From Colonialism to Nationalism: Ethnic minorities in the linguistics of Vietnam

Abstract

This paper looks at the evolution of labelling practices for ethnic minorities in Vietnam during the 20th century, focusing in particular on the ambiguous status of rural Chinese in Northeast Vietnam on the Sino-Vietnamese border. Many of these Chinese were known by labels such as Ngai and Nung, and their status and ethnic identity was caught up in the turbulent history and migrations of modern Vietnam, in the complexities of Sino-Vietnamese relations (including the 1979 border war), and in the Vietnamese 'boat people' problem. The aim of the paper is to point briefly to changes, inconsistencies, and amalgamations that are discernible; track statistics given by different authorities (colonial French, US, Vietnamese); and to examine differing criteria for defining ethnic identity. Among the French linguists considered are G. Maspero and A. Haudricourt. Their writings are contrasted with materials from ethnographic studies sponsored by the US army, and with the writings of Vietnamese ethnographers from the 1960s onwards. It is argued that important lessons can be learned from tracking the history of these categories for our understanding of colonial and nationalist linguistics, as well as for the discipline of linguistics as a whole. In seeking to 'map ethnicity' centralized authorities were faced with the need to disambiguate and clarify relationships between myriad groups and subgroups. It is argued that as the century progressed, linguistic criteria gradually took over from other criteria drawn from physical anthropology and cultural anthropology. This process can be documented both in official and academic sources and is of great significance for understanding the role that linguistics has played in shaping modern notions of identity and ethnicity.