Việt Nam (listenⓘ in Vietnamese) is a variation of Nam Việt (Southern Việt), a name that can be traced back to the Triệu dynasty (2nd century BC, also known as Nanyue Kingdom).[3] The word Việt originated as a shortened form of Bách Việt, a word used to refer to a people who lived in what is now southern China in ancient times. The name Việt Nam, with the syllables in the modern order, first appears in the 16th century in a poem attributed to Nguyễn Bỉnh Khiêm. Vietnam was mentioned in Josiah Conder's 1834 Dictionary of Geography, Ancient and Modern as the other name to refer to Annam. Annam, which originated as a Chinese name in the seventh century, was the common name of the country during the colonial period. Nationalist writer Phan Bội Châu revived the name "Vietnam" in the early 20th century. When rival communist and anti-communist governments were set up in 1945, both immediately adopted this as the country's official name. In English, the two syllables are usually combined into one word, Vietnam. However, Viet Nam was once common usage and is still used by the United Nations and by the Vietnamese government.
Origin of Vietnam
10th century brick with Chữ Hán inscription: "Brick to build the great Viet state"Scholar consensus believes that the exonym of Yue, Yueh, and Viet peoples are related to their notorious axes. A bronze ax from Dong Son burial site, Thanh Hoa, North-central Vietnam, dated 500 BC.Courtesy seal of Nguyễn lord, gift of emperor Lê Hy Tông, dated 1709, inscribed with Chinese characters meaning Đại Việt quốc Nguyễn chúa vĩnh trấn chi bảo
The term "Việt" (Yue) (Chinese: 越; pinyin: Yuè; Cantonese Yale: Yuht; Wade–Giles: Yüeh4; Vietnamese: Việt) in Early Middle Chinese was first written using the logograph "戉" for an axe (a homophone), in oracle bone and bronze inscriptions of the late Shang dynasty (c. 1200 BC), and later as "越".[4] At that time it referred to a people or chieftain to the northwest of the Shang.[5][6] In the early 8th century BC, a tribe on the middle Yangtze were called the Yangyue, a term later used for peoples further south.[5] Between the 7th and 4th centuries BC Yue/Việt referred to the State of Yue in the lower Yangtze basin and its people.[4][5]
From the 3rd century BC the term was used for the non-Chinese populations of south and southwest China and northern Vietnam, with particular states or groups called Minyue, Ouyue (Vietnamese: Âu Việt), Luoyue (Vietnamese: Lạc Việt), etc., collectively called the Baiyue (Bách Việt, Chinese: 百越; pinyin: Bǎiyuè; Cantonese Yale: Baak Yuet; Vietnamese: Bách Việt; lit. 'Hundred Yue/Viet'; ).[4][5] The term Baiyue/Bách Việt first appeared in the book Lüshi Chunqiu compiled around 239 BC.[7]
According to Ye Wenxian (1990), apud Wan (2013), the ethnonym of the Yuefang in northwestern China is not associated with that of the Baiyue in southeastern China.[8]
In 207 BC, former Qin dynasty general Zhao Tuo/Triệu Đà founded the kingdom of Nanyue/Nam Việt (Chinese: 南越; lit. 'Southern Yue/Việt') with its capital at Panyu (modern Guangzhou). This kingdom was "southern" in the sense that it was located south of other Baiyue kingdoms such as Minyue and Ouyue, located in modern Fujian and Zhejiang. Several later Vietnamese dynasties followed this nomenclature even after these more northern peoples were absorbed into China.
In 968, the Vietnamese leader Đinh Bộ Lĩnh established the independent kingdom of Đại Cồ Việt (大瞿越) (possibly meaning "Great Gautama's Viet", as Gautama's Chữ Hán transcription 瞿曇 is pronounced Cồ Đàm in Sino-Vietnamese);[9][10] however, 瞿's homophone cồ, 𡚝 in Chữ Nôm script, (means "great") over the former Jinghai state.[11] In 1054, Emperor Lý Thánh Tông shortened the country's name to Đại Việt ("Great Viet").[12] However, the names Giao Chỉ and An Nam were still the widely known names that foreigners used to refer the state of Đại Việt during medieval and early modern periods,. For examples, Caugigu (Italian); Kafjih-Guh (Arabic: كوة ك); Koci (Malay);[13]Cauchy (Portuguese); Cochinchina (English); Annam (Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish and French). In 1787, US politician Thomas Jefferson referred to Vietnam as Cochinchina for the purpose of trading for rice.[14]
"Sấm Trạng Trình" (The Prophecies of Principal Graduate Trình), which are attributed to Vietnamese official and poet Nguyễn Bỉnh Khiêm (1491–1585), reversed the traditional order of the syllables and put the name in its modern form "Việt Nam" as in Việt Nam khởi tổ xây nền "Vietnam's founding ancestor lays its basis"[15] or Việt Nam khởi tổ gây nên "Vietnam's founding ancestor builds it up".[16] At this time, the country was divided between the Trịnh lords of Đông Kinh and the Nguyễn lords of Thừa Thiên. By combining several existing names, Nam Việt, Annam (Pacified South), Đại Việt (Great Việt), and "Nam quốc" (southern nation), the oracles' author[s] created a new name that referred to an aspirational unified state. The word "Nam" no longer implies Southern Việt, but rather that Vietnam is "the South" in contrast to China, "the North".[17] This sentiment had already been in the poem "Nam quốc sơn hà" (1077)'s first line: 南國山河南帝居 Nam quốc sơn hà Nam đế cư "The Southern country's mountains and rivers the Southern Emperor inhabits".[18] Researcher Nguyễn Phúc Giác Hải found the word 越南 "Việt Nam" on 12 steles carved in the 16th and 17th centuries, including one at Bảo Lâm Pagoda, Haiphong (1558).[17] Lord Nguyễn Phúc Chu (1675–1725), when describing Hải Vân Pass (then called Ải Lĩnh, lit. "Mountain-Pass's Saddle-Point"), apparently used "Việt Nam" as a national name in his poem's first line Việt Nam ải hiểm thử sơn điên,[a] which was translated as Núi này ải hiểm đất Việt Nam "This mountain's pass is the most dangerous in Vietnam".[19] Việt Nam was used as an official national name by Emperor Gia Long in 1804–1813.[20] The Vietnamese asked permission from the Qing dynasty to change the name of their country. Originally, Gia Long had wanted the name Nam Việt and asked for his country to be recognized as such, but the Jiaqing Emperor refused since the ancient state of the same name had ruled territory that was part of the Qing dynasty.[21] The Jiaqing Emperor refused Gia Long's request to change his country's name to Nam Việt, and changed the name instead to Việt Nam in 1804.[22][23] Gia Long's Đại Nam thực lục contains the diplomatic correspondence over the naming.[24]
In his account about the meeting with Vietnamese officials in Hue on January 17, 1832, Edmund Roberts, American embassy in Vietnam, wrote :
"...The country, they said, is not now called Annam, as formerly, but Wietnam (Vietnam), and it is ruled, not by a king, but by an emperor,..."[25]
— Edmund Roberts
"Trung Quốc" 中國, (literally "Middle Country" or "Central Country"), was also used as a name for Vietnam by Gia Long in 1805.[22]Minh Mang used the name "Trung Quốc" 中國 to call Vietnam.[26] Vietnamese Nguyen Emperor Minh Mạng sinicized ethnic minorities such as Cambodians, claimed the legacy of Confucianism and China's Han dynasty for Vietnam, and used the term Han people 漢人 to refer to the Vietnamese.[27] Minh Mang declared that "We must hope that their barbarian habits will be subconsciously dissipated, and that they will daily become more infected by Han [Sino-Vietnamese] customs."[28] This policies were directed at the Khmer and hill tribes.[29] The Nguyen lord Nguyen Phuc Chu had referred to Vietnamese as "Han people" in 1712 when differentiating between Vietnamese and Chams;[30] meanwhile, ethnic Chinese were referred to as Thanh nhân 清人 or Đường nhân 唐人.[31]
The use of "Vietnam" was revived in modern times by nationalists including Phan Bội Châu, whose book Việt Nam vong quốc sử (History of the Loss of Vietnam) was published in 1906. Chau also founded the Việt Nam Quang Phục Hội (Vietnam Restoration League) in 1912. However, the general public continued to use Annam and the name "Vietnam" remained virtually unknown until the Yên Bái mutiny of 1930, organized by the Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng (Vietnamese Nationalist Party).[32] By the early 1940s, the use of "Việt Nam" was widespread. It appeared in the name of Ho Chi Minh's Việt Nam Độc lập Đồng minh Hội (Viet Minh), founded 1941, and was even used by the governor of French Indochina in 1942.[33] The name "Vietnam" has been official since 1945. It was adopted in June by Bảo Đại's imperial government in Huế, and in September by Ho's rival communist government in Hanoi.[34]
Other names
Đại Nam nhất thống toàn đồ (大南ー統全圖 "Comprehensive Map of United Đại Nam") by Nguyễn dynasty in 1838.
^Another translation: This mountain pass is the most dangerous in the south(ern part) of Việt
^According to Vietnamese historian Đào Duy Anh, this location named Jiaozhi in the classical texts was located no farther than modern Anhui province, China,[38] i.e. not the same place as the Jiaozhi commandery established in the Red River Delta during the Han dynasty.
^ĐVSKTT asserted that An Dương Vương built Cổ Loa in Việt Thường.[40] Cổ Loa citadel's supposed ruins are now in Đông Anh District, Hanoi, Vietnam.[41] Meanwhile, Sinologist Alfred Forke located the "people" 越裳 Yüeh-shang "in the southern part of Kuang-tung province, near the Annamese frontier",[42] not inside modern Vietnam
Other spellings
In English, the spellings Vietnam, Viet-Nam, Viet Nam and Việt Nam have all been used. Josiah Conder in his 1824 descriptive gazetteer The Modern Traveller: Birmah, Siam, and Anam (Burma, Siam, and Annam) spells Viet-nam with a hyphen placed between Viet and Nam. The 1954 edition of Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary gave both the unspaced and hyphenated forms; in response to a letter from a reader, the editors indicated that the spaced form Viet Nam was also acceptable, though they stated that because Anglophones did not know the meaning of the two words making up the name Vietnam, "it is not surprising" that there was a tendency to drop the space.[49] In 1966, the U.S. government was known to use all three renderings, with the State Department preferring the hyphenated version.[50] By 1981, the hyphenated form was regarded as "dated", according to Scottish writer Gilbert Adair, and he titled his book about depictions of the country in film using the unhyphenated and unspaced form "Vietnam".[51] Currently "Vietnam" is most commonly used as the official name in English, leading to the adjective Vietnamese (instead of Viet, Vietic or Viet Namese) and 3-letter code VIE in IOC and FIFA (instead of VNM). In all other languages mainly written in Latin script, the name of Vietnam is also commonly written without a space.[52] However, the spelling of "Viet Nam" is formally recognized by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the United Nations (UN) and the Vietnamese Government itself as the official, standardized and "accurate" country name, resulting in the systematic prioritization in the usage of this spelling by the Vietnamese state-powered agencies and official documents such as the nationwide-issued citizen identity cards and the passports.[53][54][55]
Both Japanese and Korean formerly referred to Vietnam by their respective Sino-Xenic pronunciations of the Chinese characters for its names, but later switched to using direct phonetic transcriptions. In Japanese, following the independence of Vietnam, the names Annan (安南) and Etsunan (越南) were largely replaced by the phonetic transcription Betonamu (ベトナム), written in katakana script; however, the old form is still seen in compound words (e.g. 訪越, "a visit to Vietnam").[56][57]Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs sometimes used an alternative spelling Vietonamu (ヴィエトナム).[57] Similarly, in the Korean language, in line with the trend towards decreasing usage of hanja, the Sino-Korean-derived name Wollam (월남, the Korean reading of 越南) has been replaced by Beteunam (베트남) in South Korea and Wennam (윁남) in North Korea.[58][59]
Cochinchina, a historical exonym for south Vietnam
French Indochina, a name for a grouping of three parts of Vietnam (Tonkin, Annam, & Cochinchine), Cambodia and Laos as French colonial territories, also known as Indochinese Union
^Nicholas Tarling (2000). The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia: From Early Times C. 1500. Cambridge University Press. p. 139. ISBN0521663695.
^Ring, Trudy; Salkin, Robert M.; La Boda, Sharon (1994). International Dictionary of Historic Places: Asia and Oceania. Taylor & Francis. p. 399. ISBN1884964044.
^L. Shelton Woods (2002). Vietnam: a global studies handbook. ABC-CLIO. p. 38. ISBN1576074161.
^Theobald, Ulrich (2018) "Shang Dynasty - Political History" in ChinaKnowledge.de - An Encyclopaedia on Chinese History, Literature and Art. quote: "Enemies of the Shang state were called fang 方 "regions", like the Tufang 土方, which roamed the northern region of Shanxi, the Guifang 鬼方 and Gongfang 𢀛方 in the northwest, the Qiangfang 羌方, Suifang 繐方, Yuefang 戉方, Xuanfang 亘方 and Zhoufang 周方 in the west, as well as the Yifang 夷方 and Renfang 人方 in the southeast."
^The Annals of Lü Buwei, translated by John Knoblock and Jeffrey Riegel, Stanford University Press (2000), p. 510. ISBN978-0-8047-3354-0. "For the most part, there are no rulers to the south of the Yang and Han Rivers, in the confederation of the Hundred Yue tribes."
^Trần, Trọng Dương. (2009) "Investigation on 'Đại Cồ Việt' (Việt nation - Buddhist nation)" originally published in Hán Nôm, 2 (93) p. 53–75. online version (in Vietnamese)
^Pozner P.V. (1994) История Вьетнама эпохи древности и раннего средневековья до Х века н.э. Издательство Наука, Москва. p. 98, cited in Polyakov, A.B. (2016) "On the Existence of the Dai Co Viet State in Vietnam in the 10th - the Beginning of 11th Centuries" Vietnam National University, Hanoi's Journal of Science Vol 32. Issue 1S. p. 53 (in Vietnamese)
^Vuving, A.L. "The References of Vietnamese States and the Mechanisms of World Formation" ASIEN, 79. p. 65. Archived from the original
^Nguyễn Phúc Chu, "Ải lĩnh xuân vân" (Spring Clouds on the Mountain Pass's Saddle-Point). cited in Đại Nam Nhất Thống Chí 2nd Edition (2006). Translated by Phạm Trọng Điềm. Rectified by Đào Duy Anh. Huế: Thuận Hóa Publishing House. p. 154-155.
^L. Shelton Woods (2002). Vietnam: a global studies handbook. ABC-CLIO. p. 38. ISBN1576074161.
^Đào Duy Anh, "Jiaozhi in Shujing", excerpts from Đào's book Lịch Sử Cổ Đại Việt Nam. (2005) Hanoi : Culture & Information Publisher
^Đại Việt Sử Ký Toàn Thư Outer Annals, Vol. 1, Annal of the Hồng Bàng clan Section "Hùng king" "quote: "周成王時，我越始騁于周〈未詳第幾世〉，稱越裳氏，獻白雉。" translation: "During the time of King Cheng of Zhou, we Viets first ventured to the Zhou [realm] (it's still unclear during which generation [of the Hùng kings]); [our] appellation [was] Việt Thường clan; [we] offered white pheasants.""
^ĐVSKTTKing An Dương "王於是築城于越裳，廣千丈，盤旋如螺形故號螺城。" tr: "The King then built a citadel at Việt Thường, one-thousand-zhàng wide, whirling and swirling like the shape of a snail. Therefore, it was called Snail Citadel (Loa Thành)."
^Kim, Nam C. (2015). The Origins of Ancient Vietnam. Oxford University Press. p. 18
^Wang Chong (author). Lun-Hêng (1907) "Part I" p. 505, note 2. Translated & annotated by Alfred Forke.
^山本彩加 [Yamamoto Saika] (2009). 近代日本語における外国地名の漢字表記 ――― 明治・大正期の新聞を資料として [Use of kanji for foreign placenames in modern Japanese: based on data from newspapers in the Meiji and Taishō periods] (PDF). 葉大学日本文化論叢 (in Japanese). 10. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2015-07-12. Retrieved 2015-09-08.
^김정강 [Kim Jeong-gang] (2006-06-12). 한자 폐기는 大과오… 국한 혼용으로 '東 아시아성' 살려내자 [Abolition of hanja a big mistake ... rescue 'East Asianness' with mixed hangul and hanja]. Dong-a Ilbo Magazine (in Korean). Retrieved 2015-09-09.
^전수태 [Jeon Su-tae] (1988). 북한 문화어의 한자어와 외래어 [Hanja words and foreign loanwords in North Korea's standard language]. North Korea Life (in Korean) (4). Retrieved 2015-09-09.
Books
Adair, Gilbert (1981). Vietnam on Film: From The Green Berets to Apocalypse Now. Proteus.
Bridgman, Elijah Coleman; Williams, Samuel Wells (1847). The Chinese Repository. proprietors. pp. 584–.
Kang, David C. (2012). East Asia Before the West: Five Centuries of Trade and Tribute. Columbia University Press. pp. 101–102.
Kiernan, Ben (2019). Việt Nam: a history from earliest time to the present. Oxford University Press.
Lieberman, Victor (2003). Strange Parallels: Integration of the Mainland Southeast Asia in Global Context, c. 800–1830, Vol 1. Cambridge University Press.
Miksic, John (2019). Sandhtakalaning Majapahit: Learning the Dynamics of Majapahit as Nusantara's great strength. Universitas Airlangga.
Miller, Robert (1990). United States and Vietnam 1787–1941. Washington DC: National Defense University Press.
Ring, Trudy; Salkin, Robert M.; La Boda, Sharon (1994). International Dictionary of Historic Places: Asia and Oceania. Taylor & Francis. p. 399. ISBN1884964044.
Tarling, Nicholas (2000). The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia: From Early Times C. 1500. Cambridge University Press. p. 139. ISBN0521663695.
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