I was looking at the “nhu viễn” 柔遠 (cherishing men from afar) section of the Khâm định Đại Nam hội diển sự lệ 欽定大南會典事例 and I noticed that there is a section on translation (tượng dịch 象譯).
It is interesting to see that there were numerous efforts made by the Nguyễn Dynasty during the nineteenth century to get people who were well enough versed in foreign languages to be able to translate and interpret.
Like so many other aspects of state building, much of this really got underway during the reign of Minh Mạng.
We find for instance that in 1836 an edict was issued ordering that an official in Hà Nội find two or there people from the Qing Kingdom and to then get them to teach ten bright children of scholars (sĩ dân 士民) the spoken language of the Qing Kingdom. After two or three years, these students were then to be sent to the capital.
Similarly, an order was issued for another official in Tuyên Quang to find a couple of “thổ nhân” 土人, or speakers of some minority language(s), there who would also teach the children of some scholars their language(s).
Finally, yet another order was issued to find one or two people among the Cham who knew Chinese characters (Hoa tự 華字), and they too were to teach the children of scholars.
It is interesting that this order specified that the Cham know Chinese while the same requirement was not mentioned for the “thổ nhân” in Tuyên Quang. My guess would be that by this point in time many of the elite families in that region of the empire were probably already at least somewhat proficient in classical Chinese. This is suggested by the fact that the Viện Hán Nôm has collected numerous materials in classical Chinese from that area.
In any case, reading this reminded me of these pictures that I’ve seen (here) that Charles Edouard Hocquard took in the 1880s. Both of these photographs are of Vietnamese interpreters in Hà Nội. There is clearly a Chinese man (with the shaved head and queue) there as well. I don’t know if he is a teacher (this probably has to do with negotiations), but this appears to be more or less what Minh Mạng envisioned back in the 1830s – getting foreigners to teach the children of Vietnamese scholars their languages, so that the court could have translators and interpreters at its disposal.
From 国朝正编撮要 卷之三 百六:
“帝幸思容口登靈蔡山見石塔花表柱刻蠻字在京通言皆云非暹牢字樣不能譯因勅平順派諳熟占城文字一人來京既至言土人文字有占城巴尼二體此乃尼字非占字不能譯命印出一紙令遍訪轄下有曉得意義譯之以奏再凖于省轄揀取諳占尼文字令相訓習”
Interesting! What year was this, do you know?
If I am not mistaken it was 1836. From 1834-1835 there was an insurrection in Bình Thuận led by the Cham Bani cleric Thầy Điên (柴巔, in Cham, Ja Thak Va) and pretender king La Bôn Vương (羅犇王,in Cham, Po Var Pali). The insurrection was participated by other ethnic groups like Crus and Raglais too. Khâm Định Tiễu Bình Thuận Tỉnh Mán Phỉ Phương Lược Phụ Biên (欽定剿平順省蠻匪方) records that some rebels carried palm-leaf manuscripts (貝葉) written with mán (蠻) characters. That seems to be the reason why Minh Mạng ordered the teaching of Cham language.
Interesting, yea but given that he also ordered that people in the north learn spoken Chinese and other languages, it looks to me like this was part of a larger policy.
Are you reading the recent translation of the Khâm Định Tiễu Bình Thuận Tỉnh Mán Phỉ Phương Lược Phụ Biên? If so, does it contain the original classical Chinese text?
No, I am reading the original classical Chinese text, not the recent translation.
Is it a copy from the Vien Han Nom? Or does this text exist somewhere else?
Also, does it contain more information than the Dai Nam Thuc Luc? Or is it a compilation of the same information, but on this specific topic?
There is a copy of the text in Paris: http://140.109.24.175/pasweb/Opac_book/book_detail.asp?systemno=0000000520
It definitely contains much more information than DNTL. It is basically reports sent by regional officers to Minh Mạng, and Minh Mạng’s responses. The text mainly concerns the progress of the battles, and the military actions taken.
I see. I have access to this: Tieu binh tiem khau thuan phi phuong luoc 剿平暹寇順匪方略 . A. 30, 1436 pg. It looks like the work you are mentioning is part of this larger collection.
Yes, this title has always looked interesting to me, but I’ve never gotten around to actually looking at it.
Other than military information, what other information is there?
Short biographies of Thầy Điên and La Bôn Vương, the two leaders of the uprising are given in the reports to Minh Mạng. I had only very briefly looked through 欽定勦平邏寇方略正編(Khâm Định Tiễu Bình Tiêm Khấu Phương Lược Chính Biến), but I think the format of both texts are similar. Seems like as you said both are from the larger collection of military reports. There is also 欽定勦平兩圻匪方略正編(Khâm Định Tiễu Bình Lưỡng Kì Nghịch Phỉ Phương Lược Chính Biến) but I have never read that text.
It looks like it is this last text you mention that has now been translated:
http://sachdantoc.com.vn/default.aspx?page=product&id=4753
But it also looks like they are probably based on the same materials.
Very interesting.
By the way, you are obviously very knowledgeable about the Cham and Cham-Viet relations (I saw this in comments you have made earlier as well). Have you written about this? If you don’t want to make that known publicly, feel free to email me at leminhkhai@hotmail.com.
This is a very interesting topic! I am curious about to whom the speakers for minorities in Tuyen Quang taught their languages? To Kinh? If so, are these King mandarins on their duties from the royal?
Also, the word sĩ dân suprised me a little bit. In my common sense, given by some poems (in Vietnamese translations) by Nguyen Dinh Chieu that I was tuaght in hight schools, this terms means intellectuals and common people/mass.
Very good questions!! First of all, sĩ dân can mean “scholars” as one of the four groups of society (sĩ, nông, côngm thương), or it can be a collective term referring to scholars and common people.
1. 古代四民之一。泛指士大夫阶层和普通读书人。《穀梁传•成公元年》：“古者有四民：有士民，有商民，有农民，有工民。”
2. 士大夫和普通百姓的并称。犹言士庶。
What does it mean in this passage? I would need to read more materials from this period to be really sure. Now that I think about it, the fact that it says to find “smart children” from the sĩ dân could be an indication that it was allowing commoner children to be included. These translators/interpreters would not have had a high-level job in the government, and I don’t think foreign languages were viewed in a very positive light, so yes, perhaps this was something that commoner children could have learned. At the same time, however, somewhere along the line knowing classical Chinese would have to havebeen a requirement as I can’t imagine that someone who worked in the government as a translator could have done that job without knowing classical Chinese, so perhaps by “smart children” this was also indicating that the person must know classical Chinese. I have no idea how common it was for commoner children to become literate in classical Chinese in the nineteenth century.
Were they Kinh? That is not easy to say given that the term “Kinh” doesn’t get used until the late 20th century. If you look at sources like the Minh Mệnh chính yếu from this same time period you will find that the people we today call the Kinh are referred to in that work as “Hán dân” 漢民. (If you read the modern translations of this work that is not necessarily clear as the term is often translated as “Kinh.” This is a problem you find in many Vietnamese translations of classical Chinese texts.)
The big question to me is whether Hán dân referred to an ethnic group or a cultural group. Hán dân were definitely people who dressed in a certain way, and who lived in villages that engaged in wet-rice agriculture. And if you were a Hán dân village chief you probably knew classical Chinese. However, if we went into every village that the Nguyễn Dynasty would have considered Hán dân would all of the people there have spoken a version of Vietnamese as their mother language? I have no idea. It’s hard to tell.
In any case, I think the sĩ dân here are definitely Hán dân. At that time they would not refer to non-Hán dân as sĩ dân. The question then is, what was Hán dân at that time? Was it a cultural group or an ethnic group?
And as for what you were taught in high school, one of the biggest changes that took place in the 20th century (not just in Vietnam but in many other places around the world as well) was that the past was reinterpreted by modern nationalist intellectuals to show that the peasant masses and the elite had at times (or always) “united” (đoàn kết) against feudal oppression, foreign aggression, etc. So I think in the 20th century there was a desire to see terms like sĩ dân as pointing to “unity” when that was not necessarily always the case. I can’t say that this applies to the specific references you are thinking of, but this was a general trend in the 20th century and we have to keep that in mind when we read what people have written about the past.
Thank you for your detailed reply!