Ethnic Minority Communities of Northern Vietnam and the Nôm Verse Epic Lục Vân Tiên Written in Old Tai and Nôm-Tày Scripts- A Cross-Cultural Perspective

Abstract

According to our findings, the vitality and cross-cultural influence of Nguyễn Đình Chiểu's Nôm verse epic, Lục Vân Tiên, are not only known through the Nôm manuscript transcribed into the Quốc ngữ script by Trương Vĩnh Ký, but are also vividly demonstrated through versions of Lục Vân Tiên written in the Old Tai script in Sơn La province and the Nôm-Tày script in Cao Bằng province, over 2000 km away from Gia Định (the birthplace of the Nôm verse epic Lục Vân Tiên). For over a century, despite limitations in transportation, printing, and translation, and through the folk methods of oral transmission/teaching via Vân Tiên recitation performances (nói thơ Vân Tiên) in Bến Tre and local indigenous memory, Lục Vân Tiên has undergone a special cross-cultural journey. It has spread and is present even in the remote Northwest border region and the northernmost part of the nation. The Lục Vân Tiên Nôm verse epic, in its Old Tai and Nôm-Tày versions, has been widely circulated among ethnic minority communities in northern Vietnamese provinces through poetic performance styles (khắp xư) of the Tày people, etc. From there, the "adapted" Lục Vân Tiên Nôm verse epic quickly integrated into the folk cultural stream of the Tai and Tày communities in northern Vietnam. It has thus historically flowed from indigenous memory to a global vision for the Vietnamese people today, embodying Nguyễn Đình Chiểu’s spirit of "four seas singing in harmony as one family" (bốn biển âu ca hợp một nhà).