Talk:Nguyen Van Nghi

I've moved the text below from the article, since it is really a discussion of the article. I'm going to try clarifying the article based on this discussion.Itheodore 05:19, 19 July 2007 (UTC) Correction: Nguyen Van Nghi's Tang dynasty copies of the classics of acupuncture had been preserved in Vietnam, but were written in ancient Chinese. There was no "ancient Vietnamese" as a written language. Vietnamese writers, prior to the adoption of romanized text, used Chinese characters to represent Vietnamese words having similar meanings. Correction: There is an in inaccuracy in the comment, "There was no "ancient Vietnamese" as a written language. Vietnamese writers, prior to the adoption of romanized text, used Chinese characters to represent Vietnamese words having similar meanings." The Vietnamese utilized Chữ nôm, which was a modified Chinese script that incorporated sounds and syllables appropriate for native Vietnamese speakers. In Vietnam Chinese characters were originally used to write Chữ nho (classical Chinese) only. In Chữ nôm the use of these characters was extended in many ways. Additionally a vast number of new characters have been invented by Vietnamese writers. During the 14 years of the Tây Sơn emperors (1788-1802), all administrative documents were written in Chữ nôm. In the 18th century, many notable Vietnamese writers and poets composed their works in Chữ nôm, among them Nguyễn Du and Hồ Xuân Hương. The classical Vietnamese texts is called Chữ Nôm. It's as much as Chinese as Kanji... So it could be disputed that Kanji is just Chinese script.

More discussion of Chữ Nôm (First, I apologize for putting discussion on the main page when I didn't know any better. Thanks for moving it here.)  The difficulty with the second correction (to the first correction, mine), above, is that our beloved mentor, Dr. Van Nghi, maintained his copy of Huangdi Neijing Lingshu was from the Tang dynasty. After I wrote the first correction (2006 or 7), I talked with a trusted Vietnamese-American gentleman who was able to view the original document Dr. Van Nghi worked from. This gentleman said that the document was definitely in the Chữ Nôm script.

Further investigation into the history of Chữ Nôm reveals that the oldest extant Chữ Nôm documents date from the 13th century, but the Tang dynasty dates are 618-907 CE, an anachronistic dilemma for Dr. Van Nghi's source document. But — now this is interesting to me — digging into Vietnam's English-language cultural and historical websites, one finds that there exists a stone monument bearing Chữ Nôm that is accurately dated to the early 900s. If Dr. Van Nghi's Lingshu can be dated that early, then it would be the oldest Chữ Nôm document known to still exist, which stretches credulity without positive proof, but is not impossible.

Chữ Nôm obviously did not suddenly appear, but must have developed over some period of time. Critical examination of the document by a trained Vietnamese historian of language and linguistic scholar could reveal whether the document comes from an "in-between" period in the development of Chữ Nôm.

The only way to resolve the question of the document's true age would be to carbon-date a bit of the paper.

Yet if the document turns out to be newer than Tang dynasty, it might be a Chữ Nôm copy of the Chữ Nho (Chinese writing) that was used in Vietnam prior to the development of Chữ Nôm.

There are significant differences between Dr. Van Nghi's source document and the Lingshu version best known in China, which contains some herbal prescriptions as well as other possible accretions, if Dr. Van Nghi's acupuncture-only Lingshu is older and less accreted. Although Lingshu is believed to have been first compiled in the 4th century BCE, the oldest surviving text in China dates from the 800s CE. The oldest Lingshu text anywhere is the Japanese Taisu version, one copy of which has been positively dated to the 600s CE. I do not know of any English-language comparison that has been made between Taisu and Dr. Van Nghi's Lingshu.  Scholarly criticism of the two might reveal similarities in the way they differ from the oldest known Chinese text.

The question of historical placement of Dr. Van Nghi's source text is a burning one for the history of Chinese medicine and its movement to the South, where Dr. Van Nghi maintained acupuncture was preserved in purer form after a time of persecution in China. My discussion is in no way meant to diminish his contribution to a better understanding, worldwide, of the principles of acupuncture and Chinese medicine through mining the ancient resources in light of their historical context. The importance of his contribution, not only in the West, but also in the East, is enormous, and has greatly influenced the practice of acupuncture all over Europe, in particular. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yogaman28734 (talk • contribs) 13:27, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Excuse me, I meant to say above that the oldest version in China dates to the 11th or 12th century  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yogaman28734 (talk • contribs) 00:10, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Diacritics
Name needs diacritics. Badagnani (talk) 04:16, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

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