Vietnamese pronouns

Vietnamese pronouns [In Vietnamese, "đại từ xưng hô" "personal substitutes".] can act as substitutions for noun phrase. While true pronouns exist in Vietnamese, most are rarely used in polite speech. For most cases, kinship terminology is used when referring to oneself, the audience, or a third party. These terms might differ slightly in different regions. Many of them are derived from Chinese loanwords, but have acquired the additional grammatical function of being pronouns over the years.

Vietnamese terms of reference can reveal the social relationship between the speaker and the person being referred to, differences in age, and even the attitude of the speaker toward that person. Thus a speaker must carefully assess these factors to decide the appropriate term. It's not unusual for strangers to ask each other about age when they first meet, in order to establish the proper terms of address to use.

True pronouns

True pronouns are categoried into two classes depending on whether they can be preceded by the plural marker "chúng". Like other Asian pronominal systems, Vietnamese pronouns indicate the social status between speakers and other persons in the discourse in addition to grammatical person and number.

The table below shows the first class of pronouns that can be preceded by pluralizer.

Kinship terms are "inherited" from parents if it is unclear what to refer to someone. For example, two cousins whose mothers are sisters will call each other using the kinship terms appropriate for siblings: the one whose mother is younger will have a lower rank ("em") than the one whose mother is older ("chị, anh") regardless of their ages. Sometimes, old people assume the rank of their children in referring to others (for example, in the case of calling a slightly younger woman "cô" or a younger man "chú") . Spouses have equal rank in each respective side. If two people are related to each other in more than one way (for example, by marriage), the rank of the closest relationship is used. This hierarchy might lead to awkward situations where an older person refers to a younger person using a term usually used for older people, such as "ông". In Vietnamese there is a proverb: "Bé bằng củ khoai, cứ vai mà gọi" (Small as a potato, but call by rank).

Non-kinship terms used as pronouns

In Vietnamese, virtually any noun used for a person can be used as a pronoun. These terms usually don't serve multiple roles like kinship terms (i.e. the term has only one grammatical person meaning). Words such as "doctor", "teacher", "owner", etc. can be used as a second-person personal pronoun when necessary. When referring to themselves, Vietnamese speakers, like speakers of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean languages, tend to deprecate their position while elevating the audience. While many of these terms are now obsolete, some remain in widespread usage. The most prominent of these words is "tôi", literally meaning "servant". It is used as a fairly neutral term for "I" (not very friendly, nor very formal). "Tớ", also meaning "servant", is also popular among young people to refer to themselves with close friends (used in conjunction with "cậu" for "you").

Pronouns that elevate the audience still in use include "quý khách" (valued customer), "quý vị" (valued higher being). "Bạn" (friend) is also popular among young people to call each other.

Vietnamese speakers also refer to themselves and others by name where it would be strange if used in English, eliminating the need for personal pronouns altogether. For example, consider the following conversation::John: "Mary đang làm gì vậy?":Mary: "Mary đang gọi Joe. John có biết Joe ở đâu không?":John: "Không, John không biết Joe ở đâu hết."

Directly translated into English, the conversation would run thus::John: "What is Mary doing?":Mary: "Mary is calling Joe. Does John know where Joe is?":John: "No, John doesn't know where Joe is."A normal translation of the conversation into English would be::John: "What are you doing?":Mary: "I am calling Joe. Do you know where he is?":John: "No, I don't know where he is." While always referring to oneself or the audience by name would be considered strange in English, in Vietnamese it is considered friendly, and is the preferred way to converse among close friends (however, in a kinship context, people with a lower rank can not refer to their superiors by name).

Obsolete pronouns

Some pronouns are no longer commonly used, such as the royal we "trẫm". Many of them are no longer applicable because they refer to royalties, and Vietnam is no longer a monarchy. Some archaic pronouns include:

*"trẫm" - used by the monarch to refer to him or herself
*"khanh" - used by the monarch to address a favored subject
*"bệ hạ" - used by subjects when addressing the monarch
*"thị" - she

Pairs

Some pronouns go hand-in-hand with another: when one is used to refer to the speaker, the other must be used to refer to the audience.

ee also

*Vietnamese alphabet
*Vietnamese language
*Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary

Notes

References

*Alves, Mark J. "Grammatical Sino-Vietnamese Vocabulary" (unpublished). [http://www.geocities.com/malves98/Alves_Grammatical_SinoVietnamese_Vocabulary_ARTICLE.pdf PDF]
*Alves, Mark J (1997). "Problems in the European Linguistic Analyses of Southeast Asian Languages". "Exploratios in Southeast Asian Studies". [http://www.hawaii.edu/cseas/pubs/explore/v1/v1n1-art1.html PDF]
*Ngo, Thanh. " [http://accurapid.com/journal/38viet.htm Translation of Vietnamese Terms of Address and Reference] ". "Translation Journal", 2006.

External links

* [http://www.vny2k.net/vny2k/FrankTrinh_TheFullnessOfTime.htm In the Fullness of Time]
* [http://www.educ.utas.edu.au/users/tle/JOURNAL/Articles/Ho/Ho.html Code-Switching of Personal Pronouns in Vietnamese-English bilingual speakers]