(VOVworld) -The history of  Vietnamese official language and its birth place in Thanh Chiem Bastion were explored at a workshop in Quang Nam province on Wednesday.

The Ministry of Culture in cooperation with local administration and the Association of Science and History hosted the workshop to collect researchers’ view on the role of Thanh Chiem Bastion and western clerics in their introduction of  Vietnamese official language in the 17^th century. Secretary General of the Association of Vietnamese Science and History, Duong Trung Quoc, praised the local people’s contribution to the creation of Vietnamese language in the form of  today’s modern alphabetic characters. He said:“Papers delivered at the workshop confirmed the significance of Thanh Chiem Bastion in the regional defense, political, social and economic context. Researchers confirmed that the bastion was the birthplace of the   Vietnamese official language and praised the role by western priests, including Fracisco de Pina and Alexandre de Rhodos in the creation and improvement of the language as well as contributions made by Japanese and Vietnamese scholars."