(VOVWORLD) - Thank you all for sending us warm wishes for Christmas and the New Year 2018. In recent years we have received more e-cards than postcards. It’s obvious that digital content has gained an advantaged over more traditional ways of messaging.
B: But VOV knows that many of our listeners love to receive VOV materials and souvenirs, so we continue to send QSL cards, handicraft items, and calendars for the new year.
A: Atish Bhattacharya told us: “I am extremely delighted to let you know that I have received an envelope containing a QSL card for my report on August 1 along with lovely handmade items. You posted the QSL card in time but the delivery has been delayed by Indian Customs and Postal departments. Now, I am looking forward to receiving a QSL card for my recent reception reports on your broadcast on Monday, 20th November, 2017. Thank you. I wish you a successful and prosperous New Year 2018.”
 An e-card from Eric Zhou |
B: We sent hundreds of calendars a couple of weeks ago and some of our listeners have received them. Patrick Travers of England wrote: “Thank you for the beautiful 2018 calendar received in today’s post, fabulous item. I will be hanging it on January 1st. I would like to wish everyone at the Voice of Vietnam a very Happy New Year!” Eddy Prabowo of Indonesia said: “I received the 2018 VOV Calendar today. It arrived safely. Thank you very much.”
A: I hope our other listeners will receive their gifts soon. Wahid Laskar of Bangladesh commented on our program: “It is clear that your half hour English program is packed with information on Vietnam, its customs, culture, economy, and politics. But the reception conditions didn’t allow me to enjoy the 30-minute segment. I checked the VOV website. It contains both audio and readable materials. Thanks for a nice website.”
 An e-card from Amir Jameel of Pakistan
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B: Mr. Laskar continued: “One thing surprised: me that Vietnamese is written in the English alphabet. But I think it is not natural, that somebody introduced it. Am I right? Because in that region, Laos, Thai, Japanese, Korean, Chinese all have their own script or alphabet. Why is it different in the case of Vietnamese? Please let me know.”
A: The history of Vietnam’s written language has seen many changes. Until at the beginning of the 20th century, administrative and scholarly documents in Vietnam were written in classical Chinese, using Chinese pictographic characters with Vietnamese pronunciations. At the same time folk literature and poetry were written in Nôm, a Vietnamese transcribed script, which used Chinese characters for Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary and an adapted set of characters for the native vocabulary.
B: One of the best-known pieces of Vietnamese literature composed in Nôm script was The tale of Kieu by Nguyen Du, who was honored by UNESCO as a World Cultural Figure. Hồ Xuân Hương was a famous Vietnamese poet in the early 19th century. She wrote poetry using the Nôm script. She is considered one of Vietnam's greatest poets, and was dubbed "the Queen of Nôm poetry".
A: The classical Chinese and Nôm scripts coexisted until the period of French Indochina when a Latin alphabet script gradually became the written medium of both government and popular literature. European missionaries in the 17th century first developed Quốc ngữ, a Romanised transcription of the Vietnamese language used to this day.
B: Alexandre de Rhodes, a French Jesuit missionary and lexicographer, had a major impact on the developing Vietnamese national language. He developed an early Vietnamese alphabet based on work by earlier Portuguese missionaries. Among the missionaries, de Pina was the only one who spoke Vietnamese fluently, and did not need interpreters to communicate with the natives. This is the main reason why some researchers refuse to recognize de Rhodes as “the Father of quốc ngữ’ and would rather give this title to de Pina. However, despite his proficiency in its use and his pioneering research, de Pina apparently did not publish anything about the Vietnamese language.
A: De Rhodes wrote the first trilingual Vietnamese-Portuguese-Latin dictionary. It was published in Rome in 1651 and fully acknowledged the contribution of de Pina as his Vietnamese teacher and the role of two other Portuguese missionaries.
B: Since the creation of the first Vietnamese dictionary and grammar treatise, it took a long time for Quốc ngữ to totally displace Chinese characters as an effective, comprehensive written expression of the Vietnamese language. For the next two centuries, even Catholic catechisms and tracts were published, not in Romanized script, but in Chinese, Nôm, or Latin. The most famous Vietnamese work of literature, Nguyen Du’s The Tale of Kieu was written in classic nom characters more than a century after Rhodes published his dictionary.
B: In 1865, Gia Dinh newspaper, the first modern script Vietnamese newspaper was published in Saigon. In 1917, an imperial decree abolished the use of Chinese and Nom in schools in favor of the new script and French. Not long after, Vietnamese intelligentsia and politicians began to recognize Quốc ngữ as an efficient, easy-to-master pathway to literacy, a way to educate the masses and create a national consciousness. Within a few decades, Quốc ngữ transformed Vietnamese into a full-fledged written language.
A: This week we acknowledge letters from Miss Muskan Gupta, Shivendu Paul, Hemant Kumar, and Angel Raj of India, Michael Cunningham of Australia, Eric Zhou of China, Hans Verner Lollike of Denmark, and Pramod Kumbla of US. We’ll send you all QSL cards to confirm your reports.
B: Before we go, we would like to read a Christmas and New Year wish from Amir Jameel of Pakistan: “This time of the year is truly wonderful and magical. Christmas is a holiday with a beautiful spirit and traditions. The spirit of giving, expressing love, and gratitude, and a celebration of life help to make Christmas a very special time of the year. Even if you are not a Christian, we can all enjoy the spirit of giving which is truly what this season is all about. The practice of wishing others well on Christmas, whether it is with Christmas cards, quotes, or images, helps to give this time of the year a special joyful feeling.”
A: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. We welcome your letters at English Section, Overseas Service, Voice of Vietnam, 45 Ba Trieu Street, Hanoi, Vietnam. Our email address is englishsection@vov.org.vn. Thank you for listening. Please join us again next Wednesday for another Letter Box edition. Goodbye.