Contextualising Phan Khôi (1928–1932)- Chapter III: Quốc Ngữ and the ‘National Learning’ Question
Chapter III: Quốc Ngữ and the ‘National Learning’ Question
The first fifty years of the French colonial project in Vietnam saw increased patronage of the Romanised Vietnamese Quốc Ngữ (‘National Vernacular’) script through mediums of print, press, and translation. Originally created by Catholic missionaries in the seventeenth century, both the French colonial apparatus and Vietnamese elite eventually embraced this
relatively novel writing system and cultural tool for varied but intermingled purposes. French colonial administrators aimed to use it as a transitional cultural and linguistic tool to systematically remove Vietnam out of the Confucian cultural sphere and firmly establish a more modern French cultural imprint. Whereas for the Vietnamese elite, they sought to utilise
Quốc Ngữ in the same manner to circulate and mediate transnational ideas from different cultural spheres and ultimately, to re-imagine a more modern Vietnamese expression of the ‘Self’ within a restrictive, colonised setting. At the same time, both of these forces strived to establish a colonised Vietnamese public sphere in the interwar period.
Throughout his career, Phan Khôi was often at the forefront of this universal elite embrace of Quốc Ngữ. His contributions on this matter were highly visible between 1928 and 1932, in which he vigorously engaged and debated with prominent contemporaries on questions of standardisation of Quốc Ngữ as part of reforming the Vietnamese language and building Quốc học (‘National Learning’). However, previous scholarships have not covered these debates extensively. Thus, this chapter examines and contextualises Phan’s intellectual contributions, as well as those of his contemporaries. It demonstrates how they debated transnational ideas of the ‘Self’ on the linguistic front. Thus, it challenges Benedict Anderson’s assumptions of a colonial imposition of an European-invented script (83). In fact, a small, but vigorous colonial Vietnamese public sphere was developing gradually through local intellectual interventions with Quốc Ngữ. Furthermore, this chapter also frames these questions within a larger transnational conversation regarding language through bringing in discussions elsewhere, such as Republican China, and how these examples and Phan Khôi’s engagements informed his own vision and those of his contemporaries. This chapter concludes the embrace of Quốc Ngữ by Vietnamese intellectuals such as Phan Khôi in print, press, and translation and resulting debates played a fundamental role in the reimagination of
Vietnamese cultural expressions of the ‘Self’ in the interwar period.
The evolution of Quốc Ngữ
In order to understand the evolution of the Quốc Ngữ script as a tool for circulation of transnational ideas of the ‘Self’, we must contextualise its historical development, as well as its reception by the Vietnamese elite. Prior to the French colonial adventure, Quốc Ngữ was already a product of transnational circulation and mediation. French and Portuguese Catholic
missionaries originally conceived this writing system in the seventeenth century as a transcription of the Vietnamese language into Latin characters to evangelise the local population (84). While it is easy to suggest this writing script was a European creation, access to the source language was not possible without assistance from local Vietnamese intermediaries, possibly early converts. Thus, we have to take into account the agency of
these ‘subaltern’ intermediaries, as an elementary but crucial element in the transnational development of Quốc Ngữ in pre-colonial Vietnam. All the more, this awareness represents the “global turn” in intellectual history where it invites a more novel emphasis on contributions from lesser known culture intermediaries, who may left little to no written
record, in generating intellectual ruptures (85). However, for the next hundred years, Quốc Ngữ did not catch on among the local population before French intervention in the nineteenth century, partly due to the fact that its use remained confined within Christian missions. The Confucian-trained elite continued to embrace the classical Hán-Nôm demotic scripts as the official writing system.
The French colonial mission in Vietnam by the late 1880s proved to be a rupture in the development and propagation of Quốc Ngữ as a circulation tool of transnational ideas. In those early years, while French colonial administrators agreed French would be the pre-eminent language, there was an imperative for an intermediary system of verbal expression between the antiquated system of knowledge and French-inspired modernisation and Quốc Ngữ was eventually envisaged as such (86). Furthermore, the propagation of Quốc Ngữ by the colonial project also served the dual purpose of breaking Vietnam’s traditional links with the Confucian cultural sphere and monopolising French cultural presence. On the other hand, it was the same literati that was most vocal in promoting Quốc Ngữ as the national writing system. Rather being used to break up links with the Confucian cultural sphere, local intellectuals such as Phan Khôi employed Quốc Ngữ to continue this association to circulate new ideas and concepts. Effectively, transforming Quốc Ngữ into a print
language that could lay the foundation for a national consciousness and eventually contribute to the reimagination of a modern Vietnamese polity within colonial constraints (87).
A Quốc Ngữ literary corpus was first developed in Cochinchina, where French presence in Vietnam was more well-established (88). Early local initiatives of print, press and translation in Cochinchina, often with colonial patronage, paved the way for development of Quốc Ngữ print capitalism (89). These practices were eventually reproduced across Vietnam at the turn of the century. Subsequently, in Tonkin by the 1900s, Quốc Ngữ print culture gained prominence mostly through the endeavours of scholar and interpreter-trained Nguyễn Văn Vĩnh. According to Christopher Goscha, Nguyễn Văn Vĩnh was inspired by his transnational
experience attending the 1906 Colonial Exposition in Marseille as part of a Vietnamese delegation, where he was especially fascinated by the modern printing press, which he sought to reproduce back home (90). From 1907 onwards, at his own initiatives and with support from sympathetic French circles, he was widely credited with further pushing print, press, and
translation as tools of circulation and mediations of ideas from multiple cultural spheres to transform the Vietnamese public sphere. An important element in these efforts was the refinement of Quốc Ngữ. Nguyễn Văn Vĩnh and many of his elite contemporaries recognised that systemisation and modernisation of the writing script were pivotal for more precise vernacular Vietnamese expressions of complex scientific and cultural ideas as part of the reimagination of an authentic Vietnamese ‘Self’ within a colonised context (91). At the same time, it is a gradual process which also demonstrated the complex politics of collaboration in colonial Vietnam where competing modernisation projects intersected. For example, while he cooperated with the French colonial establishment to push his socio-cultural project, he was also involved with earlier reform movements, which included the Tonkin Free School where he taught Quốc Ngữ and French literature (92). In subsequent decades, Phan Khôi would inherit and critically engage with these debates in his distinct style.
Two important developments paved the way for the increased importance of Quốc Ngữ in fermenting a colonised urban Vietnamese public sphere by the 1920s and 1930s at the expense of traditional Confucian learning and Hán-Nôm demotic scripts. One was an exponential growth in Quốc Ngữ publications under Albert Sarraut’s relatively liberal reforms. The other was the abolition of mandarinate examinations and increasing enrolment
in Franco-Vietnamese schools for both male and female pupils, who later matured to be more at ease in Quốc Ngữ and French and an important source of urban readership. Trinh Van Thao proposed the emergence of a more radical ‘1925’ generation as a distinct group of intelligentsia who came through these institutions and was marked by a combination of
Sarraut’s reforms and the symbolic decline of older Confucian activists following the First World War as a paradigm shift (93). Along this line, Ben Tran suggested a “post-mandarin” moment in 1919 to describe a more modern Quốc Ngữ -led cultural field and aesthetic modernity emerging from the abandonment of old examinations (94). At the same time, this moment did not signal a complete move from the Confucian cultural sphere to a French-led modern equivalence. In fact, classically-trained scholars such as Phan Khôi who made the transition to writing almost exclusively in Quốc Ngữ continued to ỉnteract with younger and more radical contemporaries while also mediated new ideas from multiple cultural spheres, including the Confucian sphere to inform modern conceptions of the ‘Self’, crossing generational barriers through Quốc Ngữ between 1928 and 1932.
Already a transnational intellectual creation through seventeenth-century Jesuit connections, the Latin transcription of Vietnamese known as Quốc Ngữ was given greater emphasis by both the French colonial project and Vietnamese reformers. Despite slightly differed agendae, there was a consensus in this period that a vernacular print culture in Quốc
Ngữ held the key for a distinct Vietnamese cultural expression of the ‘Self’ in a colonial context. In addition, the mostly Vietnamese attempts to systemise and modernise Quốc Ngữ since 1860s demonstrated a dynamic transnational transfer of modes of cultural production from one cultural space to another often at the initiative of the indigenous elite, rather than
the colonial metropole. Eventually, Phan Khôi became a vital player of this complex process between 1928 and 1932.
Phan Khôi’s transnational vision for Quốc Ngữ
The interwar period not only saw an exponential growth in Quốc Ngữ print literature but also a nationwide debate on modernising and standardising the vernacular script among the urban intelligentsia. From his base in Saigon, Phan Khôi contributed vigorously to evolving discourses surrounding this question, often clashing with contemporaries. Until now, Phan’s engagements on the matter have received little substantive treatment. Examining competing discourses and Phan’s visions will not only prove the formation of a dynamic colonial public sphere based on embrace of the vernacular but also frame them within a wider transnational conversation. Moreover, how contested visions of the vernacular reflected competing visions of colonial modernity.
Before 1928, while Phan Khôi started writing for a few Quốc Ngữ publications, his most prominent contribution to vernacular print literature was his role in translating the Protestant Bible into Quốc Ngữ between 1921 and 1925. Through this example, Phan’s early engagement with transnational ideas via translation was highly visible. For context, from the seventeenth century and throughout French colonial rule, Catholicism remained the prevalent form of Christianity in Vietnam and as mentioned, Catholic missionaries transcribed Vietnamese into Latin characters creating Quốc Ngữ. However, from 1911, Protestantism
established a presence in colonial Vietnam through American missionaries and efforts to translate the Protestant Bible into Vietnamese commenced around 1916 (95). According to Lại Nguyên Ân, around 1921, Phan Khôi accepted an invitation from pastor W. Cadman to join a group of Hanoi-based translators involved in the project (96). Being part of a collective that
included both Vietnamese scholars and American missionaries, Phan was the main translator possibly due to his seniority (97). In terms of the actual translation process, we can partially reconstruct it from Phan Khôi’s own recollections. According to a brief mention in his 1930 article on challenges of translating Buddhist texts, the Quốc Ngữ translation of the Bible involved a mediation of both French and Chinese translations and with stringent editorial interventions from the Americans due to their multilingualism (98).
Yet, there is little evidence to indicate Phan’s primary motivation in undertaking this project, as well his personal views toward Protestantism (99). To Phan’s credits, despite later translations, the 1926 translation remained the most widely used edition to date within Vietnam and elsewhere. Thus, the transnational scale of this project and the translingual process involved deserve greater scholarly attention, not only in terms of the history of Christianity in Vietnam but also a wider transnational intellectual history of vernacular literature in colonised and semi-colonised contexts.
Between 1928 and 1932, Phan became one of the major advocates for the standardisation and modernisation of Quốc Ngữ. The controversies he generated through his viewpoints and attention to details further enhanced both his reputation and notoriety as an instigator of change. In an essay, Phan Khôi rejected counterpart Hồ Duy Kiên’s suggestion that Vietnamese should adopt French as their primary language without needing to write Quốc Ngữ accurately. Phan Khôi summarised Hồ’s points as: 1) French was a scientific language which one must master to catch up with Euro-American civilisations, 2) Vietnam was under French influence so it made sense to learn French, 3) Vietnamese (“Tiếng An Nam”, “Annamese”) contained too many errors. From there, Phan defined a “civilised” nation as
where the majority of the populace are educated since modern “civilisation” is no longer just for an elite few. Phan also suggested it was impossible for all Vietnamese to be proficient in French by arguing Vietnam and France were too far apart culturally to make it feasible,
unlike the Belgians and Swiss with French or the Americans with English (100). Thus, it was more convenient for the local population to adopt Quốc Ngữ to advance socially and culturally. Moreover, Phan championed using Quốc Ngữ accurately and transforming it into a scientific language on par with French and others. Finally, Phan provided a utopian vision where it is the populace’s own initiatives to ensure Quốc Ngữ ’s survival, not going the way of the classical Nôm demotic script, to counter-argue Hồ’s cynical assumption of powerlessness in Vietnamese society (101). Hence, different attitudes toward the vernacular script as a possible vehicle for expressing the ‘Self’ reflected competing visions of colonial modernity in Vietnam during this period.
We can frame these discussions in colonial Vietnam within wider transnational conversations. In particular, a transnational dialogue between Chinese scholar Hu Shih and Phan Khôi, as the latter was known to be a keen observer of Chinese events. Between 1915 and 1918, Hu proposed fundamental reforms to the Chinese language by promoting the
vernacular language or “paihua” (“baihua”, “bạch thoại ”) with emphasis on vitality and universality in view of constructing a modern Chinese “national literature” (102). It is reductive to assume Phan Khôi simply repeated these ideas a decade later with regards to Quốc Ngữ. In writing, Phan mediated some of Hu’s ideas on this matter with those from the West to construct his own vision for Quốc Ngữ as a vehicle for expressing modernity within an even more restrictive, colonised setting compared to semi-colonised Republican China. Furthermore, the Vietnamese case witnessed a radical shift for written Vietnamese from centuries-old classical ideograms to more modern Latin transcription in Quốc Ngữ in a matter of decades. In fact, within China, various schemes for the romanisation of Chinese had been advanced but none gathered enough support to make it a long-term prospect (103). Whereas, Phan Khôi and his contemporaries were already committed to fully realise the potential of
Quốc Ngữ. On the other hand, both Hu and Phan agreed on a gradual, evolutionary process without a complete repudiation of the past (104). In Phan’s case, this position was visible in his attitude toward Literary Chinese (“chữ Hán”), which was in decline at Quốc Ngữ ’s expense. Writing in Quốc Ngữ, he claimed the motivation for learning chữ Hán in contemporary
Vietnam shifted from pursuing career advancement via Confucian-mandated examinations to purely increasing one’s knowledge for practical purposes such as translating Chinese texts or working for Chinese-owned businesses (105). Thus, understanding Literary Chinese was supplementary rather than a priority as it was in the past.
Furthermore, he emphasised the uniqueness of Vietnamese literary traditions in chữ Hán compared to other members of the Confucian sphere, in which he mentioned indigenous forms of poetry such as lục bát (“six-eight syllables”) which was employed in Nguyễn Du’s nineteenth century epic poem Truyện Kiều (“The Story of Kiều”), considered Vietnam’s
national literary treasure (106). Interestingly, Phan Khôi also mentioned he defended Vietnam’s traditions on multiple occasions for a Chinese-language newspaper in Chợ Lớn, targeting the Chinese community who was dismissive of their host country’s culture (107). As a side note, he offered commentary on different literary traditions of Japan and Korea, of which he dismissed the latter as being too similar to Chinese in style to emphasise Vietnamese originality (108). Thus, it signifies an attempt to ‘rescue’ and ‘restore’, in Said’s words, an object of the Vietnamese past. These opinions resulted in one of Phan Khôi’s lesser known projects,
a self-instruction manual for chữ Hán written in Quốc Ngữ, Hán Văn Độc Tu (漢 文 獨 修, Chinois sans maitre, “Self-instruction for Literary Chinese”), published in PNTV around 1932. According to an advertising supplement in the journal Đuốc Nhà Nam (“Southern Torch”), it was not possible to master Quốc Ngữ without understanding chữ Hán, in the same relation as French to Latin (109). Thus, it reflects a desire for two writing scripts to co-exist and complement each other. Therefore, an element of Phan Khôi’s vision for Quốc Ngữ is not a complete abandonment of Vietnam’s cultural past in literary Chinese à la Hu Shih but ensuring its relevance, albeit in a subordinate position, in the perfection of Quốc Ngữ as a medium of expression of the Vietnamese ‘Self’ via print, press, translation within a colonised context.
In general, between 1928 and 1932, Phan Khôi became a major spokesman for the modernisation and standardisation of Quốc Ngữ as a cultural tool to disseminate transnational ideas of the ‘Self’ via print, press, translation and reimagine the Vietnamese polity. His insistence on its clarity and accuracy led to clashes with many of his contemporaries on public forums and earned him notoriety among the small, but growing urban intelligentsia as a reflection of competing visions of colonial modernity. Furthermore, his vision for Quốc Ngữ advocated a gradual, evolutionary process that was not based on a repudiation of the past.
Phan Khôi and the ‘National Learning’ question
The almost universal embrace of Quốc Ngữ allowed for other public discourses to arise beyond standardising the writing script and move towards building a colonised Vietnamese public sphere. One of the more controversial discussions, which Phan Khôi allegedly initiated, was the question regarding the existence of an authentically Vietnamese system of
‘national learning’ (“Quốc học”) or lack thereof. This highly abstract debate was colourful in terms of its high-profile participants across colonial Vietnam and their varied discourses. This is one of the more fascinating and complex debates of interwar colonial Vietnam, which merits greater scholarly attention in terms of understanding contested ideas of the ‘Self’ and the role of vernacular print culture. Through this section, the mediation of transnational ideas of the ‘Self’ via Quốc ngữ played a crucial role in articulating possibilities of ‘national learning’ within a colonised context.
At a rudimentary level, Phan Khôi already covered the ‘national learning’ question in one of his contributions to Nam Phong from 1917 (110). In the early 1930s, Phan re-invigorated this question. In a 1931 commentary on fellow scholar (Sở Cuồng) Lê Dư’s upcoming book on said topic, Phan defined ‘national learning’ as a country’s system of knowledge acquisition that is distinguishable from other countries in the same manner as “national costume” or “national anthem”. He went on to say ‘national learning’ is a relatively new term, not only within Vietnam but also Republican China, which was undergoing the New Culture Movement with one branch promoting modern Euro-American ideas and the other repackaging traditional Chinese “Hundred Schools of Thoughts” as “national learning” (111). Thus, the Vietnamese usage is a direct emulation of its Chinese counterpart.
In addition, he concluded the Chinese example is worthy of calling itself “national learning” because of the many distinct schools of Confucianism and Taoism manifested throughout history. In Vietnam’s case, whether there historically existed a system of “national learning”, with the exception of Lê Dư, most of Phan’s contemporaries such as Phạm Quỳnh
and Trịnh Đình Rư rejected such notion. According to them, even if Vietnam previously produced influential thinkers in the pre-colonial past such as Chu (Văn) An and Trạng Trình (Nguyễn Bỉnh Khiêm), their respective bodies of work were neither sufficient nor innovative enough to constitute a distinct Vietnamese system of knowledge (112). Here, a rift within the Vietnamese intelligentsia was visible with regards to ‘national learning’ and re-imagining the Vietnamese cultural polity within a colonised context.
This commentary eventually attracted other participants, including its subject Lê Dư. In response to Phan Khôi within the same year for Hanoi-based journal Đông Tây (“East-West”), Lê Dư rejected the non-existence of a Vietnamese ‘national learning’ by pointing out the contrary. Lê provided his definition of ‘national learning’, which was not limited to philosophy but also included methodology and organisation. To expand, he
employed his own experiences in Japan regarding the historical development and organisation of their own ‘national learning’ (“kokugaku”) as a distinct entity from imported ‘learnings’ such as “Chinese learning” (“Hán học”) or “Buddhist learning” (“Phật học”). The
Japanese example included the establishment of “national academies” (“quốc học viện”) dedicated to the formulation and teaching of ‘national learning’, which incorporated “national literature” (“quốc văn”), “national history” (“quốc sử ”) and Confucian-inspired “moralities” (“đạo nghĩa”) (113). Furthermore, Lê also suggested that Phan’s argument was too Sinocentric in terms of Vietnam being within China’s sphere of influence without considering Greco-Roman influences on European learning and the same applied to China towards Japan (114). Therefore, ‘national learning’, in Lê’s view, was a question of methodology and organisation rather than ideology. Lê also cited the historical linguistic case of the Vietnamese demotic Nôm script being based on Chinese ideograms but eventually became a medium of expression of authentic Vietnamese thoughts as a basis for ‘national learning’ in the pre-colonial past, in
the same manner as English and French basing their alphabets on Latin (115). The same principle can be applied to Quốc Ngữ, of which both Lê and Phan used to communicate their ideas. Overall, Lê accused Phan of not taking into consideration possibilities of circulation and adaptation of transnational concepts to generate intellectual ruptures and re-imagine
identities. In short, Phan was simply being too harsh with Vietnam’s pre-colonial scholarly past.
Following Phan’s and Lê’s lines of argument, scholar and Phan’s former employer Phạm Quỳnh offered his own take. In an essay for Nam Phong, Phạm quoted, in both French and Quốc Ngữ, French intellectual and critic René Gilluion, who asserted that the “Oriental knowledge” lacked objectivity and precision but also vast and abundant in spirit and thus
posed the question whether “Western sciences” can be incorporated into “Oriental knowledge” (116). Based on this Orientalist notion, Phạm Quỳnh somewhat established his agreement with Phan’s idea of the non-existence of Vietnamese ‘national learning’. Phạm further claimed despite centuries of learning and borrowing from China, Vietnam remained a “mediocre student” at best. From his knowledge of Confucian classics, he pointed out past Vietnamese scholars did not even study Chinese philosophies in-depth, citing their familiarity with only Song Confucianism but ignorance of Ming Confucianism or any of the “Hundred Schools”. Thus, they were unable to formulate original philosophies of long-lasting influences not only within academia but also wider society (117). By mediating both Lê’s and Phan’s definitions, Phạm offered his own definition, consisting of national schools of thoughts that are unique which are then formulated into a corpus of work to be circulated nationwide and eventually, gain influence abroad. Expanding further, Phạm cited European powers who, despite lying within Greco-Roman traditions, managed to transform outside knowledge in their own spirit. Moreover, he referred to Japan as China’s “spiritual child” (“fils spirituel”) in the same manner (118). In the rest of this article, he outlined his vision for Vietnamese “national learning”, which was to be based on a mediation of East-West “morality” and “sciences” but more so on the terms of the latter as suggested by Guillion, thus distinguishing himself from Phan and Lê (119). Ideologically, it is leaning towards maintaining association with France as Phạm was a strong supporter of collaboration.
This heated debate also attracted writer Nguyễn Trọng Thuật, who delivered a speech in the province of Hải Dương in the same year titled “Arbitrating the case of National Learning”, which apparently called for reconciliation of all sides of the debate. This conciliatory position was rebuked by Phan Khôi in a strongly-worded response, despite admitting ignorance of the speech’s content (120). Despite that, Phan argued such a position was both useless and harmful as it was a continuation of a bad habit from past scholar-officials who previously insisted on harmony, which was detrimental to modernisation. Hence, in Phan’s views, one should always hold onto a clear position. For example, materialism against
idealism in philosophy. This binary thinking, in Phan’s views, held the key for modernisation as demonstrated in Western thoughts (121). Therefore, it is more advantageous to be “uncompromising” in a conflict.
In a rebuttal published in a Hanoi-based newspaper in 1932, Nguyễn Trọng Thuật suggested that Phan’s hypothesis of the non-existence of ‘national learning’ indicated a subtle admission of its existence. Moreover, claiming non-existence was not as a radical position as Phan suggested, since suggesting the non-existence of something implied the need to provide
evidence to prove its non-existence or otherwise. Here, Nguyễn also provided his own definition of ‘national learning’, in which its existence is preceded by the existence of a “nation” and the human act of “learning”. Along that line, he proposed the question should switch from whether there is “national learning” to whether it is “good” or “bad” (122). Thus, rendering this debate null and void. Nguyễn also pointed out Phan’s own records that in many ways, qualified him as a ‘national learning’ scholar (123). Therefore, on this basis, all participants of the debate were ‘national learning’ scholars in their own right and that ‘national learning’ was an ever evolving entity. Thus, it was more productive to contribute to its formation than debate it.
Through dissecting the diverse and nuanced opinions of the ‘’National Learning’ debate of 1931–1932, it is clear all participants, including Phan Khôi, expressed their ideas in Quốc Ngữ through print, press and translation. Thus, they cemented the romanised script’s position
as the premier choice for intellectual expressions in the Vietnamese colonial public sphere. Even more so, their complex viewpoints contained engagements with different cultural spheres. As a result, their arguments were often end-products of the mediation of these transnational ideas. Furthermore, they reflected competing and intermingled visions of
Vietnamese expressions of the ‘Self’ within a colonised setting. All the more, this debate and this chapter overall demonstrate Phan Khôi’s status as a leading intermediary of intellectual ruptures through initiating controversial debates.
83 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflection on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983), 128.
84 The perfection of Quốc Ngữ is often attributed to French Jesuit missionary Alexandre De Rhodes who wrote the Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum, the first trilingual Vietnamese-Portuguese-Latin dictionary in 1651 and is still venerated in modern Vietnam as the father of Quốc Ngữ. At the same time, Portuguese Jesuits also played a critical role
by forging the latin transcription of Vietnamese on the basis of Portuguese.
Pierre Brocheux and Daniel Hémery, Indochina: An Ambiguous Colonization, 1858–1954, trans. Ly-Lan Dil Klein, with Eric Jennings, Nora Taylor, and Noémi Tousignant (London: University of California Press, 2009), 225.
85 Vanessa Smith, “Joseph Banks’s Intermediaries: Rethinking Global Cultural Exchange,” in Global Intellectual History, eds. Samuel Moyn & Andrew Sartori (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), 83.
86 Gabriel Aubaret, a French naval officer who negotiated the 1864 treaty that ceded three southern Vietnamese provinces to France and was fluent in both Chinese and Vietnamese, was quoted saying: “This common language, solidified through our use of Latin characters, opens a clear path for our civilising ideas to penetrate; and who knows whether it will be in this way that European science…will be understood one day?”
Brocheux and Hémery, Indochina, 226.
87 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 44.
88 See Chapter 1
89 See Chapter 1
90 Christopher Goscha, “‘The Modern Barbarian’: Nguyen Van Vinh and The Complexity of Colonial Modernity in Vietnam,” European Journal of East Asian Studies 3, no. 1 (2004): 142.
91 Goscha, “‘The Modern Barbarian’”, 154.
92 Nguyễn Hiến Lê, Đông kinh Nghĩa thục (Tonkin Free School) (Saigon: Lá Bối, 1968), 55.
93 The years 1925 and 1926 subsequently saw the arrest and repatriation of overseas-based revolutionary Phan Bội Châu by colonial authorities and the passing of republican reformer Phan Châu Trinh, in which the latter’s funeral procession drew huge crowds as well as student-led anti-colonial protests across all parts of Vietnam.
Trinh Van Thao, “The 1925 Generation of Vietnamese Intellectuals and Their Role in the Struggle for Independence,” in Viêt Nam Exposé: French Scholarship on Twentieth-Century Vietnamese Society, eds. Gisele L. Bousquet & Pierre Brocheux (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2002), 257.
94 Ben Tran, Post-Mandarin Masculinity and Aesthetic Modernity in Colonial Vietnam (New York: Fordham University Press, 2017), 111.
95 “Đạo Tin Lành ở Việt Nam một cái nhìn tổng quát” (A General Overview of Protestantism in Vietnam), Ban Tôn Giáo
Chính Phủ- The Government Committee For Religious Affairs, accessed November 5, 2020, http://btgcp.gov.vn/Plus.aspx/vi/News/38/0/240/0/1395/Dao_Tin_lanh_o_Viet_Nam_mot_cai_nhin_tong_quat.
96 Phan Khôi claimed in writing he joined this project from 1920 but Lại Nguyên Ân suggested 1921 was more probable since in 1920, Phan was still working as a clerk for a Hanoi-based shipbuilding company.
Lại Nguyên Ân, “Tiểu dẫn về sưu tập các tập tác phẩm của Phan Khôi đăng báo trong các năm 1917–1924” (Introduction: Phan Khôi’s published writings, 1917–1924), in Phan Khôi: Tác phẩm đăng báo, 1917–1924 (Phan Khôi: Published writings, 1917–1924), ed. Lại Nguyên Ân (Hanoi: Nhà xuất bản Tri Thức (Knowledge Publisher), 2019), n/a.
97 The translation team included Phan Khôi, pastors William C.Cadman and John D.Olsen, Trần Văn Dõng, a student of the College of Indochina, Tú Phúc and others Phước Nguyên, “Quá Trình Phiên Dịch Kinh Thánh Sang Tiếng Việt” (The Process of Translating the Bible into Vietnamese), Nguyệt San Linh Lực (January 1996): n/a,
https://www.thuvientinlanh.org/qua-trinh-phien-d%E1%BB%8Bch-kinh-thanh-sang-ti%E1%BA%BFng-vi%E1%BB%87t/.
98 Phan mentioned that Cadman’s spouse was proficient in 13 languages and thus was vital in ensuring the accuracy of the Quốc Ngữ translation
Phan Khôi, “Bàn về việc dịch kinh phật” (Discussion on translating Buddhist texts), Trung lập, no. 19, September 5, 1931.
99 Despite no official figure, the number of copies re- printed is estimated at around from 5000 to 10,000.
Phước Nguyên, “Quá Trình”
100 Phan Khôi, “Tại sao chúng ta không nên bỏ chữ Quốc ngữ và phải viết cho đúng?” (Why we must not abandon Quốc Ngữ and write it accurately?), Trung lập no. 6105, March 22, 1930.
101 Phan, “Tại sao” (Why)
102 Jerome B. Greider, Hu Shih and the Chinese Renaissance: Liberalism in the Chinese Revolution, 1917–1937 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970), 83–84.
103 Greider, Hu Shih, 79.
104 Ibid, 88.
105 Phan Khôi, “Sự học chữ Hán thuở xưa với bây giờ” (The learning of chữ Hán- past & present), Phụ nữ tân văn no. 159, July 14, 1932.
106 Phan Khôi, “Văn học chữ Hán của nước ta” (Our country’s literature in literary Chinese), Phụ nữ tân văn no. 169, September 22, 1932.
107 Phan, “Văn học” (Literature)
108 Ibid
109 PNTV, “Hán Văn Độc Tu/ 漢 文 獨 修/Chinois san maitre- Học chữ Nho theo cách mới” (New ways to learn literary Chinese), Supplément du Đuốc nhà Nam, July 26, 1932.
110 See chapter 1
111 Phan Khôi, “Luận về quốc học” (Commentary on National Learning), Phụ nữ tân văn , no. 94, August 6, 1931.
112 Chu Văn An (1292–1370) was an influential Confucian scholar-official and poet in the Trần imperial dynasty. Trạng Trình Nguyễn Bỉnh Khiêm (1491–1585) was also an influential Confucian scholar-official and strategist, later revered as a prophet, during the Mạc and Restored Lê dynasties.
Phan Khôi, “Luận về quốc học” (Commentary on National Learning)
113 Lê Dư travelled to Japan in the 1900s as part of the Đông Du (“Travelling East”) Movement led by Phan Bội Châu, which aimed to send Vietnamese youths to study in Japan.
Lê Dư, “Nước ta có quốc học” (Our country does possess national learning), Đông tây, no. 106, September 16, 1931.
114 Lê, “Nước ta” (Our country)
115 Ibid
116 “…Or cette notion de l’objectivité, cette habitude de la précision, c’est précisément ce qui manque, semble-t-il, à la connaissance orientale, d’ailleurs substantiellement si riche, spirituellement si profonde. Serait-il impossible d’appliquer la forme de la science occidentale au contenu de la connaissance orientale?…”
Phạm Quỳnh, “Bàn về quốc học” (Discourse on National Learning), Nam phong, no. 63, June 1931.
117 Phạm, “Bàn” (Discourse)
118 Ibid
119 Ibid
120 Phan Khôi, “Bất điều đình” (Uncompromising), Đông tây, no. 133, December 19, 1931.
121 Phan, “Bất điều đình” (Uncompromising)
122 Nguyễn Trọng Thuật, “Ông Phan Khôi sẽ nhận có quốc học” (Mr. Phan Khôi will admit National Learning exists), Thực nghiệp dân báo (Working People’s Newspaper), no. 3318, January 6, 1932.
123 Nguyễn, “Ông Phan Khôi” (Mr. Phan Khôi)
