Hoa Vang District in Da Nang city has preserved its name for over 400 years.

After sharing portions of its fertile land to establish new administrative units, Hoa Vang District has proudly retained its historic name. Photo: HUYNH VAN TRUYEN

According to Dai Nam Thuc Luc (Chronicles of Dai Nam), in 1604, Lord Nguyen Hoang separated Dien Ban District from Trieu Phong Prefecture in Thuan Hoa and incorporated it into Quang Nam. At the same time, Dien Ban was elevated to the status of a prefecture, with subordinate administrative units established under Dien Ban Prefecture, including the districts of Hoa Vang, Tan Phuc, An Nong, Dien Khanh, and Phu Chau.

A journey of sharing

Based on old geographical records, it is evident that the territorial boundaries of Hoa Vang District from its establishment until the late Nguyen Dynasty closely correspond to the present-day city of Da Nang. The Dong Khanh Dia Du Chi (Geographical Records of Dong Khanh), compiled in the late 19^th century, notes that Hoa Vang District comprised seven administrative units including Hoa An Thuong, Phuoc Tuong Thuong, Duc Hoa Thuong, An Chau Thuong, Phu Khe, Thanh Chau, and Binh Thai Ha.

Starting from the year 1888, the communes of Hai Chau, Phuoc Ninh, Thach Thang, Nam Duong, and Nai Hien Tay, parts of Binh Thai Ha, were separated from Hoa Vang District and designated as a concession area under French colonial administration. Later, in 1901, additional communes and villages from Binh Thai Ha —including Xuan Dan, Thac Gian, Xuan Hoa, Lien Tri, as well as the villages of An Khe and Thanh Khe—were also detached and incorporated into the concession area. This marked the first territorial division of Hoa Vang District, paving the way for the formation of the concession city of Tourane, which constitutes the central area of present-day Da Nang.

During the same period, Hoa Vang District also "shared" several communes and villages in its southwestern region, which were combined with portions of land from Dien Phuoc and Que Son districts to establish Dai Loc District in 1900.

The boundaries of Hoa Vang District remained relatively stable throughout the 20^th century until 1997, when the centrally governed administrative unit of Da Nang City was established. This new city encompassed the territory of Da Nang City and Hoa Vang District from Quang Nam Province at the time. To accommodate the development of the newly formed city, the boundaries of Hoa Vang District were once again "shared" to create two new districts: Lien Chieu and Ngu Hanh Son. In 2005, Hoa Vang continued to "cede" its capital in Cam Le, along with several neighboring communes, to establish the new Cam Le District. Despite sharing portions of its fertile land to give rise to these new administrative units, Hoa Vang District has preserved its longstanding name and relocated its administrative center to Tuy Loan, where it remains today.

Preserving the dialectal mark

Some believe that the name Hoa Vang evolved from its older form, Hoa Vinh. However, in historical Chinese-character documents, the name of this district has always been written as 和榮 (rendered as Hoa Vinh in Sino-Vietnamese pronunciation). Yet, locals have consistently pronounced it as "Hoa Vang". This deviation from the Sino-Vietnamese pronunciation often occurs due to taboo avoidance or the absence of corresponding sounds in the local dialect. However, upon reviewing the list of tabooed words in Vietnam, the word 榮 (Vinh) does not appear among the words requiring altered writing or pronunciation. Furthermore, in Quang Nam, locals can pronounce "vinh" correctly in phrases like quang vinh (glory) or vinh du (honor), without altering it to "quang vang" or "vang du".

Thus, the name Hoa Vinh (和榮) did not come first; then due to taboo avoidance or because the local people could not pronounce it correctly, it became Hoa Vang. Instead, we propose the reverse process. This land likely had an original name in the local dialect, phonetically similar to "vang". Later, scholars versed in classical Chinese assigned a new name using Chinese characters that were both aesthetically meaningful and phonetically close to the original. They chose the characters 和榮 to designate this region. This case resembles that of the village Ram (palei Ram) in Ninh Thuan, which was renamed Van Lam in Chinese characters. This naming retained the sound and meaning of the Cham word "Ram" while adding the character Van (文), meaning "beautiful" or "illustrious", to enhance its connotation.

Upon searching in the Cham-French dictionary by Aymonier and Cabaton (published in Paris in 1906), we encountered the Cham word lavan, which is translated into French as marécage, meaning "swamp". In the Malay-English dictionary by Crawfurd (published in London in 1852), the word Rawa is translated as "a morass" which also means "swamp". Furthermore, in the book O Chau Can Luc by Duong Van An (compiled in 1555), there are place names such as Kim Ne and Yen Ne, which belong to the present-day Hoa Vang district. The character Neis written as 泥, meaning "mud" or "soil". Additionally, in O Chau Can Luc, it is written that "Hoa Khue, Cam Le built wooden piles to prevent crocodiles."

This information evokes images of the ancient Hoa Vang region, which was characterized by swamps and mudflats. It is possible that during the Champa period, the area was named "Lavan" or "Ravan", and this local pronunciation was preserved by Chinese scholars in the new Han character name "Hoa Vinh". Since there was no Chinese character with the same pronunciation as "Vang", the character 榮 (Vinh) was used to represent the sound "Vang". (In Nom script, the word "vang" was also written by combining the character 榮 with the "mouth" radical, forming 㘇.) It can be said that, although the area was given the beautiful name "Hoa Vinh", the locals still preferred to pronounce it as "Hoa Vang" in their own way. Looking across Hai Van Pass, a coastal region named "Phu Vinh" in Chinese characters also underwent the pressure of local pronunciation, changing to "Phu Vang". Could this be the trace of an ancient "Hoa" dialect in the remote O Ly region?

Reporting by VO VAN THANG

Former Director of Danang Museum of Cham Sculpture

Translating by HONG VAN