Passionate and profound Vietnamese linguistic researcher

He was born in 1954, I was born in 1954, one year after him and studied one course after the Hanoi General Faculty of Literature.

I consider living with you, being your friend, a blessing in my life. I am over sixty years old, so I am not afraid of being wrong. People live next to each other, one is a mirror for the other. Looking at a young grandchild, we relive our childhood. Looking at our teacher's life, we sadly grow old. Friends look at each other, drawing countless real-life experiences.

Many times when we sit and chat, I joke: "We have the same fate, but you are Sa Trung Kim, and I am Kim Trung Sa, which is more accurate."

I try every day and every hour to learn his unchanging philosophy of life: “Towards KINDNESS”. That’s how hard it is. It’s how hard it is, but it has to be that way.

We are the generation that fits the poem very well.: Even the rustics become intellectuals.. Professor Vu Duc Nghieu was born into a Confucian family in the countryside of Giao Tien, Giao Thuy. From a good Literature student in high school in the famous Nam Ha area at that time, he was admitted to the Faculty of Literature, Hanoi University of Science in 1972.

Professor, Dr. Vu Duc Nghieu

He was assigned to study Linguistics. The first class had only 21 people, entering the school at the time when the American war of destruction entered its most intense and decisive phase. From the evacuation site of Yen Phong, Hiep Hoa, Ha Bac province, his friends, all from the countryside, gradually fell in love with a "old man" Nghieu, a small man with pale skin but who sometimes played tricks to "crush" the girls in their tight pants and shirts. Sometimes, "old man" spoke with both ancient and profound folk idioms that made everyone perk up and smile. At that time, few people understood the depth of this science. It was all literature, coming from the countryside, the organization assigned them to study whatever they wanted. "Studying is also for the revolution, we brothers/ Hunger is also with the revolution, no problem" - people often joked..

In class, the first sentence every teacher teaches is: "Storms and storms are not as bad as Vietnamese grammar". I thought the teachers were just making a big start, but unexpectedly, after following Language all my life, I realized a few things about its logic. And even if I lived two or three generations, I still wouldn't be able to understand this proverb, which is probably less than a hundred years old.

Professor Vu Duc Nghieu is one of the few people from the old generation who quickly realized the Dharma and was trusted by the old teachers to pass on the scientific teachings.

This is where I began to witness it. In 1976, I met him at the water tank and asked, “What are you writing about?” “I’m writing a reverse dictionary.” “What is it?” “It’s not a forward dictionary.”!”.“Say it backwards?”. “No! It’s copied backwards. Like EAT, arrange N first, then EAT later. Then arrange them alphabetically to make a dictionary.” “I have no time!”. “Just playing!”. My supervisor was Dr. Nguyen Duc Dan, a handsome man from Poland who often played table tennis with me. To be honest, at that time I didn’t understand anything about that strange way of doing things, but I secretly admired that my supervisor had chosen a meticulous, strict student who struggled with documents all day. And through him, I understood what K3 or K5 punch cards were and secretly praised the Westerners for being much better than us. Later, when we moved, there were 3 drawers containing about a cubic meter of cards that we respectfully carried with us. I didn’t know how many more there were, but I joked: “If you lose the 2-month oil card, it’s enough paper to cook rice.”

The manuscript of that reverse dictionary is still there (all 70 rolls of seven-cent paper, two days ago, were covered with handwritten words). Now when asked why it hasn't been printed, he said gently: "We have to review the practical application of Vietnamese first." He is a perfectionist, but I take it out to study when I need to compare to understand the style of ancient Nom poetry or bring it to the "hammer" of some country poetry clubs about the story of rhyming and responding. It's like a set ofletter of transportIn the past, it was very convenient for locating, identifying rhymes, identifying phonetics in poetry, which is what I needed when approaching the author's language style.

It was the need for a theoretical foundation for his graduation thesis that, during his student days, with his Russian language skills, he translated nearly 200 pages of documents related to reverse dictionaries. This is something that not all students trained during wartime had the courage to do.

After the war, we still lived together. We were so poor. Looking back at photos from that time, everyone was so skinny that they looked like they had tuberculosis. This was the time when teacher Vu Duc Nghieu, with his rickety bike, rode 20 kilometers every night to study Nom script in Hanoi. He invited me, but I was lazy and didn’t want to bother my friend’s precious bike. I went to the Foreign Language School to learn a few words of French and then “let the wind take it away”.

He went to school because at that time someone had seen his “character”: perseverance, carefulness, meticulousness, maturity, perfectionism and progress. The person with that green eye was Professor Nguyen Tai Can. However, he also spent a while hesitating between two directions: modern semantics or historical literature of his two super strict and sharp teachers: Mr. Can and Mr. Dan. At that time, the teachers trusted and had high expectations for the next generation, so he had many advantages. I played all kinds of games, loved everything. He worked hard all day translating (formerly into Russian) language documents, patiently creating endless documents on vocabulary and historical grammar.

The first translated pages of the first year as a teacher are in the bookIntroduction linguisticsby Reformatskij. ThenGeneral linguistics steelby Kasevich (mimeographed and published by the Linguistics Association). Reading it at that time, I just thought: F. Saussure has been chewing his jaw for years, why did Kasevich come into being? That's all.

The days and nights he spent documenting the Nom poetry of Nguyen Trai and Nguyen Binh Khiem surprised me. But when the articleOn Nguyen Trai's poetic language(1980) shares the same name with Professor Nguyen Tai Can, participating in the Linguistics conference, then I realized. Before that, I was Nguyen Trai but in terms of ideology. Reading his article, I realized the unparalleled value of linguistic knowledge when approaching literary texts. I became more and more passionate about linguistics from then on.

From then on, university teacher Vu Duc Nghieu soon became confident in his class and was soon trusted to teach textbooks for many different schools: Faculty of General Literature, Faculty of Foreign Languages ​​of the General University, faculties of Military Foreign Language University, Police University, Political Officers, Central Propaganda School... Not all young people have such abilities. Some are young, speak seriously, sometimes even harshly. Students both like and fear him. At the age of twenty-five, everyone called him "Mr. Nghieu".

Professor Vu Duc Nghieu's scientific articles at that time (1980-1983), although not many, slowly but surely, soon shaped a research style in the direction of research: speaking with evidence, solid terminology, coherent arguments, being frugal with words so as to be compact, neat so as to be concise, cutting and cutting off a matter, a problem.

He was Deputy Head of the Department of Linguistics (1996 - 2000), Vice Principal of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities (2003-2014)/Photo: Thanh Long

Not competing to study abroad, he registered to study and do research in the country. Worrying about food and the topic of his doctoral thesisWords that are historically related in meaning and in consonant sounds head in Vietnamese. A seemingly narrow topic but requiring a deep knowledge of phonetics, grammar, vocabulary - historical semantics. At this time, his old teacher, Professor Nguyen Duc Dan, had moved to Saigon, and was also passionate about "semantics" with neat articles in the magazineKnowledge todayandNew World. Although the teacher and student were far away, they talked every time they met. His thesis advisors were two prestigious professors in the field of linguistics: Professor Le Quang Thiem and Professor Nguyen Thien Giap, who were both teachers and brothers, and colleagues. Professor Nguyen Tai Can provided materials from home and guided him through library materials, which he sat copying endlessly by hand.

I thought the job was going smoothly, but I had to go to Phnom Penh to teach Vietnamese, we called it "working on the front line". He took the documents over there and took advantage of the situation to write his thesis. People were trading north and east to earn some money, he read and wrote. Wherever he went, he asked people about this word and that word, took notes and compared them. At night when the power went out, he showed off the origin of this word and that word and argued for fun. It was both hard and fun. But basically, after 8 months, the manuscript was considered finished and he returned home to defend it. It was the same as my friends in that regard.

At this time, with his scientific reputation confirmed, he was invited by Cornell University, Department of Modern Languages ​​and Linguistics, to teach for three consecutive years. One day, while I was helping him whitewash his second-floor room, I saw a few thin paper clips fall out. Picking them up, I exclaimed: “This is Mr. Diffloth’s letter!”. He picked it up and exclaimed: “Oh! No letter. It’s your comment and another man’s! It would be a shame to lose it! It was handwritten!”. Instead of writing, I quote the elders.

Cornell University…. 21 April 93.

From G. Diffloth.To Language Committee.

“Nghia is a talented teacher, appreciated by students and open to suggestions”… “This is absolutely invaluable to our students and will serve them in their future endeavors having to do with Vietnamese” (Nghieu is a talented lecturer, open to sharing ideas and highly regarded by his students... This is invaluable to our students and will help encourage them to put effort into Vietnamese.).

From J. Wheatley. To G. Diffloth.

“Nghieu is extremely competent and conscientious teacher…. I found him the best Vietnamese teacher I have even worked with. He is very aware of nuances; he thinks up wonderful conversational material” (Nghieu is an extremely competent and dedicated teacher, attentive... I find him to be one of the best Vietnamese teachers I have ever worked with. He is very aware of the subtle nuances in teaching the language and makes great conversational materials.).

The two letters they reported to their Dean also contained positive evaluations and plans for scientific collaboration. This was clearly not “diplomatic” language because it was an internal exchange. The Dean was so happy that he gave it to him. Each opinion filled an A4 page. Having such a keepsake was really reassuring.

He could not escape the responsibility of management. First of all, he was the Vice-Head of the Linguistics Department. In 2000, Associate Professor Pham Quang Long, who was then the Vice-Rector and Party Secretary of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, told me: "Nghieu has returned from the US, he has a bit of "mother" now, join the management with the others, you come back and try to convince him a little bit". He became the Head of the Scientific Research Department and then the Vice-Rector of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities for more than two consecutive terms.

His office at school is like a corner of a specialized library, both managing and preparing for future dissertations. That is the workA brief history of vocabulary VietnamesePrinted in 2011. Articles are still published regularly. Monographs, both printed together and separately, are still published. In 2014-2015 alone, there were 3 books.

Being able to return to his professional work at the Faculty of Linguistics is a blessing to him. “It suits his nature and it is peaceful,” he said.

Professor Vu Duc Nghieu is following in the footsteps of previous generations who opened up the field, becoming a profound and serious Vietnamese linguistics researcher, forever passionate about this hard-working and difficult profession.

Once again, sipping his tea, he repeated: “We always aim for kindness, sir!”