(CPV): Elevating the status of the Vietnamese language in the context of integration

On June 11, 2024, The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has decided that Vietnamese will be used as one of the city's official languages. Thus, in addition to English, Chinese, Spanish, and Filipino, the city of San Francisco will also use Vietnamese in public services such as translation, announcements, and website documents.

Representatives of the City Board of Supervisors stated on June 11th, recognizing Vietnamese as an official language in San Francisco. (Photo: San Francisco Chronicle)

Previously, to serve immigrants, the city of San Francisco mandated that English be translated into several languages ​​for communities with at least 10,000 non-English speakers. With the newly passed resolution, the city of San Francisco has lowered the minimum threshold from 10,000 to 6,000. Meanwhile, statistics show that over 6,700 people in San Francisco primarily speak Vietnamese, exceeding the requirement to make Vietnamese an official language.

In the United States, outside of San Francisco, the Vietnamese language is relatively widely used in public services in many cities, especially those with large Vietnamese communities such as Orange County, California; Houston, Texas; and Seattle, Washington. In these areas, the Vietnamese language is provided in many essential services such as healthcare, education, and social services. This has contributed to creating equal opportunities and promoting the integration and strong development of the Vietnamese community in the United States.

Not only is Vietnamese recognized as one of the official languages, but in recent years it has also been taught as a foreign language in some universities and primary and secondary schools in many countries.

At Ca'Foscari University in Venice, Italy, the Vietnamese language program is offered within the Faculty of Asian and North African Studies. Graduates of the three-year Vietnamese language program at Ca'Foscari University achieve an intermediate level, approximately B1 according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages ​​(CEFR). At this level, students can understand the main points of conversations on common topics at work, school, or leisure activities. Despite being established relatively late, the Vietnamese language program at Ca'Foscari University is considered one of the most comprehensive in Italy, as students also learn about Vietnamese history, literature, economics, and culture.
 

In South Korea, since 2013, the Ministry of Education has stipulated that English is the first foreign language, while Vietnamese, along with eight other languages ​​(German, French, Russian, Chinese, etc.), is the second. There are four institutions in South Korea that offer Vietnamese language and Vietnamese studies programs: the Department of Southeast Asian Studies (Busan University of Foreign Studies); the Department of Vietnamese Studies (Chungwoon University); the Department of Vietnamese Language (Hankuk University of Foreign Studies); and the Department of Vietnamese Studies (Youngsan University). At the high school level, Chungnam Foreign Language High School (Cheonan City) has a Vietnamese language department established in 2015. These Vietnamese language training institutions contribute to meeting the growing demand in recent years, driven by the increasing number of Korean students learning Vietnamese and the growing number of Koreans living and working in Vietnam.
 

On November 17, 2022, the national university entrance examination in South Korea (also known as Suneung) officially took place with the participation of hundreds of thousands of students. Korean students completed six exams: Korean Language, Mathematics, English, Korean History, elective subjects, and a second foreign language. Vietnamese was one of the most popular second languages ​​chosen by Korean students.

Vietnamese language teachers in Taiwan (China) participate in training on teaching methods (Photo: Provided by the interviewee)

Meanwhile, since September 2019, the Ministry of Education of Taiwan (China) has officially included Vietnamese as an elective language in schools from grades 3 to 12. The demand for learning Vietnamese among Taiwanese people, as well as the F2 generation (children of mixed Vietnamese and Taiwanese ancestry), has increased significantly, so Vietnamese is now taught everywhere in Taiwan (China). Besides being taught as a mother tongue in elementary school, Vietnamese is also taught as a second foreign language in middle school, high school, and university.
According to Dr. Le Thi Thanh Tam, Head of the Department of Vietnamese Studies and Vietnamese Language, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi: Vietnamese has been included as a foreign language in the curriculum of many world-renowned and regional universities since very early times. For example, in Europe, Russia was the first country to include Vietnamese in its studies (in 1954) at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. Subsequently, the Institute of Oriental Languages ​​at Lomonosov Moscow State University also officially organized Vietnamese language courses for Russians. And recently, in 2017, the Moscow State University of Linguistics also began Vietnamese language courses for Russian students. In France, in 1979, Paris 7 University invited Vietnamese experts to teach Vietnamese to its Faculty of Oriental Studies for the first time. In Japan, Vietnamese has been taught since very early times, around the 1960s. By 2020, many universities in Japan had programs teaching Vietnamese as an important foreign language, such as: Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Osaka University, Kanda University of Foreign Studies, Showa Women's University, Kobe University, Waseda University, Daito Bunka University, Nagoya International Foreign Language Institute, etc.

The team from the Faculty of Vietnamese Studies and Vietnamese Language won first prize nationwide in the final round of the 2023 Vietnamese Public Speaking Competition for international students.

Recently, in 2021, a notable event was the collaboration between two prestigious American Ivy League universities, Brown University and Princeton University, to launch the first online Vietnamese language course. Meanwhile, Vietnamese is considered an important language for training high-quality language professionals in China. A system of universities teaching Vietnamese has been established throughout Beijing, Shanghai, Guangxi, and Yunnan… In 2009, Sichuan Foreign Language University in Chongqing, Southwest China, also established a Vietnamese language major.
 

Ukrainian student Sotnichenko learns about Vietnam through a book written in Vietnamese. (Photo: Kieu Giang)

Dr. Le Thi Thanh Tam believes that the increasing presence of Vietnamese language subjects in curricula in various countries, or the fact that Vietnamese has become an official language in major cities around the world, demonstrates the vitality and immense potential of the Vietnamese language and culture in the context of international integration. "The Vietnamese language preserves the traditions and identity of the nation, while also serving as a gateway to tremendous opportunities in connecting with and accessing the finest aspects of human culture," Dr. Thanh Tam emphasized.
The continuous development of the Vietnamese language is living proof of the intelligence and spirit of the Vietnamese people, and the spread of Vietnamese culture in the context of international integration. With its increasingly affirmed position and role, the Vietnamese language has contributed significantly to enhancing Vietnam's status and prestige on the international stage.