Unique communication tool

About 40km from the center of Hanoi, Da Chat village (Dai Xuyen commune, Phu Xuyen district, Hanoi) still preserves a special language system that only villagers understand. It is a type of slang, which villagers call "Toi Xuon".

According to cultural researchers, the slang in Da Chat village is closely linked to the daily life of the millers. In the past, farmers had to use mills to peel the husks of rice to make rice, so the bamboo mill was an indispensable tool. That was also the period when Da Chat millers traveled everywhere to work. Each group of Da Chat millers had two people, often wandering around the villages for months. Traveling to many places, meeting many people, eating and living had to rely on the homeowner, so they had to have a "secret language" to protect each other as well as to limit troubles and inconveniences in matters that needed to be discussed privately.

As someone who has followed his father to build mortars for many years, Mr. Nguyen Van Tuyen, the head of Da Chat village, said that the luggage of two mortar workers always consists of two buckets, inside are clothes, household items and a few knives, hammers, chisels, and chisels. The saw is carried on the shoulder of the foreman, and while walking, the worker calls out "Who wants to build a mortar..." When someone calls to hire them to build a mortar, along with negotiating wages, the worker also has to agree on food and accommodation. With two people, the time to make a mortar can be completed in half a day, but the mortar worker has to work leisurely all day so that he can sleep overnight at the owner's house and leave in the morning to find another house. Living and staying like that, the mortar workers always have to be humble and when communicating, they have to be tactful and discreet.

It is in such an environment that slang was born and taught to each other by the Da Chat mortar workers, and over a long period of time, it became a "unique" language. According to a survey by the Center for Research and Promotion of Cultural Heritage Values, although it is not an ancient language because it does not have any phonetic rules, the vocabulary system of Da Chat slang can be enough for daily communication.

The mortar craftsmen can speak this language fluently based on oral tradition and apply it to specific situations. The Da Chat craftsmen say “bet” means house, “thit” means food and drink, “dum” means money, “man” means water, “choang” means beautiful, “em” means delicious, “thuon” means good, “sơn” means go, “sươn” means machine… For example, if the owner treats them to a delicious meal, the mortar craftsmen will evaluate: “This bet is very good, cho thit mel qua” (this house is very rich, they serve delicious food). When guests come to the house, the Da Chat people say “Xảo ôn chạc cho xi nhat dang” (I went to buy dad a chicken, bring it back to butcher). When traveling by train or car, if the craftsmen see a thief, they remind each other “xảo tép hách”, meaning “there is a thief”…

In the 2000s, the Ha Tay (old) cultural sector researched and collected Da Chat slang, gathering more than 200 of the most common words, printed in the book "Folklore of Da Chat village". In 2014, the Center for Research and Promotion of Cultural Heritage Values ​​came to Da Chat to carry out a project to research and protect slang, collecting and adding 114 slang words and phrases along with 35 contexts of slang usage.

According to Mr. Tuyen, since 2000, when machines replaced bamboo mills, the millers no longer had a place to perform. The disappearance of the milling profession meant that slang no longer had an environment to exist and develop. However, slang is still used by the elderly in Da Chat when drinking tea, reminiscing about old times, or by a few families when having guests. In particular, when leaving the village, the elderly Da Chat still use slang to communicate with each other in necessary situations.

Showing the risk of extinction

However, Mr. Tuyen and many Da Chat residents believe that Da Chat slang is currently at risk of being lost. The millers who could speak the most slang have all passed away or are old, and the next generation, who used to work as millers, can only speak 50-60% compared to the "old men". This number is not much, somewhere around 10 people. The younger generation is not taught or practiced regularly, so they can only use very few words.

In 2016, the Hanoi Department of Culture conducted an inventory of intangible cultural heritages in the area. The results showed that the space for practicing Da Chat slang had been narrowed, and the number of people who could practice the heritage was decreasing, so the Hanoi Department of Culture and Sports included Da Chat slang in the list of 11 cultural heritages in need of urgent protection. This agency also planned to prepare a dossier to request the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to include Da Chat village slang in the list of national intangible cultural heritages.

However, since then, the Da Chat slang heritage seems to have been forgotten. Da Chat residents said that, except for a few times when experts and researchers came to the village to survey and collect information or occasionally the press came to get materials to write articles, there was nothing new about preserving slang. Up to now, all they have in hand is the book "Folklore of Da Chat village" printed in 2007. Mr. Nguyen Van Phuong - former Chairman of Dai Xuyen commune still vaguely remembers that about 10 years ago, a delegation from the Center for Research and Promotion of Cultural Heritage came to the commune to research slang.

“At the end of the project, at a conference held in the commune, they announced that they had written a book and made a 20-minute video about Da Chat village slang. But that was all. We have never seen the video nor do we know what was written in the book. And for the past decade, no one has said anything more,” said Mr. Phuong.

According to Mr. Tuyen and Mr. Phuong, basically, from the past until now, the government has not had any way to preserve it, mainly the people preserve it by word of mouth between generations. Recently, after recognizing that slang is a valuable heritage of the locality, the villagers have widely taught it to everyone, including those who are forbidden by old customs such as daughters or brides from outside the village. Thanks to that, the number of people who know about slang has increased, but because it is a spontaneous activity, not systematic, and not practiced regularly, the number of people who are taught can only speak a few words.

During the visit to Da Chat to study slang, Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Van Huy - Deputy Director of the Center for Research and Promotion of Cultural Heritage Values ​​suggested that the village could establish a slang club and organize regular activities and exchanges. On the government side, there should be a plan to organize a small space to display and demonstrate the mortar making profession and slang in Da Chat village so that cultural subjects can preserve and maintain the heritage. However, according to Mr. Tuyen, until now these activities have not been able to be carried out because of many obstacles.

“People in Da Chat village are still worried that their heritage will gradually fade away. Our wish is that one day, slang will be included in the list of national intangible cultural heritage. Only then will difficulties and obstacles be resolved, making it easier for us to preserve the precious heritage of our ancestors,” Mr. Tuyen shared.

The Vu