After decades of hard work, Mr. Ninh became an Excellent Artist and a “red address” for many people to come and learn Thai. He is also considered the “soul keeper” for the Thai language in Thanh Hoa to develop more and more.
Fate with Thai letters
Visiting the family of Mr. Ha Nam Ninh (75 years old, in Canh Nang town, Ba Thuoc district, Thanh Hoa province) in the days leading up to the Lunar New Year of At Ty 2025, in a small stilt house nestled on the banks of the Ma River, Mr. Ninh is diligently turning over precious pages of documents, compiling new lesson plans to prepare for Thai language classes in the upcoming new year.
Thanks to the appointment, as soon as he saw us arrive, Mr. Ninh greeted us warmly: “You guys are here, come in… come in!”. Stopping his writing, Mr. Ninh made tea (a type of tea made from the peel of the stinking tangerine) to invite the guests. He said: This tea is not available everywhere, it is very good for health, especially good for treating coughs and colds in winter.
Knowing that we came to hear about the story and the process of "preserving the soul" of Thai script, Mr. Ninh shared while drinking tea. He was born and raised in Muong Khoong (a large Muong of the ancient Thai people), now Ba Thuoc district, Thanh Hoa province. From a young age, his parents taught him to speak Thai, to understand the culture and customs of his people. "Back then, everyone in the family, in the village and in the Muong communicated and talked to each other in Thai. However, most of them could not read or write Thai," Mr. Ninh recalled.
As time passed, his family took care of his education and he grew up, Mr. Ninh became a teacher, then held many positions such as an education manager, Vice Chairman of the People's Committee in charge of culture of the district and Vice Chairman of the Fatherland Front of Ba Thuoc district. It was also during his time working in the education sector in the district that he "fell in love" with Thai script.
"I will never forget that meeting. In 1985, during a provincial meeting, I met Mr. Ha Van Ban - then Vice Chairman of the province, later Chairman of the Thanh Hoa Provincial People's Committee - a very talented Thai culturalist. Here, Mr. Ban asked me if I knew Thai, and I immediately answered no. Then he told me that being Thai and not knowing Thai was really unworthy. Then he wrote me a table of the Thai alphabet to bring home to study. It can be said that after that meeting, the words and the table of alphabet that he gave me became a great impetus and motivation for my later days of searching and researching Thai," Mr. Ninh recalled.
According to Mr. Ninh, after meeting his teacher (Mr. Ha Van Ban), he returned home and began to research, collect and read many valuable documents of the Thai people. By 1993, he was able to read and write Thai almost fluently, then wrote letters to his teacher entirely in Thai, with clear syntax and style. Since then, wherever there were events or seminars on Thai, he participated, first to learn, then to share what he knew about Thai.
After nearly 40 years of "being in love", up to now he has collected hundreds of valuable documents about traditional festivals, ancient literary works, ancient scripts, customs and practices of the Thai people. In his current collection, Mr. Ninh owns many valuable books and documents written in Thai such as: "The Story of the Road to Heaven" written during the reign of King Le Chieu Tong (more than 500 years ago); "The Poetry of Kham Panh"; "Khun Lu - Nang Ua"; "Song Chu Son Sao"; "Pha-dua Love Story"... These works are all valuable, vividly reflecting the cultural and spiritual life of the Thai people.
Teaching Thai
According to Mr. Ha Nam Ninh, after reading and writing Thai fluently, he continued to explore, research and compile a number of documents on Thai such as: Thanh Hoa Ancient Thai Script; Vietnamese Thai Script Teaching Set in Thanh Hoa, Thai Ethnic Language Teaching Materials... In addition, he collected and translated into common language many ancient books of the Thai people, with the desire to widely teach people how to read and write.
“The ancient Thai script is pure and contains many expressive, smooth, and figurative forms of expression. Therefore, in order to have a lesson plan for students, I always have to think and find the most effective teaching method. Focus on preparing lessons that are close and practical to daily life, thereby helping students easily access, absorb, and quickly communicate,” said Mr. Ninh.
When he was fully equipped, in addition to his working hours, he started opening free Thai language classes for officials and people in the area. After many years of opening free classes, achieving many achievements in teaching, in 2006, Thanh Hoa province had a policy to encourage learning Thai (at this time, Mr. Ninh had retired and was the Vice President of the Ba Thuoc District Education Promotion Association).
So, he immediately decided to open a Thai class right at the district headquarters and invited leaders from the District Party Committee, District People's Committee, and District Police to experience and participate in the class. The result was unexpected, after many days of class, everyone seemed interested, listened attentively, and learned more about Thai.
In response to the meaningful work of teacher Ninh in researching and teaching Thai, in 2006, the Department of Education and Training of Thanh Hoa and the Department of Home Affairs of Thanh Hoa granted him a certificate of Thai teaching. Then, in 2007, to create a premise for implementing the project of teaching Thai in the province, the Department of Education and Training of Thanh Hoa province invited teacher Ninh to teach Thai to a number of teachers of Hong Duc University.
“From 2007 to 2012, every summer, Mr. Pham Ba Thuong (in Quan Son district) and I taught Thai language to 2 classes, with about 100 students participating, all of whom were teachers and Thai ethnic people working in mountainous districts. This program was organized by the Department of Education and Training of Thanh Hoa province,” said Mr. Ninh.
According to Mr. Ninh, after decades of researching and teaching Thai script to thousands of people in Thanh Hoa province, in 2015, he was honored to be awarded the title of Meritorious Artisan by the President for his outstanding achievements in preserving and promoting the nation's cultural heritage, contributing to the cause of building and protecting socialism and defending the Fatherland.
"The day I was awarded the title of Meritorious Artisan by the State, I was so happy that I cried tears of joy. Because this is not only the result of many years of effort, but also my own honor, the pride of my family, clan, and people. This is also the motivation for me to try harder, to preserve and develop Thanh Hoa Thai script widely, to reach more people."
Sharing his plans for the future, Mr. Ha Nam Ninh said that, even though he has reached a rare age, he is still passionate about Thai script and does not allow himself to rest. Mr. Ninh said that with ancient Thai script, the basic characters are the same in all regions and do not have tone marks. However, due to time and geographical factors, the strokes of the script in each region are now slightly different.
“Regarding the Thai script in Thanh Hoa, in 2022, the Thanh Hoa Provincial People's Committee assigned the Provincial Ethnology Association to establish a compilation team, and I was then selected as the Team Leader. Up to now, after 3 years of implementation, through 2 seminars, basically everyone agreed to add tone marks to the alphabet. The remaining task is to wait for the Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee to issue a Decision to recognize the above script to preserve and promote its value for future generations" - Meritorious Artisan Ha Nam Ninh said.
(Posted in the Special Publication of Labor North Central Spring At Ty)
