SECTION 2:iv

LANGUAGE OF LOGIC

LOGIC OF LOVE

by Hugh M. Lewis

It makes sense to refer to the language of Vietnamese, conferring a sense of meaning to Vietnamese identity that is not to be resurrected in the cultural idiom of another language. Sense of meaning and structure of a language are inseparable and interdependent within a cultural context, and we can never think outside of some cultural idiom to prove whether or not this is so. No doubt the Vietnamese language makes it easier to think in some ways, about some things, in some senses, than in others. There are thoughts and feelings peculiarly Vietnamese which are only best expressed through its natural idiom, and no doubt there are some thoughts and feelings expressed within other cultural idioms which are virtually inaccessible to native Vietnamese speakers.

A native language is the heart and soul, as well as the mind, of a culture. It is paradigmatic expression of the logos and ethos of the Vietnamese ethnoculture that cannot be found within any other cultural idiom. There is more than a mere communicative or signaling function as well, in which language and culture cannot be sundered without mutual destruction. Language embodies in its everyday usage a rich symbolic heritage, of many subtle nuances and innuendo of meaning which transcend signaling functions. The relative difficult of translating a simple poem is a case in point. Take any Vietnamese poem and compare alternative translations, of which there are many—and it is quite apparent that the subtle symbolic nuances of the original are quite lost, or at best, only partially captured. The doctrine of linguistic relativity states that a language, as a culture specific idiom, like diet which is universally culture specific, simply makes it "easier to conceptualize the world in a certain way than in other possible ways, while a similar sort of conceptioning may be more difficult in terms of another language." While it is possible to think out of a cultural idiom in some other idiom, the native language we are brought up with acquires a tremendous degree of concreteness. Different cultural orientations are embodied and intrinsic to different cultural idioms, with a differential focus and elaboration.

"Thus the system of logic used by most Vietnamese sometimes bear little relation to that found in the West. Even when translated into French or possibly English by an educated person, this logic retains the influence of the Vietnamese language in which it was first expressed." (Hammer 1966:29) While habits of diet and customs of cuisine lend a particular distinctive "flavor" to Vietnamese culture, closely related patterns of language and literature lend as well a certain characteristic tonality as well. The sonorous tonal quality Vietnamese language lends itself admirably to complex harmonic play. 

"….It is enough to combine these tones and modulate certain words to turn a sentence into a verse and plain speech into a song. How to render plain speech into a toneless language this music of tones that evokes so many feelings in the hearts of the Vietnamese readers?....Almost the whole of this music….disappears from even the best translations. (Sully 1967:321-2)

This tonality of the Vietnamese language provides the idiom of harmonious expression for poetical ideas and imagination. Vietnamese folk poetry has been called the "spiritual food of the Vietnamese." This tonality gives the language a sing-song quality that relates everyday speech and writing to folk poetry and folk songs and to traditional music and literature. "Folk songs are probably never formally composed. They burst forth spontaneously and instinctively from the hearts of the people in a kind of musical excitement, hence their natural simplicity." (Minh 1962:136) Classical poetry is for the Vietnamese "a flower of the finest sentiments, a fruit of profound thoughts."

The country folk of Vietnam, living near nature and in utter simplicity, transform the popular verses into tunes when their mind sympathizes with the surroundings. This natural adaptation to music does not obey any musical rule. It only obey intuition….(Van Giang ?:2-3)

"Most Vietnamese at some time in their lives have recourse to sing for one purpose of or another…." (Durand1985:29-31) A kind of native speaker intuition operating in Vietnamese fills the gap left by formal syntax, and elaborates this barren structure with infinite richness of subtle play on words and innuendo and nuance possible only in Vietnamese. This operation of intuition and the focal elaboration of language is evident in the extreme variation of forms, regional dialectical variations, of language, poems, music and songs. "The richness of Vietnamese folklore is evident from the multiplicity and diversity of folktales…." (Durand 1985:29-31) It is a cultural idiom that is not analyzable by any formal descriptive or prescriptive grammar based upon a Western ethnocentrism of deep structure.

The question of linguistic relativism will long remain simply an article of faith that sparks the creative imagination. Science kills imagination. There have been many interpretations upon the "Chinese Mind" in how the Chinese language may structure and express a characteristic Chinese logic. Some logicians believe "while aiming to find out how Chinese logic operates, we shall probably end up with finding how logic operates in Chinese….Rather than affirmation and negation, Chinese logic operates really with truth or falsehood, stated in the form of agreement or disagreement" (Yuen Ren Chao) Others ascertain "Every form of logic….is related to a given form of culture and language. Western logicians assume that theirs is a universal logic of human reason. But it is based upon the structures of the Western languages and therefore not universal. Chinese logic, the logic inherent in the Chinese language, is not, like the Western, based on the subject predicate relationship or on the so called "law of identity." It is what might be called "correlation logic" or "the logic of correlative duality." Its structure is that of relationships….(Chang Tung-Sun) 

Vietnamese is an inherently consistent universe of symbolisms, made up of minimal, fixed, objective skeleton of signs, "a drastic shorthand to be expanded associatively by each reader. In addition, each symbol in the skeletal symbol chain is a node for traditional, and no doubt, personal associations." (Scharfestein 1974:141)

Considerations of the interconnections between language and logic and culture brings us to a consideration of the "logic of love" which is contained in perhaps the finest flowering of "Chinese genius"—its religions. "The Conflation of the Three Teachings"—Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism—is the traditional religious patterning of the Vietnamese as well as the Chinese, both of whom demonstrated a remarkable synthesizing quality of "mind" which is manifested in the marvelous syncretism of their religions. "Every Vietnamese subscribed to some version of this combined religion, which also incorporated many local cults. There was no such thing as "pure" Confucianism, "pure" Taoism, or "pure" Buddhism. Within this conflation, however, wide variation was possible in the relative importance of the three main components…." (Hue Tam 1983:20)

This synthesizing character of mind brought into being many strange syncretisms in the form of nativistic revitalization movements. In all these movements, there is a common dialectical theme of a synthetic political religious orientation which was highly elaborated with many diverse symbolisms. "It is possible that the dialectic in ethnicity is the opposition and synthesis of the symbolic representation of the male and female…."(Pandian 1982: 9) The political religious dimension of this synthesizing cultural idiom can be seen to be based upon a dialectic between male and female principles, a dialectic as well rooted to value culture of "Dragon/Phoenix Symbol Chains, and which forms the focal meta-theme around which Vietnamese culture has traditionally oriented itself:

In its marvelous syncretism, the mysterious Buu Son Ky Huong religion was an indigenous cultural response to many adverse conditions—"The poem beginning with these four words held a special and mystical significance. Because of their sacred connotation, the words were seldom spoken out loud, and the poem, which could be read both horizontally and vertically, has never been satisfactorily explained." (Hue Tam 1983:2) To enter into the synthesizing cultural complex that is the reality of being traditional Vietnamese, it is necessarily and unavoidably to enter into a great mythological circle, composed of many cycles within cycles, without clear beginning and ending." "Ecosystems follow the oriental penchant for finding cycles in nature….For rice to grow, a multitude of cycles must coincide for a moment of cosmic time….Perhaps as a result of common heritage, the Orient and native Indian America have long recognized the implications of these observations, that harmony must prevail between man, heaven and earth….Even today we may begin to write the rules of natural morality, which once seem more fully, may resemble the reciprocities between neighbors invoked….by Lao Tze. (Hanks 1972:22-24)

In conclusion it is fitting to review and refine a few common preconceptions about the culture and character of traditional Vietnamese identity. Almost without exception and without question traditional Vietnamese culture and character is presumed to be virtually synonymous with stereotypes of the Vietnamese village and the Vietnamese peasant with many folk implications and "semi-feudal" connotations. These preconceptions have formed the tacit base-line in our ethnological comprehension of traditional Vietnamese culture.

It is long overdue to amend this peasant village base-line. Culture and character refer to two sides of a single coin of being Vietnamese, both dialectically describing a particular focal orientation which characterizes Vietnamese culture, as well as describing a particular cultural character of being traditional Vietnamese that is a symbolic model, a mythological metaphor, which Vietnamese may or may not adopt if they so choose. This model of Vietnameseness is highly elaborated incorporating a diversity of symbolisms. Its looseness and flexibility has made Vietnamese culture so adaptable and resilient. This character of Vietnamese culture has a peculiar "flavor" and "tonality" which is both conservative and changing. It incorporates a fundamental human dilemma of being both universal and unique, permanent and changing, in an idiom of a synthesizing cultural complex.

An alternative metaphor of comprehending traditional culture and character of Vietnamese identity is the Vietnamese family—the metaphor of family resemblances between Vietnamese. This is a metaphor of a metaphor, a reflexive metalogic, implied by Vietnamese culture and character. It forms the base-line and atom of traditional Vietnamese ethnoculture. Ideally it is a big family, though not quite a lineage or extended family, even though it frequently had many extensions into Vietnamese culture. It just as frequently atomized into the traditional "nuclear family" of a father, mother and children. This family was always changing its composition and content, but never its fundamental "Vietnamese" structure. When extended and large, it made the basis of a corporate, communal solidarity of an integrated social fabric of Vietnamese ethnoculture, when small it turned inwardly upon itself becoming the atom of social disintegration. Rooted in the family structure are both the seeds of creation and the forces of destruction of Vietnamese culture.

Within this familial structure, there was a primary dialectical theme of conflict and harmony and synthesis between male and female, expressed symbolically in political-religious idioms. Within the familial framework, the male is either a father, husband or son, but his characteristic male Vietnameseness must always be defined by relationship to the sexual counterpart of the mother, wife or daughter. Whatever the social role, whether peasant or mandarin, urban trader or craft specialist, soldier or vagabond, scholar or priest, the characteristic Vietnamese identity is defined in this primary familial context within the idiom of the male-female dialectic. The traditional Vietnamese character does not conceptualize him/herself as an isolated, independent individual in relation to society, but views oneself symbolically as an interdependent family member, whether the family is large or small, nonexistent or potential. "The family is the basic institution developed by the Vietnamese to perpetuate society and provide protection to the individual." (Pham 1983:38) "In Vietnamese culture the individual’s interests and destiny are rarely conceived outside the framework of his immediate and extended families. Anything a Vietnamese does, he usually does out of family consideration rather than for himself." (Pham 1983:29)