Since 2022, Professor K. David Harrison, VinUniversity's Vice Provost of Academic Affairs, has brought students from Hanoi to Kon Tum to live and work with the ethnic people to learn and research the culture and language of the Bahnar ethnic group.
Beauty of the Bahnar Language
It is difficult for many local people to imagine a “Western man” eating, living, recording, and storing everything they say. This Western man also spent a year living in Siberia with nomadic cattle herders to learn their language. “When I was a 20-year-old student, I met a person who spoke Karaim, a language that was almost extinct in Lithuania. Since then, I have loved finding and preserving the valuable knowledge and wisdom that disappearing languages can leave behind,” said Professor K. David Harrison.
He noted that Vietnam possesses a rich language system with more than 100 different languages. However, there are many languages that have never been scientifically recorded and are at risk of disappearing. Among them, he especially loves the Bahnar language. Professor Harrison shared that the Bahnar language attracts him because of its vivid expressions about nature and sacred forests.
In 2022, he officially founded the Bahnar Language and Culture Preservation Project.
The Bahnar people have a common self-name called “Bahnar”, which means “People of the mountains”.
The Bahnar people speak the Bahnar language — a language belonging to the Mon-Khmer group (Austroasiatic language family).
The ancestors of the Bahnar people lived mainly under Mang Yang Mountain, along the banks eastward of Ba River, to the plain districts bordering the mountainous districts in Binh Dinh Province. Later, due to the impact of the migration process over several periods, the Bahnar people gradually migrated westward to the Ayun and Dak Bla river basins and Kon Tum as today.
According to the survey data of 53 ethnic minorities on April 1, 2019, the total population of the Bahnar is 286,910 people; male population: 141,758 people; female population: 145,152 people; household size: 4.6 people per household; and proportion of population living in rural areas: 89.5%.
In the belief system of the Bahnar people, life manifests as a unity and is an arrangement from the hands of the gods (called yang in the Bahnar language). In particular, Bok Kei Dei and Yă Kuh Keh are the supreme god couple, who create everything and take care of people and crops. In addition, the Bahnar people worship the forest god (yang Bri), the earth god (yang The), the rock god (yang Tmo), and the mountain god (yang Kong).
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Professor K. David Harrison directly filmed the scenes for his research project. |
Languages disappearing
According to UNESCO's warning, half of the world's languages are at risk of disappearing by the end of this century. This directly threatens a huge loss of cultural knowledge and other unique knowledge systems that have been developed over centuries.
Preserving endangered languages is not only important for cultural identity, but also helps to address global challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss.
Globally, indigenous communities make up only about 5% of the world's population, but they protect up to 80% of the world's remaining biodiversity (according to the United Nations). This shows the importance of preserving not only the languages and cultures but also the indigenous knowledge of these peoples.
Because when a language disappears, humanity not only loses words, it also loses a way of seeing and understanding the world and nature.
The Bahnar language is on the verge of disappearing due to the decreasing number of people speaking this language, taking with it the historical, cultural, intellectual and environmental values of the people. On the other hand, although the Bahnar people have valuable knowledge and lessons in protecting and managing natural resources, their knowledge is often overlooked in the process of urbanisation, causing a waste of human knowledge.
Bahnar Language and Culture Preservation Project
The Bahnar Language Preservation Project was established to preserve the language and intellectual values of the Bahnar people. At the same time, it protects the Bahnar people from the risk of losing their cultural foundation and livelihood due to the pressure of urbanisation.
The project also contributes to the implementation of the national target programme on cultural revival and development, building Vietnamese people and promoting the communication of traditional cultural values, typical of the Vietnamese people to the world.
The project has received support and cooperation from the Vietnamese and international communities. More than 200 individuals (students, lecturers, community members) have directly participated in the conservation research work, including ethnology experts and international audiences.
For two years, Professor Harrison's research team went on field trips, stayed in Kon Tum, interviewed many Bahnar language experts and made documentary videos on important cultural topics such as dugout canoes, rice cultivation, medicinal plants, weaving, and cultural knowledge.
“The biggest challenge for me was learning Vietnamese and Bahnar to communicate. Fortunately, in the Bahnar community, there are many people who can speak English and French. Even when language is a barrier, they always welcome us with warmth and friendliness,” Professor Harrison happily recounted.
Recently, the research team also created a Bahnar-English dictionary and organised a photo exhibition.
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Professor K. David Harrison with students studying Bahnar culture and language. Photo: Human Act Prize |
Discussing the impact of the project, Professor Harrison affirmed that the Bahnar community can benefit from receiving greater recognition and respect from the public for their culture and language.
The Bahnar people are proud to be a part of Vietnam and are actively contributing to the cultural and environmental fields not only domestically but also internationally.
This will also promote ecotourism to the Bahnar community, while creating more opportunities for the Bahnar people to promote and introduce their culture.
In addition, they will also receive external support in preserving the language and culture, which belongs to the "Space of Gong Culture" — an intangible cultural heritage recognised by UNESCO.
Professor David Harrison has introduced the Bahnar language in many places around the world: University of Bahrain (2022), National Geographic Education Conference in Abu Dhabi (2022), National Geographic Education Conference in Phu Quoc (2022), and the Daylight Academy Annual Meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Discussing future directions, Professor Harrison said the research team plans to expand the project to other Bahnar villages and ethnic minority groups in the Central Highlands.
At VinUniversity, more and more international lecturers and students are expressing their interest in exploring Bahnar culture and the cultural diversity of Vietnam. Therefore, he and his colleagues want to create more educational opportunities about the Bahnar community.
“In addition, we also want to create conditions for students at VinUniversity to participate in cultural preservation projects. This will be a transformative experience for students: connecting and learning through immersion in a completely different culture,” concluded Professor Harrison.
