Missing hyphen
Nhu Miller trantnhu at gmail.com
Sat Jan 9 09:11:42 PST 2016
Dear List,
A question for 2016.
In the last decades, the hyphen connecting proper
names, cities etc has disappeared. Does anyone know
why?
T.T. Nhu
Berkeley, California
Hue-Tam Tai hhtai at fas.harvard.edu
Sat Jan 9 10:46:37 PST 2016
My given name is hyphenated on my birth certificate, but I often omit the
hyphen when typing on my tablet because I have to change the keyboard to
include it. I do like to include it to remind non-Vietnamese that my given
name is not Hue. But it does not seem necessary for Vietnamese speakers. I have never seen Ha Noi, Sai Gon or other places hyphenated.
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
Quang Van quang.van at yale.edu
Sat Jan 9 10:58:02 PST 2016
Dear co Nhu,
This article offers a similiar explanation.
http://vietsciences.free.fr/vietnam/tiengviet/cachgachnoitrongchuviet.htm
Quang
Nhan Ngo nhan at temple.edu
Sat Jan 9 11:06:44 PST 2016
Dear Chị Tương-Như,
There was a movement to hyphenate a sequence of chữ*** that form a word.
But this movement faded out… I think because Vietnamese do not have
a strong feeling about words—when you speak, there’s no hyphen. Plus,
a word can be broken up into one-syllable-word (chữ) any time.
Even before 1975, people already considered hyphenating chữ to form
words European-centric. BTW, Prof. Nguyễn Đình Hoà later dropped the
idea.
Nhan
Center for Vietnamese Philosophy, Culture & Society
Temple University
*** chữ, a written syllable, equals to tiếng (a spoken syllable). Việt Nam
hai tiếng ngọt ngào.
Diane Fox dnfox70 at gmail.com
Sat Jan 9 13:05:31 PST 2016
thanks to all for these questions and comments — I’ve long wondered, but not enough to find out!
Diane
Anh-Minh Do anhminhtrando at gmail.com
Sat Jan 9 14:44:14 PST 2016
I wonder if it's also because, when filling out online forms, the hyphen is
not acceptable? And therefore, over time it's less in vogue? In general, in
Viet Nam, no one hyphenates, I've only seen that amongst Vietnamese Abroad
like myself and my wife (she's Vietnamese German).
Cheers,
Minh
anhminhdo.com
Skype: caligarn
Whatsapp: +6586795140
Oscar Salemink o.salemink at anthro.ku.dk
Sun Jan 10 04:06:15 PST 2016
Dear list,
Last week I happened to ask the same question to Prof Nguyen Van Huy, son of Nguyen Van Huyen, (North) Vietnam’s minister of education from 1946 to 1975, when I visited the newly established Nguyen Van Huyen museum. The reason for that question was that in the early days of the DRV compounds words and names were hyphenated, and throughout the RVN years the same applied in the South. And as a non-native Vietnamese speaker I figured that hyphenation makes Vietnamese easier to read. Huy answered me that there were linguistic debates about this, and the opinion prevailed that the meaning of monosyllabic words and the compound words were really different, to which hyphenation would not do justice. I am not a linguist or expert in this, but it would be great if someone would do research on this debate. I would not be surprised if there were some connection with the early attempts at simplified spelling, for instance by introducing F for PH, Z for D or GI, etc., and their eventual rejection.
Oscar Salemink
Professor in the Anthropology of Asia
Department of Anthropology
Faculty of Social Sciences
University of Copenhagen
Øster Farimagsgade 5
1353 København K.
Denmark
Office: CSS - Bygning 16, Opgang i, room 16.0.24
TLF +45-35 32 44 72
FAX +45-35 32 35 65
E-mail: o.salemink at anthro.ku.dk<mailto:o.salemink at anthro.ku.dk>
Personal webpage at the Department of Anthropology<http://anthropology.ku.dk/staff/beskrivelse/?id=403491>
Personal webpage at the Asian Dynamics Initiative<http://asiandynamics.ku.dk/english/people/vip_staff/os/>
Adjunct Professor at the Institute for Religion, Politics and Society (ACU Melbourne) <https://irps.acu.edu.au/>
Project Leader of the Sapere Aude project ”Global Europe: Constituting Europe from the outside in through artefacts”<http://globaleurope.ku.dk/>
Personal webpage at Academia.edu<https://ku-dk.academia.edu/OscarSalemink>
Focaal: Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology<http://journals.berghahnbooks.com/focaal/>
Routledge Handbook of Religions in Asia<http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415635035/>
Neil Olsen olseneil at comcast.net
Sun Jan 10 12:30:50 PST 2016
Regarding the use of hyphens in Vietnamese, Laurence Thompson’s A Vietnamese Grammar (U. of Washington, 1965), reprinted as A Vietnamese Reference Grammar (U. of Hawai’i, 1987; 2 nd printing, 1991) [also published as Mon-Khmer Studies vols. 13-14] discusses the subject in §§3.52 and 3.53 (pp. 72-75), and §5.57 (pp. 121-122, esp. last ¶), §6.22 (pp.128-9), and finally, §§7.4 and 7.5 (pp. 150-172).
To briefly summarize his remarks:
“Hyphens … have been used widely in writing quốc-ngữ forms. In general they signal combinations of syllables which form units from the point of view of their use in sentences. To some extent their use relates to the problem of just what a word is in Vietnamese (see 5.53 and 5.57). The recent trend is away from extensive writing of hyphens, and and it is possible to specify the cases where they are considered most appropriate in fairly rigorous terms. The general usage is (and is likely to remain) quite lacking in uniformity even within the body of single published works. At one extreme there are publications which do not use them at all.” (§3.53, pp. 73-4)
He then lists the kinds of two-syllable sequences commonly written with a connecting hyphen:
a) Forms borrowed from foreign languages: ô-tô ‘automobile, cà-phê ‘coffee’
b) Forms in which at least one syllable has by itself no identifiable meaning related to the over-all meaning: vui-vẻ ‘be cheerful’ (cf. vui ‘be cheerful’, but – v ẻ does not occur by itself with any meaning relatable to this form)
c) c) Sequences which denote a general category of things suggested by the meanings of the constituent forms (called generalizing compounds; 6.22): quần-á o ‘clothes’
d) d) Forms involving an exact repetition of the basic constituent where this basic constituent is not a noun (8.63) or verb (9.55): luôn-luôn ‘always’
e) e) Place names (both native and foreign): Hà-Nội , Sài-gòn , Ba-lê “Paris’
f) f) Elements in personal names which are themselves units. This includes compound family and given names (for details about personal names and further identification of the … examples, see 3.52)
Thompson conducted most of his Vietnamese language fieldwork in the 1950s, so much has changed not only in Vietnamese society but in the language as it is spoken and written.
My own experience in working with the language for over four decades is that materials published in the former Republic of Vietnam (south) employed extensive hyphenization, while materials issued in the former Democratic Republic of Vietnam (north) used hyphens very sparingly. Documents issued by the National Liberation Front generally omitted hyphens, also. After Reunification, the northern usage was applied to the entire country.
Neil H. Olsen, Ph.D.
Independent scholar
Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
Nhan Ngo nhan at temple.edu
Sun Jan 10 16:08:04 PST 2016
Thank you very much, Neil.
I studied Thompson a while back.
I believe sometimes we are fooled by the writing system which posit blank between
sentence elements… and linguistic analysis stops at “the word” (the smallest unit
of a sentence).
Here is one famous example, where many linguists do not believe there's a word, like “-ist”.
For example, “nuclear physicist”. It is not a “physicist” that is “nuclear”, it is an “-ist”
of “nuclear physics”. We form “nuclear physics” first, then add “-ist”. English is full of this.
So, when we breakdown a sentence (not from a writing system), then we can either
arrive at a bunch of words, or we can arrive at a bunch of syllable-units. European
grammars do not like “syllable-as-a-sentence-unit”…
-- Nhan
Center for Vietnamese Philosophy, Culture & Society
Temple University
Alex-Thai Vo alexthaivo at gmail.com
Sun Jan 10 17:39:21 PST 2016
Dear all:
I’m not sure if this will address Như’s question, but the most extensive
research and explanation of the hypen [dấu ngang nối/gạch nối] in
Vietnamese language that I know of is by Đoàn Xuân, an independent
researcher residing in Berkeley. He spent about 20 years on the subject
and has published at least 3 extensive volumes (all in Vietnamese)
discussing its importance. Attached is “Hành-trình vào Việt-ngữ,” his
introduction/synopsis. He did not, however, discuss why and when its usage
was discontinued in Vietnam or abroad. Discussion of the hyphen begins
around page 23. Please let me know if you have interest in the 3 volumes
or would like to be in directly contact with the author. An example of his
explanation for the hyphen:
“- Nếu ‘thông minh’ là hai chữ nói và viết rời, chữ ‘minh’ có
nhiệm-vụ văn-phạm là bổ-túc-từ cho chữ ‘thông’. Vậy: thông minh = đần-độn
tối-tăm.
- Nếu ‘thông minh’ là hai chữ nói và viết liền thành ‘thông-minh’,
cả hai chữ đều có nhiệm-vụ văn-phạm giống nhau. Vậy: thông-minh = có
trí-tuệ, sáng-suốt.
…
* - Phải nhờ vào văn-phạm [grammar] tiếng Việt để tìm-hiểu ngữ-căn
[radical/root]:* dựa vào yếu-tố văn-phạm để hiểu ý-nghiã từ ngữ-căn Hán-Nôm
hay ngoại-quốc. Ví-dụ: Xem lại cách giải-thích ý-nghiã của ‘thông minh’ và
‘thông-minh’ ở trên, và ngữ-căn ở sau đây:
‘Thông’ ( < Hán, bộ tâm: đần-độn) và ‘minh’ ( < Hán, bộ mịch:
tối-tăm) trong ‘thông minh’.
‘Thông’ ( < Hán, bộ nhĩ: nghe thì hiểu, suốt) và ‘minh’ ( < Hán, bộ
nhật: thấy thì hiểu, sáng) trong chữ ‘thông-minh’.
…
*Ngôn-ngữ = Văn-phạm [grammar] + Ngữ-vựng [vocabulary].*
*…*
*Dấu ngang-nối = Xác-định văn-phạm + Xác-định ngữ-căn.*
Trong Quốc-ngữ, vì không thuộc ngôn-ngữ tượng-thanh hay ngôn-ngữ
tượng-hình, vấn-đề văn-phạm phải đặt lên hàng đầu để nhằm giải-quyết vấn-đề
ngữ-căn. Không hiểu được ngữ-căn, sẽ hoàn-toàn không hiểu được ý-nghiã của
ngôn-ngữ.”
After learning the essence of the hyphen in Vietnamese and using it in my
teaching of Vietnamese, I (and students) find it very useful for students
to differentiate words and meanings. Also, per my experience, I’ve seen
Việt Nam, Hà Nội, and Sài Gòn hyphenated as “Việt-nam,” “Hà-nội,” and
“Sài-gòn” in different publications, including Nhân Dân (North Vietnam) and
Sử Địa (South Vietnam). It would be great to understand when and why the
hyphen ceased.
Sincerely,
Alex-Thai D. Vo
Cornell University
Vuong Vu-Duc vuduc.vuong at gmail.com
Mon Jan 11 01:51:36 PST 2016
Nice query to start the new year, Tuong Nhu. And thanks for the various
contributions. So, here's another angle.
1. Quoc Ngu is a mono-syllabic language, created by missionaries who
needed a way to learn the Vietnamese vernacular and to preach the gospel to
the natives, quicker than using Nom or Chinese. In this regard, they
succeeded beautifully; and thanks to it, Viet Nam is among the most
literate countries in Asia today;
2. When Quoc Ngu was imposed as the national language in 1919, replacing
Nom, it blossomed and fundamentally helped create the 20th Century literary
movements, as well as facilitating the propaganda works for every
faction/government during that century;
3. As one read literature from the 20's and 30's, hyphen was very commonly
used by writers, poets, and hyphenated words were standard in all
dictionaries;
4. Even in my youth, as a student in SVN, my name was often written with
2 hyphens (Vu-Duc-Vuong)
So when and why the hyphen was dropped?
My favorite interpretation was by Philip Jones-Griffiths, as explained by
Ted Engelmann, and copied here for your convenience: (my emphasis added)
*OAH Newsletter *37 (May 2009
<http://www.oah.org/pubs/nl/2009may/index.html>).
Copyright (c), Organization of American Historians <http://www.oah.org/>.
*Semantics and Spelling: A New Perception of Viet Nam*
In the February 2009 *OAH Newsletter* <http://www.oah.org/pubs/nl/2009feb/>,
I noticed that my article, “Lest We Forget
<http://www.oah.org/pubs/nl/2009feb/engelmann.html>,” was edited to comply
with current standards of spelling—mainly, spelling Viet Nam as “Vietnam.”
To give a sense of this semantic issue, consider my article, “Who Are Our
Fathers,” on page 163 in the June 2007 *Journal of American History*
<http://www.journalofamericanhistory.org/>, in which I explained the
reasoning for the two-word spelling of Viet Nam.
I suggest a return to the original spelling of Viet Nam to help readers,
mainly Americans, realize that Viet Nam is a country, not a war. The
effects of the war in Viet Nam remain very strong in the hearts and minds
of many Americans, especially of my generation. I can offer the water of
knowledge, but we know we cannot make anyone drink. As academics and
scholars, you know the importance of words. You know the great weight of
semantics on perception.
It is my experience that for many Americans the condensed spelling is
generally associated with, at least subconsciously, the charged emotions of
the longest war in our history (1964-1975) against a small, far-away
country. Spelling names as the Vietnamese do (without diacritical tonal
marks) would develop a process not only of thinking, but feeling for other
humans; something a war strips away.
Since its inception about 2,000 years ago, Viet Nam (or Nam Viet) has
always been spelled as two words in this mono-syllabic culture. The name
derives from the words: Viet, meaning “people,” and Nam, meaning “south.”
This was to differentiate the Viets (the people of the south), from the
people of the north, the Chinese.
*The late Philip Jones Griffiths, noted photojournalist and author,
explained that the name Viet Nam was changed by The New York Times to
“Vietnam” in the 1940s and 1950s as a result of reporters filing stories by
telex. Similar to a telegraph, the telex system charged money for each
word, making a story about Dien Bien Phu, Ha Noi, Sai Gon, Da Nang, and
Viet Nam fairly expensive. At that time it made economic sense to condense
the words into one.*
Many American style manuals created in the 1970s set the rules of the
written road often with little appreciation or understanding of Asian
culture. Dictionaries simply report the current usage of a word. Today,
electronic communication is far less bound by commercial restraints: a
space or two costs nothing. It makes sense to change the rules of the
written road for this special case.
You might ask why the Vietnamese do not correct this issue. Perhaps they
feel it is impolite to correct the mistakes of others. Perhaps they are
unwilling to change the status quo. When you see “Vietnam” written on
commercial products, I assure you, it is for export only. It makes economic
sense to meet the expectations of your customers.
It is my opinion that, as a result of the war in Viet Nam, the national
psyche of America suffers a type of Post Traumatic Stress Denial. From my
perspective, part of the legacy of that war has kept America in a time-warp
that has somewhat stunted our intellectual, emotional, and spiritual growth
as a nation. In the future, when writing your own papers and helping your
students with theirs, I believe offering this option of spelling will
broaden perspective, encourage further respect, and stimulate interest in
Viet Nam and other cultures. Simply by spelling “Viet Nam,” I believe our
national psyche might begin to heal.
In October 2010, the capital of Viet Nam, Ha Noi, will celebrate 1,000
years as a city. Accordingly, it would be appropriate for America to
recognize this historical event with words of respect, instead of past
emotions.
—*Ted Engelmann*
2008 OAH Distinguished Lecturer
Ha Noi, Viet Nam
*The *OAH Newsletter* follows *The Chicago Manual of Style* for editorial
guidance and Webster’s *Third New International Dictionary* for the
spelling of words. —eds.*
What to do now ?
Viet-Nam does not have an arbiter of language, such as the French Academie,
and in recent years, I've seen the media in VN not only dropping the hyphen
but also inverting words that had been used for some time in an accepted
way, pretty willy nilly. It's not a good trend.
Now that the telex and telegrams are pretty much things of the past, I'd
like to see the hyphen come back to general use, as in the first part of
the last century. It's a distinction of Quoc Ngu, well worth preserving.
Vu-Duc Vuong
Anh-Minh Do anhminhtrando at gmail.com
Mon Jan 11 02:07:35 PST 2016
Dear Vu-Duc,
I'm loving your email with its detailed analysis. But in response to your
statement that "it's not a good trend", I think that the process of
condensing Vietnamese has accelerated exponentially with the internet and
with SMS. These two technologies are forcing Vietnamese to write without
diacritics and shorten words for ease and speed of writing. Instead of
"được không" modern Vietnamese will type "dc ko". People are also
shortening phrases into acronyms like "ghen ăn tức ở" (which means to be
jealous about another person's success, a common trait amongst the youth,
which is obsessed with money and fame in an internet world) are shortened
to GATO. This is now a term that even the press is picking up.
The eventuality of all of this is particularly intriguing though. Let's put
aside the fact that there is no strong body of academia or linguists that
are care taking the Vietnamese language (not forgetting the fact that the
world's top experts in Nom are slowly fading away). Can you guess which
organizations or companies or institutions would have the best and most
sophisticated data on modern Vietnamese?
Interestingly enough, it's the search engine companies and the social media
listening companies. Search engines must be able to understand (with
artificial intelligence, algorithms, and humans) which slang and terms
modern Vietnamese are using to make sure their searches are accurate. That
means the Russian CocCoc and the American Google (although Google is more
machine than man, whereas CocCoc employs large teams of people that crawl
the internet for new terms). Social media listening companies must have the
best understanding of modern Vietnamese language to search for what
customers and consumers are saying about brands. After all, companies like
Samsung and Coca-Cola are desperate to know what the modern Vietnamese
consumer thinks of them.
For me, as a tech person interested in the evolution of Vietnamese culture,
I'm not convinced that this is a "bad trend". I think that the loss of the
understanding is "bad", but I think the evolution of Vietnam's language and
culture is yet another manifestation of maybe something that is already
essentially Vietnamese: a culture of wit, adaptability, and incremental
innovation at its core.
Sincerely,
Minh
Startup ecosystem builder in Vietnam
Director of Communications at Vertex Ventures
Formerly editor at Tech In Asia
Cheers,
Minh
anhminhdo.com
Skype: caligarn
Whatsapp: +6586795140
Raymond Mallon raymallon at gmail.com
Mon Jan 11 05:11:26 PST 2016
Hi:
Regarding hyphens and Philip Jones-Griffiths comments about the spelling of Viet Nam: I note that, while Viet Nam is spelt (or should I say spelled?) in English as Viet Nam by the United Nations in their official list of countries <http://www.un.org/en/members/ <http://www.un.org/en/members/>>, by Viet Nam in its website for the UN Permanent Mission <http://www.vietnam-un.org/en/index.php <http://www.vietnam-un.org/en/index.php>”, and is mostly spelt as two words by the UN in Viet Nam, but it is spelt as one word by the United Nations School (UNIS) in VN <http://www.unishanoi.org/page.cfm?p=934 <http://www.unishanoi.org/page.cfm?p=934>> and in some other UN websites <http://www.un.org/Depts/OHRM/salaries_allowances/salaries/vietnam.htm <http://www.un.org/Depts/OHRM/salaries_allowances/salaries/vietnam.htm>> (e.g. try googling “UN Viet Nam” and see the range of spellings that show up). Both the WB and the IMF (“specialised agencies of the UN” spell Viet Nam as one word <http://www.imf.org/external/country/VNM/ <http://www.imf.org/external/country/VNM/> and http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/vietnam<http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/vietnam>> in their main website, but the ADB (not a UN specialised agency) tends to spell the country as two words <http://www.adb.org/countries/viet-nam/main <http://www.adb.org/countries/viet-nam/main>>. Even the Government of Viet Nam is not consistent: compare the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) English language website http://www.mofa.gov.vn/en <http://www.mofa.gov.vn/en> with that of the Ministry of Planning and Investmenthttp://www.mpi.gov.vn/en/Pages/default.aspx <http://www.mpi.gov.vn/en/Pages/default.aspx>.
Not a big issue, I guess, but some consistency would be make life a little easier.
Ray
___________________
Raymond Mallon
www.raymondmallon.com
Mobile +84 903 404949
Nhan Ngo nhan at temple.edu
Mon Jan 11 07:47:19 PST 2016
Dear Ray, Anh-Minh and Alex Thai-Vo,
“some consistency would make life a little easier”…
I believe the human part of consistency was done, now it is the
computer/web that helps making life a little easier.
This discussion occurred in 2001-2002 of a technical committee of the
General Department of Standards, Metrology and Quality Control, dealing
with the consequence of adopting Unicode standards. It resolved the
questions of alternative spellings, alternative codings (VNI, ABC, …),
emails, searching, sorting, orthography, database, …
Anh-Minh, can you verify these points (James Đỗ was in these)?
— Vietnamese and Nôm are now part of Unicode.
1. Vietnamese names can and should be fully accented, there is no
technological hindrance like in the past. This reduces confusion.
2. For researchers, if the sources are in Nôm, Nôm can be presented
besides quốc ngữ transliteration (actually, translation) just in case
the transliteration is not the only possibility.
— This does not remove alternative orthographic spellings… Google and
other search engines are fully capable of searching “Vietnam” and
finding “Việt Nam”, “越南”, … and vice versa, searching “越南” would
yield “Vietnam”, “Việt Nam”, … And in fact it has been doing that
for English and other languages.
Plus, if we search for “thông minh”, we should find “viễn thông minh
mẫn”, as well as their Nôm counterparts.
— The quốc ngữ spelling standard in Vietnam was decided by Viện
Ngôn ngữ học (Institute of Linguistics)… I believe one of the last ones
in the mid-1990s was correct placement of tones (hoà instead of hòa).
This should actually help with searching online, and helpful aid
in spelling. Searching for “hòa” should also yield “hoà”, and vice versa.
— Nhan
Center for Vietnamese Philosophy, Culture & Society
Temple University
Anh-Minh Do anhminhtrando at gmail.com
Mon Jan 11 14:10:57 PST 2016
Hi Nhan,
Indeed, it should be easier now to write with diacritics on smartphones,
but even the large telcos like Viettel and Mobifone, when they are sending
texts en masse to their subscribers, these texts come with no diacritics. I
am not sure why this is the case but my assumption would be that it is
because it saves character space? Or because their basic system for mass
texts cannot handle diacritics? Over the years, I've found that people in
Vietnam are getting better and better at reading without diacritics.
Between people, be it on SMS or OTT chat apps like Whatsapp, Viber, and
Zalo, people are also used to not using diacritics because simply typing
without diacritics is much faster.
My theory would be that it's all about speed. Consider that using no
diacritics, using acronyms, and using shortened forms of common words
(không versus ko), are all shortcuts for people who are constantly on the
go. Vietnam is now an increasingly busy place and the language is
reflecting that.
I think the search engines and social media listening sites are tracking
all similar terms of popular terms. So they would have "hòa”, “hoà", and
"hoa" would all yield similar results, suggesting phrases that are commonly
associated with those words.
If you download the CocCoc browser (which was designed specifically for
Vietnamese people), you can even write without diacritics, and then the
browser itself will suggest diacritics for you, saving you time and likely
making you more lazy.
Cheers,
Minh
Startup ecosystem builder in Vietnam
Director of Communications at Vertex Ventures
Formerly editor at Tech In Asia
David Marr david.marr at anu.edu.au
Wed Jan 27 16:11:52 PST 2016
I’m coming to this discussion late because of southern hemisphere holidays. Has the Vietnam General Department of Standards resolved the problem of Vietnamese automated alphabetical sorting? This issue came up in the late 1980s when establishing the Vietnamese Union Catalogue (VUC), but no standard was agreed on into the 1990s. Users of Vietnamese dictionaries will be aware that different lexicographers have had their own solutions.
David Marr
ANU
Nhan Ngo nhan at temple.edu
Wed Jan 27 20:36:25 PST 2016
Dear David,
The sorting standard was set by the Institute of Linguistics. The Vietnam
General Department of Standards, Metrology and Quality Control, after
adopting Unicode for all Vietnam (later signed into law by the late Prime
Minister Võ Văn Kiệt), a committee, called The Vietnamese Unicode/ISO
10646 Committee (VUIC), June 2001 to Dec 2002, was created to deal with
many issues, including sorting.
Sorting could be solved thanks to Unicode. Correct sorting algorithm was
proposed by me and James Đỗ at a meeting of Unicode in the early 1990’s.
It’s a 2-step algorithm: first to separate the tone and put it to the end of
the syllable, and normal sort. This was adopted by the VUIC… but it
was simply a suggestion for computer software companies. It resolved more
than just that. It even gives right results with different encoding
schemes (such as VNI, ABC, …), or misspells (hòang and hoàng), or
alternative spellings (hoà and hòa)… It also involves google search, such
as hoàng and hòang, and the users get both… and more.
In short, the Institute of Linguistics set the correct sorting, the VUIC suggests
how to do that ;-) The US members of VUIC pushed for a different understanding
of standardization that are not normalization (European).
Best,
Ngo Thanh Nhan
Center for Vietnamese Philosophy, Culture & Society
Temple University