Simplified Vietnamese

If you are thinking about some other language that have “simplified” before its name then no, Vietnam is not going to use that language as it official language, at least not in this year.

I recently read this article (For a side note: This site copies most of its content from blogs, and doesn’t ask for the author’s permission of course). I simply couldn’t get whatever it’s trying to tell me =)), so as a reflex I asked Google and found this. In short, the “program” and the “new language”, as they identified themselves, are going to change Vietnamese completely, so Vietnamese can be typed faster. They are first planned to be used in the Vietnamese computing society.

Completely impractical.

Vietnamese is a mixed language; it contained elements from both European and Asian roots. This “research” referred only one or two papers and end up creating a “better” language? Apparently its author has neither previous experience nor care to get some about constructed language. The idea of creating the “perfect” language, easier to write, easier to understand isn’t new. Some have tried and fail silently. If you live in Vietnam have you ever heard of “quốc tế ngữ”? Probably not. I’m not even sure which language that noun is referring to: Interlingua or Esperanto? Constructing a language and put it into wide use isn’t an easy problem. The two languages above have multiple contributors, even have their own lingual institute to research and introduce new principles into the language and still, they aren’t as success as they wanted.

What make that guy think one man is going to change history that easy, arrogance or ignorance?

Furthermore, Vietnamese is completely unorganized. There is no formal organization to regulate the use of new words yet (which have been hindering access to newest technologies for most Vietnamese, what would you call a blog or a shell in Vietnamese? =)). Vocabulary differentiates between regions to – North, South and the Central; even the pronunciation is different! (The “simplified” language claims it is based on pronunciation – which will make it easier to learn) Which region’s pronunciation is it using to simplify?

Well, to say how impractical it is, it may as well get 1^st prize for that competition. I’m not a judge for that matter.

Faster Vietnamese

Searching for the above, there seemed to be a similar effort before, but it doesn’t dream as big, its main purpose is to allow you to type unpunctuated Vietnamese faster  

Hmm, what a pity the author didn’t publish how this method was born, what’s its advantage, estimation of benefits etc. Otherwise more people would have been convinced to use and contribute to it. :/

Reading further into its rule:

Trăm năm trong cõi người ta            

Gõ phím:
       Tram nam trog coi nguj ta               

Bung ra →      Tram nam trong coi nguoi ta

 

Chữ tài chữ mệnh khéo là ghét nhau          

Gõ phím:        Chu tai chu meh keo la get nhau
         

Bung ra →      Chu tai chu menh kheo la ghet nhau

 

Trải qua một cuộc bể dâu                        

Gõ phím:        Trai qa mot cus be dau                       

Bung ra →      Trai qua mot cuoc be dau

 

Những điều trông thấy mà đau đớn lòng     

Gõ phím:        Nhug diw trog thay ma dau don log      

Bung ra →      Nhung dieu trong thay ma dau don long

 

Even though this method doesn’t seem to have wide usage, I can’t help notice similarities between this and the so-called “9x language”. Is there any chance those kids have seen their parent using this method but failed to learn properly and thus a new language is born? :))