Nguyễn Văn Vĩnh (1882–1936) was a Vietnamese journalist and translator of Western literature in the early 20th-century during the

Nguyễn dynasty The Nguyễn dynasty (, chữ Nôm: 茹阮, chữ Hán: 朝阮) was the last List of Vietnamese dynasties, Vietnamese dynasty, preceded by the Nguyễn lords and ruling unified Vietnam independently from 1802 until French protectorate in 1883 ...

. Together with he founded the '' Đông Dương tạp chí'' (1912) – known as the first successful Vietnamese

Quốc ngữ The Vietnamese alphabet (, ) is the modern writing script for the Vietnamese language. It uses the Latin script based on Romance languages like French, originally developed by Francisco de Pina (1585–1625), a missionary from Portugal. The Vi ...

newspaper in

Hà Nội Hanoi ( ; ; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Vietnam, second-most populous city of Vietnam. The name "Hanoi" translates to "inside the river" (Hanoi is bordered by the Red River (Asia), Red and Black River (Asia), Black Riv ...

. Nguyễn Văn Vĩnh was born 15 June 1882 in a poor family in Hà Đông province of Tonkin. In 1896, Nguyễn graduated from the French School of Interpreters, and was accepted as an interpreter at the

Lào Cai Lào Cai () is a city in the Northwest region of Vietnam. It is the capital of Lào Cai Province. The city borders Bảo Thắng District, Bát Xát District, Sa Pa and the city of Hekou Yao Autonomous County, in Yunnan province of southwe ...

Resident Minister office. One year later, he was transferred to the office of

Hải Phòng Haiphong or Hai Phong (, ) is the third-largest city in Vietnam and is the principal port city of the Red River Delta. The municipality has an area of , consisting of 8 List of urban districts of Vietnam, urban districts, 6 Huyện, rural distri ...

and

Bắc Ninh Bắc Ninh () is a city in the Northern Vietnam, northern part of Vietnam and is the capital of Bắc Ninh province. The city is the cultural, administrative and commercial center of the province. The city area is 82.60 square km, with a populat ...

. During the time in Hải Phòng, he contributed to ''Courrier d’Hai Phong'' and ''Tribune Indochinoise'' newspapers. In 1906, Nguyễn was transferred to the office of Hà Nội, where he and his companions established '' Đông Kinh Nghĩa Thục'' with Lương Văn Can at the headmaster position. In the same year, Nguyễn quit his government job, became a freelance journalist, then the first Vietnamese member of

Human Rights League (France) The Human Rights League ( '' t du citoyen' or LDH) is a human rights NGO association whose mission includes to observe, defend and promulgate human rights within the French Republic in all spheres of public life. The LDH is a member of the In ...

. On 15 May 1913, the first issue of ''Đông Dương tạp chí'' was published with Nguyễn as the editor-in-chief along with main contributors Phạm Duy Tốn, , ,

Phạm Quỳnh Phạm Quỳnh (December 17, 1892 – September 6, 1945) was a monarchist during the late Nguyễn dynasty and supporter of adhering to traditional Vietnamese customs in the establishment of a constitutional monarchy. He was born near Hanoi ...

, Nguyễn Văn Tố,

Trần Trọng Kim Trần Trọng Kim (; chữ Hán: 陳仲金, Kanji pronunciation: ''Chin Jūkin''; ; 1883 – December 2, 1953; courtesy name Lệ Thần (, chữ Hán: 隸臣) was a Vietnamese scholar and politician who served as the Prime Minister of the sho ...

, and Nguyễn Khắc Hiếu. The paper was technically owned by Schneider, since only a Frenchman could obtain a license to publish a newspaper. Its French sister paper was ''France-Indochine''. Nguyễn Văn Vĩnh was a 'non-communist' nationalist moderniser who sought to renew the Vietnamese culture by adopting Western ways of life. He rejected the political violence of the Restoration League, arguing in 1913 that the Vietnamese should 'use the cultural benefits of France to shut out seditious noises, so that the explosions caused by the rebels will not drown out the drums of civilization'. Vĩnh used the ''Indochina Review'' to criticize Vietnamese culture in a series of articles entitled 'Examining Our Defects'. In the 1930s, he worked together with the French and translated numerous Western literary works such as

La Fontaine's Fables Jean de La Fontaine collected fables from a wide variety of sources, both Western and Eastern, and adapted them into French free verse. They were issued under the general title of Fables in several volumes from 1668 to 1694 and are considered cla ...

and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels into

in an attempt to introduce the Vietnamese to Western culture. Nguyễn Văn Vĩnh was also credited with devising the original set of rules for the

Telex Telex is a telecommunication Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communica ...

Vietnamese character encoding system.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nguyen, Van Vinh 1882 births 1936 deaths Writers from Hanoi Mass media people from Hanoi Vietnamese translators Translators to Vietnamese 20th-century translators 20th-century Vietnamese journalists