Associate Professor Dr. Bui Hien, father of the proposed set of improvements to "Vietnamese language", passed away.

Associate Professor, Dr. Bui Hien passed away on May 11 in Viet Tri City, Phu Tho Province, at the age of 90.

The funeral will be held at 1:00 p.m. on May 12, and the burial will be at Vinh Chan, Ha Hoa, Phu Tho.

Associate Professor, Dr. Bui Hien was born in 1935 in Ha Hoa, Phu Tho. He is a Russian lecturer and former Vice Principal of the University of Foreign Languages ​​(now the University of Foreign Languages, Vietnam National University, Hanoi ).

Orphaned at a young age, he overcame all hardships and difficulties and his will to become a serious and dedicated scientist .

Associate Professor Dr. Bui Hien, the father of the proposal to improve "Vietnamese language" has just passed away (Photo: Le Thu).

He is the author of dozens of textbooks, teacher's books, Russian supplementary reading books for high schools, 4 sets of dictionaries of various types, including the 1,800-page "Russian - Vietnamese Textbook Dictionary" which was awarded two international medals: "Business initiative directions" and "International gold star for quality".

Although he has been retired for many years, Associate Professor Bui Hien still continues to research and create to complete many meaningful books with his colleagues.

He was awarded the Second Class Medal for Resistance to America for National Salvation; the Pushkin Medal for his achievements in spreading the Russian language; and the Medal "Excellent Cadre of the Soviet Publishing Industry".

In 2017, he caused a heated debate on social media when he suddenly announced a proposal to reform the Vietnamese language. For example, "education law" should be written as "law záo zụk", "state" as "n'à nữk", "language" as "qôn qữ"...

The improved Vietnamese writing system proposed by Associate Professor, Dr. Bui Hien has caused great controversy in public opinion.

According to Mr. Bui Hien, after nearly a century, the national language has revealed many inadequacies, so it needs to be improved to make it simpler, easier to remember, easier to use, and save time and materials...

The "Vietnamese" alphabet after improvement by Associate Professor, Dr. Bui Hien (Photo: Le Thu).

The irrationalities that Associate Professor Bui Hien pointed out include: Currently, we use 2 or 3 letters to represent a consonant phoneme at the beginning. For example, C - Q - K (cuoc, quoc, ca, kali), Tr - Ch (tra, cha), S - X (sa, xa)... In addition, we use 2 letters combined to represent the phonemes of some consonants at the end of a rhyme such as Ch, Ng, Nh (mách, ông, tanh...).

From there, he proposed a solution as a basis for moving towards an optimal solution for the state. The improved national language of author Bui Hien is based on the cultural language of the capital Hanoi in terms of both basic phonemes and 6 standard tones, the principle is that each letter represents only one phoneme, and each phoneme has only one corresponding letter to represent it.

The letter Đ will be removed from the current Vietnamese alphabet and some Latin letters such as F, J, W, Z will be added. In addition, the phonetic values ​​of the 11 existing letters in the above table will be changed, specifically: C = Ch, Tr; D = Đ; G = G, Gh; F = Ph; K = C, Q, K; Q = Ng, Ngh; R = R; S = S; X = Kh; W = Th; Z = d, gi, r. Because the sound "nhờ" (nh) does not have a new character to replace it, the above text will temporarily use the compound character n' to express it.

In addition to the opposing opinions, there are also opinions that Associate Professor Dr. Bui Hien's idea is not necessarily unreasonable, he is aiming for a unified principle for the Vietnamese language.

On December 29, 2017, the proposal to improve the Vietnamese writing system was granted a copyright certificate by the Copyright Office.

On January 12, 2018, he continued to publish 3,254 six-eight verses of the Tale of Kieu in the "Vietnamese" language.

At the end of 2018, he announced a complete stop, not researching anything more about the Vietnamese language improvement set because the improvement set was completed very completely and clearly, plus his health did not allow it.

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/giao-duc/pgsts-bui-hien-cha-de-bo-de-xuat-cai-tien-tieq-viet-qua-doi-20250512091355257.htm