HERITAGE LANGUAGE IN NGUYỄN THỤY ĐAN’S IN ILLO TEMPORE (2024)

Abstract

This article analyzes the poetry collection in illo tempore (Thanh Niên Publishing House, 2024) by Nguyễn Thụy Đan as case study from the perspective of heritage language and cultural connection. It applies a qualitative approach combining close reading with intertextual analysis, grounded in heritage language theory, drawing on the poetry collection itself as the primary source together with several author interviews and secondary critical materials. The article identifies several features of the collection: a dense presence of Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary, word forms bearing the imprint of early twentieth-century Vietnamese, echoes of the Thơ Mới [New Poetry] movement, and multilingual combination. These features suggest that the collection constitutes an intersection between classical East Asian poetry and modern verse. It can be read as a dual project of preservation: preserving both the communal memory of overseas Vietnamese and a layer of poetic language that is gradually receding into the past. in illo tempore is therefore not merely a poetry collection but may be regarded as a heritage of fossilized linguistic layers belonging to the diasporic community.