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Productive life: Nguyen Tai Can. |
HA NOI — One of Viet Nam's leading linguists, Professor Nguyen Tai Can, died on Friday in Moscow at the age of 86 after a prolonged illness, his family said.
Can founded the linguistics department at the then Ha Noi University, now Ha Noi National University.
Can was born on May 2, 1926, in Thanh Chuong District of the central province of Nghe An.
He started teaching in the early 1950s in the central region and during 1955-60 he was assigned by the Vietnamese ministry of education to be the first Vietnamese linguistic expert at the former Soviet Union's Leningrad University. In 1960 he was the first Vietnamese to complete an MA and PhD in the Soviet Union.
In 1980 he was promoted to professor at the Ha Noi National University. Can was then invited to teach at the University of Paris 7 in 1982, 1988-1990 and at the Cornell University in the US in 1991.In 2000, he was awarded the Ho Chi Minh Prize for his linguistic works, including the grammar and history of the Vietnamese language. He was awarded the People's Teacher title in 2008.
In recent years, he moved to Russia with his Russian wife. — VNS