nature of Professor Doan Thien Thuat is shown everywhere, in every situation. When the Vietnam-France relationship changed in a positive direction, he was appointed as a visiting professor at the University of Paris VII. Professor Doan Thien Thuat took advantage of this opportunity to learn, research and collect documents. He went to the Experimental Phonetics Department of Professor Gsell at the University of Paris III to register for further study, preparing to defend his French national doctorate (equivalent to the Soviet Union's PhD). He paid his tuition regularly, even after returning to Vietnam. But the plan failed because our government did not recognize French degrees. Our French language interns who went there and successfully defended their third-level doctorates (equivalent to the Soviet Union's Associate Doctorate) had to retake the exam when they returned home. In France, Professor Doan Thien Thuat became a close colleague of Professor AG Haudricourt, a world-famous person in Historical Phonetics with applications to languages ​​in Indochina and Oceania. He was also familiar with Professor M. Ferlus. He was given Bento Thien's handwritten documents by Professor Hoang Xuan Han to write a research paper on 17th century Vietnamese script published in the Journal at Paris VII University. At this university, he also kept the book as a souvenir of his teaching days.Speak Vietnamese. With the permission of the Vietnamese Embassy, ​​he joined the Vietnamese Association in France, wrote for the newspaper Doan Ket, participated in the Association's activities, and even borrowed films from the embassy to organize film screenings for students at the school. In addition, Professor Doan Thien Thuat also asked the professor of the Faculty where he taught to introduce him to the archives of the Foreign Missionary Society to find documents. Here, he saw with his own eyes letters sent from Vietnam to France and vice versa, between parishioners and superiors, as well as notebooks of priests, with clear dates, spanning from the end of the 17th century to the beginning of the 19th century. These are rare documents about the Quoc Ngu script, because up to now, people have only known documents about the 17th and 19th centuries, except for "Sach so sang ghi cac viec" by Philipphe Binh (1822) written in Portugal, whose writing style he probably brought with him from the day he left, that is, decades before. The documents that Professor Doan Thien Thuat found and brought back to the country filled a century of document gaps. The professor published these 42 letters in a thick book titled18th century Vietnamese script.

Prof. Dr. Dinh Xuan Lam and Prof. Dr. Doan Thien Thuat at the opening ceremony of the 2012 school year of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities

The time when Professor Doan Thien Thuat was in France (1981) collecting these documents was also the time when Professor Phan Huy Le worked in France and brought back to Vietnam a set of documents.Complete Annals of Dai Viet, engravingThe XVIIIth Dynasty(1697). The two professors lived in the same university dormitory and traveled together, so it was not surprising that later, when the Center for Vietnamese Research Cooperation (later became the Center for Vietnamese Studies and Cultural Exchange, the predecessor of the Institute of Vietnamese Studies and Development Science) was established, Prof. Phan Huy Le was the Director and Prof. Doan Thien Thuat was the Deputy Director, one mainly in charge of foreign affairs, the other mainly in charge of domestic affairs.

The Center attracts a large number of foreign scientists and researchers. They come to Vietnam to learn about the country and people of Vietnam at a deep level, but whether they want to or not, they have to cross the language bridge. Teaching them the language is indispensable and an urgent requirement. Professor Doan Thien Thuat is the one who has to organize classes, take care of the teaching staff, and take care of teaching materials. On the other hand, internally, this is also a necessary source of income for the Center to be able to exist in the long term, while the cost of receiving guests is very large, while there has not been a small investment from the State, throughout 15 years of operation. Professor Doan Thien Thuat has built a solid team of teachers with more than 10 people, recruited with strict requirements on academic qualifications and pronunciation. The professor has trained them systematically in teaching methods and handling situations. The professor has organized the writing of books and attracted everyone to this work to improve their capacity. The books later printed under the name of the Institute of Vietnamese Studies and Development Science were actually compiled over a long period of time when the Center had not yet finished its term, covering all levels from low to high (Vietnamese, level A, 2 volumes,Practice Vietnamese, level B,Practice Vietnamese, level C,Simple Vietnamese Grammar, in English, for foreign teachers of Vietnamese). Professor Doan Thien Thuat devoted all his heart to this work, from planning, proposing content, requirements, assigning tasks, to reviewing articles and even finding funding sources, as well as taking care of illustrations and printing techniques. The book has been continuously reprinted and is used in most Vietnamese language teaching facilities for foreigners in the North.

In the field of linguistics and with his strengths, Professor Doan Thien Thuat has also created international cooperation plans. Leiden University in the Netherlands has cooperated with the Center to publish data on the languages ​​of ethnic minorities in our country. The bookDao languageby Professor Doan Thien Thuat (co-written with Professor Mai Ngoc Chu) was published with funding from the Netherlands. Next is the bookKatu language – word structureby Dr. Nguyen Huu Hoanh. And if there were no changes from the Netherlands, the third book,Vocabulary of Ede dialectsby Associate Professor, Dr. Doan Van Phuc was also published in this book collection as well as the following books. Professor, Doan Thien Thuat had to find another way to publish Doan Van Phuc's book (with the sponsorship of the French Language and Civilization Center and the French Embassy in Vietnam).

After cooperating with the Netherlands, then with Korea, Prof. Doan Thien Thuat went to teach at Hankuk Foreign Language School and together with Prof. Cho Jae-hyun co-edited a book on teaching Vietnamese at an advanced level, which was later published in Seoul. Also during his short teaching time here, Prof. studied Korean and the Korean language with Prof. Kim Ki Tae and the result was a book titledSpeak Koreanwas published with two professors as co-authors. The book was taught in Vietnam in the first few years when contact with Korea was not yet widespread.

In 2004, the Center's term ended, but that did not mean that Professor Doan Thien Thuat had more free time. His work pace increased even more than before. A doctoral thesis was defended, another thesis on phonetics that he supervised was in the final stage. Many conferences to review educational reform books and Vietnamese language subjects in primary schools were held, and he participated as chairman. Then came the project to write books for Vietnamese children abroad, a massive project that had been conceived many years ago, but was only now being implemented. The book seriesHappy Vietnameseincluding 6 levels and each level has 3 books, edited by Prof. Nguyen Minh Thuyet. When invited to participate, Prof. Doan Thien Thuat happily accepted. Not to mention the research, writing and attending international scientific conferences. The professor read the main report at the "International Conference on Latinization of Taiwanese Script", organized by National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan, Prof. Doan Thien Thuat read the report at the International Conference on "Southeast Asian Cultural Values ​​- Preservation and Promotion" October 12-13, 2005 in Siemriap Cambodia.

From the time he started teaching at university until the years after his retirement, that is, nearly half a century, Prof. Doan Thien Thuat has made positive and effective contributions to the research and training of Linguistics. In addition to Hanoi University of Science, he taught at Viet Bac Pedagogical University, Vinh University, Ho Chi Minh City University when these schools were newly opened, foreign language teacher training courses on linguistics organized by the Ministry of Universities, or by Thanh Xuan University of Foreign Languages ​​(now Hanoi University) or by the University of Foreign Languages, Nguyen Du Writing School, reporter training courses of Nhan Dan newspaper, of Vietnam News Agency, graduate classes of the Institute of Linguistics, of Hanoi Pedagogical University. He also participated in the Scientific Council of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Hanoi National University, the Linguistics - Foreign Languages ​​Specialized Council, the Scientific Title Council of the Ministry. Prof. Doan Thien Thuat also participated in the Executive Committee of the Vietnam Linguistics Association for the first two terms.

Thus, through teaching and scientific research, Professor Doan Thien Thuat, along with a number of other scientists, laid the foundation for the field of Linguistics in our country. Generations of students trained by him are continuing his career in many aspects, on a large scale. Many have now become prestigious scientists, managers and leaders in research institutes, universities, and agencies from central to local levels.