The Name of T'ang Haywen

The artistic signature of T'ang Haywen combines the Roman letters “ T'ang ” with the Chinese characters 海 (Hai - meaning "the sea" ) and 文 (Wen - meaning "literature"). While T'ang was known to his family and closest friends as "T'ang" — pronounced like the name of the Tang (唐) dynasty, a golden age in Chinese history — this association was not rooted in reality. For overe two decades of research, we have found no evidence to support claims, whether romanticized or otherwise, linking his name to the Tang dynasty.

Various sources indicate that the Vietnamese pronunciation of the Chinese character 曾 (Zeng) can vary — rendered as Tang, Tsang, Tăng, or Tseng — due to historical and regional linguistic evolutions. To clarify this, we extensively sought the most reliable academic and bibliographical sources documenting these pronunciation nuances across China's provinces and the surrounding countries.

In November 2018, we acquired a rare copy of Index des Caractères Chinois, published in 1886, which meticulously records the regional pronunciations of Chinese characters in Vietnamese, Mandarin, and Cantonese. This invaluable resource has deepened our understanding of the linguistic context surrounding T'ang Haywen's name.

The Historical Significance of Index des Caractères Chinois

This Index is likely one of the earliest Western academic source on this subject, as France's colonization of Vietnam's current territories was only completed after 1890. It is improbable that another index of this kind, intended for Westerners, could have been produced before 1886. Intriguingly, this copy bears the handwritten mark of Léopold de Saussure (1866–1925), a scientist, lieutenant in the French navy, and younger brother of the renowned linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913).

The Index des Caractères Chinois is an autograph version of linguist and Sinologist Samuel Wells Williams' dictionary, augmented with Annamite Mandarin, Cantonese, and Chinese Mandarin pronunciations, as well as Mandarin pronunciations from a small dictionary published by the Jesuits of Shanghai. Occasionally, regional Annamite pronunciations are also included.

As shown in the image below, the Chinese character 曾 (Zeng) may have five different pronunciations in Vietnam, with the most frequent being romanized as "Tăng." The small accent above the "a" provides a phonetic indication. T'ang chose to add an apostrophe between the "T" and the "a" in his romanized name to maintain a link to the authentic Chinese character of his name.

It is now well-established that Zeng Tianfu (曾天福), born in China in 1927, emigrated to Vietnam in 1937, where the phonetics of his family name "Zeng" evolved first into "Tseng" and then into "T'ang." In Vietnam, he also adopted the pen name "Hai-Wen" or "Hai-Woon" (海文). After emigrating to France in 1948, he became a painter under the name T'ang Haywen (曾海文).

The spelling "Haywen," with a "y" instead of the pinyin "Hai-Wen" with an "i," was chosen to provide French readers, unfamiliar with pinyin pronunciation, a clearer phonetic guide.

The Index des Caractères Chinois, once owned by Léopold de Saussure, is now a treasured part of the T'ang Haywen Archives.