Meaning of the Name Viet Nam
From: hoang tuan dung
Date: Tue, May 8, 2012 at 4:13 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear professors and scholars,
Do you know the meaning of the word "Viet nam"? I feel ashamed that I did not know exactly the meaning of my country name. So, a couples of weeks ago, a Filipino friend of mine asked me about this, I replied that "Viet" mean "betterment or uu viet", and "nam" mean "the south", coming from the comparison of people of my country with Northern people - meaning Chinese.
Is my understanding and explanation correct? Your explanation will be appreciated.
Best regards,
td
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From: Shawn McHale
Date: Tue, May 15, 2012 at 1:12 PM
To: hoang tuan dung <hoangtuandungvn@yahoo.com>, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Since no one with more competence has addressed your question:
The "Vi?t" in Vi?t Nam is the same "Vi?t" as is found in "Bách Vi?t," or the "Hundred Yue" who lived in the area of southern China and into what is Vietnam today. I believe there are some arguments over what, exactly, "yue" meant. "Nam" means South. The name "Nanyue" or "Nam Vi?t" was conferred on today's Vietnam by the Qing dynasty, but the first Nguy?n emperor, I also seem to remember, switched the word order to "Vi?t Nam."
Shawn McHale
--
Shawn McHale
Associate Professor of History
George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052 USA
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From: Minh Tran
Date: Tue, May 15, 2012 at 4:28 PM
To: mchale@gwu.edu, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
This remind of a book titled "The Birth of Vietnam" by Keith Weller Taylor for some backgrounds on the Yue.
Minh Huynh Tran
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From: John Phan
Date: Tue, May 15, 2012 at 4:37 PM
To: hoang tuan dung <hoangtuandungvn@yahoo.com>, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear list,
I somehow missed this interesting message in the flurry of the end of semester. Thanks to Professor McHale for stepping up to the plate. As Professor McHale pointed out, the "Viet" in "Vietnam" has often been associated with the "baiyue/bach viet" (??/??), or "Hundred Yue," which was an artificial ethnonym used by early Chinese to refer to various, probably Tai-speaking tribes who lived in the area corresponding to modern southeastern China ( ? remains the administrative designation for Guangdong province). There is, however, virtually no evidence connecting this term with speakers of the ancestor of the modern Vietnamese and Muong languages.
The term Nam Viet/Nanyue (??) was first used by Qin Dynasty (221-207 BCE) ex-commissioner Zhao Tuo ?? (Trieu Da), who broke away from the crumbling Qin Empire and founded his own breakaway kingdom in 204 BCE, naming it Nanyue. This kingdom included the area of northern Vietnam (i.e. the Red river plain), and located its capital in Panyue, near the site of modern Guangzhou city. This is the the Trieu Da of the My Chau & Golden Turtle Claw legend. Trieu Da/Zhao Tuo would later re-submit to the powerful Han Dynasty (his formal submission to the Han throne is available in Tran Nghia's 2000 collection, "Suu tam va khao luan tac pham cha Han cua nguoi Viet Nam truoc the ky X," published by The Gioi). As professor McHale suggested, the name was revived, and then reversed to "Viet Nam" in early modern times, though I am afraid I do not have those historical details at my fingertips.
As far as what the meaning of the characters themselves are, Nam (?) is indeed "south," and Viet (?)--aside from its possible connections with the artificial ethnonym mentioned above--bears the transparent meaning of "to exceed" or "extreme" (cf. colloquial Late Sino-Vietnamese pronunciation, vuo?t). The state designation "Viet Nam" today unequivocally recalls Zhao Tuo's polity of the 2nd century BCE, but whether the creation of that original term meant "Extreme South" (a likely possibility), or "[Land of the] Southern Yue" (i.e. an appropriation and rebranding of the ethnonym), or some double entendre combination of the two, may be not be determinable.
Incidentally, Zhao Tuo's grandson, Zhao Mo's (??) tomb has been excavated, and turned into one of the most excellent archaeological museums in mainland China. It is usually called the nanyuewang bowuguan (??????) or "Museum of the Tomb of the Nanyue [Nam Viet] King," and holds what I think is the most complete set of jade funerary armor in the world, along with some really exquisite artifacts from a rarely seen southern culture and material world, in which the peoples of modern-day northern Vietnam were key members. It is located in Guanzhou city in Guangdong, and I highly recommend a visit if possible.
Best, John
--
John D. Phan
Ph.D. Candidate
East Asian Linguistics & Literature
Cornell University
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From: Vinh Nguyen <vinhnguyen68@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, May 15, 2012 at 4:56 PM
To: mchale@gwu.edu, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Actually, if I may chime in, it's the other way around. Instead of the usual title of "An Nam qu?c vuong" ["King of An Nam"] (which had been conferred to Vietnamese kings by the Chinese court for nearly a thousand years), upon the destruction of the Tây Son dynasty, Nguy?n Ánh petitioned the Qing court for investiture as "Nam Vi?t qu?c vuong". And since the name "Nam Vi?t" recalled the days that the Tri?u dynasty (2nd century BC) of Tri?u Ðà used to rule over what would become North Vietnam and the two Chinese Guangdong and Guangxi province, the Qing court was wary of the expansive territorial ambitions couched in such a toponym and decided to switch the order around to "Vi?t Nam"/"Yuenan" to replace the old "An Nam"/"Annan". The new Nguy?n dynasty was too eager to gain investiture from China to protest the modification, hence the adoption of the name "Vi?t Nam". However, by the reign of Minh M?ng, internally/domestically the Nguy?n court began to refer to the country in the more aggrandized name of "Ð?i Nam".
By the way, before the advent of "Vi?t Nam", the country name has been known in 2 ways: externally (only to the Chinese) as "An Nam" and internally/domestically as "Ð?i Vi?t" (from the Lý dynasty in the 11th century until the Tây Son at the end of the 18th century), with the rare exceptions of "Ð?i C? Vi?t" under the Ðinh and Former Lê dynasties in the later half of the 10th century, and "Ð?i Ngu" under the H? dynasty at the end of the 14th century. Epigraphic evidence on stone steles, however, did show some rare occurrences of the toponym "Vi?t Nam" in the Lê Restoration period (16th-18th centuries), but they were exceptions that proved the rule.
NQVinh
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From: John Phan
Date: Tue, May 15, 2012 at 5:05 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear list,
My apologies for one small, but important typo in my last email (among many). The capital of Nam Viet/Nanyue was Panyu ?? (not Panyue). Thanks also to Vinh Nguyen for clarifying the details of the Nam Viet/Viet Nam reversal; I thought I had read somewhere that the Qing had objected to a direct reference to Zhao Tuo's Nanyue, but I couldn't remember where to verify.
Best, John
John D. Phan
Ph.D. Candidate
East Asian Linguistics & Literature
Cornell University
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From: Shawn McHale
Date: Tue, May 15, 2012 at 5:27 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Many thanks for your explanation! Shawn McHale
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From: Liam Kelley
Date: Tue, May 15, 2012 at 5:34 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear List,
What records from that time (both Vietnamese and Chinese) indicate is that the Nguyen wanted to name their kingdom Nam Viet. They explained that the "Nam" was from "An Nam." However, since their kingdom now encompassed more land to the south than An Nam had, they were adding the "Viet" from "Viet Thuong," the name of an ancient clan which Chinese sources say presented tribute to a Zhou Dynasty emperor in antiquity, and which Vietnamese geographies (compiled many centuries later) argued had come from the area of what is today central Vietnam.
If I remember correctly, it was the governor of Guangdong (or Guangdong and Guangxi) who encouraged the Qing emperor not to accept this name, arguing that it was recalling Zhao Tuo's kingdom of Nam Viet, which had its capital in what is today Guangdong."
The "Viet Thuong" connection makes sense to me as it draws a connection to the general area which the Nguyen family had long established as their base. And they were definitely proud of where they came from.
Liam Kelley
University of Hawaii
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From: Vinh Nguyen
Date: Tue, May 15, 2012 at 8:18 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Thanks, Liam, for the insightful allusion to "Vi?t Thu?ng". It brings to my mind the well-known couplet: "H? mã y b?c phong; Vi?t di?u sào nam chi" ?????; ????? ("The Hu horse leans into the northern wind; the Yue bird builds its nest on a southern branch"). I'm not quite sure how old this couplet dates to, since it's only vaguely cited from something called the "C? thi th?p c?u th?" ????? ("Nineteen old poems") - which begs the question: how "old" are these "old poems"? The "Ngô Vi?t Xuân Thu" ???? ("Spring and Autumnn [Annals] of the States of Wu and Yue") shows a variant: "H? mã y b?c phong nhi l?p; Vi?t y?n v?ng h?i nh?t nhi hi"???????,??????? ("The Hu horse leans into the northern wind to stand; The Yue swallow watches the maritime sun to find joy"). Shall we safely assume then that these allusions dated back to the pre-Han period?
By the way, while the "Vi?t" of antiquity is written with the character ?, which is the same as in "Vi?t Nam" ??(of modernity), later references to the Two Guang ?? provinces in southern China would substitute the character ? instead (such as in "Lu?ng Vi?t" as the alternative name for "Lu?ng Qu?ng", and "Vi?t Ðông" for "Qu?ng Ðông" and "Vi?t Tây" for "Qu?ng Tây"). And I've even seen references to the prehistoric "Bách Vi?t" written as ?? rather than ??!
NQVinh