A Crisis in the Cosmopolitan: Colonization and the Promotion of the Vernacular in an Early-Twentieth-Century Vietnamese Script Experiment

John D. Phan

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Chapter 8 A Crisis in the Cosmopolitan: Colonization and the Promotion of the Vernacular in an Early-Twentieth-Century Vietnamese Script Experiment

äºCosmopolitan and Vernacular in the World of Wen æ

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John D. Phan

John D. Phan
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Page Range:: 245â288

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004529441_010

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Abstract

This article examines an early-twentieth-century attempt to create a non-Latin phonographic script for the Vietnamese language. This alternative writing system, called âNew Characters for the Nationâs Sounds,â or Quá»c Ãm TÃ¢n Tá»±, was created in rejection of the two major forms of written Vietnamese current in the early twentieth century: the Latin-based alphabet known as Quá»c Ngá»¯, and the Sinograph-based morphosyllabary known as Chá»¯ NÃ´m. I argue that the author of this alternative script was motivated by fears that participation in a broader cosmopolitan system would obliterate the Vietnamese language, and its perceived connection to a cosmological order first articulated by the classical East Asian sages. The mechanics of the script reveal the authorâs hopes for the Vietnamese language as a repository for Vietnamese culture, while its preface expresses the fears that motivated the author to create it. The entire text thus provides a snapshot for the language ethics of late colonial Vietnam, as intellectuals wrestled with what they hoped Western civilization might teach them, alongside what they feared it might destroy.

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Cosmopolitan and Vernacular in the World of Wen æ

Reading Sheldon Pollock from the Sinographic Cosmopolis

ä¸ç¼ï¼ Language, Writing and Literary Culture in the Sinographic Cosmopolis, å·ï¼ 5

Cover Cosmopolitan and Vernacular in the World of Wen æ

ISBN:: 9789004529441

åºçç¤¾:: Brill

å°å·åºçæ¥æ:: 25 May 2023

Subjects

Front Matter

Part 1 Beginnings: Origins and Early Centuries of the Sinographic Cosmopolis

Part 2 Medieval and Early Modern Cases from China, Japan, and Vietnam

Part 3 The Special Case of Korea: From Late ChosÅn to Colonial ChÅsen

Back Matter

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Chapter 8 A Crisis in the Cosmopolitan: Colonization and the Promotion of the Vernacular in an Early-Twentieth-Century Vietnamese Script Experiment

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Reading Sheldon Pollock from the Sinographic Cosmopolis

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