VIETNAMESE PERSONAL PRONOUNS
V. U. Nguyen
Study of the Vietnamese language has seldom paid attention to the
characteristics and origin of Vietnamese Personal Pronouns. This possibly
stemmed from continuing debate as to the origin of the Vietnamese language
itself, and the apparent lack of a reliable theoretical framework for the
etymology of Vietnamese lexicon, apart from conventional distinction between
Sino-Vietnamese words and pure Nôm vocabulary.
Recently, Nguyen [1] proposed a new approach, based on the Tree-and-Soil
model, for explaining the evolutionary formation of Vietnamese, closely in
rapport with a theory on the origin of the Vietnamese. Under the Tree-and-Soil
model, the Vietnamese language is a historical and evolutionary merger of
many languages and dialects. It has a Mon-Khmer substratum mixed with Thai
and Polynesian, superimposed and interwoven with strata of the ancient Bai
Yue (Bách Việt) groups in Southern China, being most notably ancient tongues
spoken in Yunnan, GuangXi, Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang, Hainan, and later
by those of the Hakka and Miao-Yao (Hmong-Mien) groups. And in this paper,
Vietnamese personal pronouns will be examined in some detail, using the
theory above, and at the same time, relevant results will be used to provide
feedback, and to lend further proof, to the theory.
Of all the features of Vietnamese personal pronouns, two stand out as most
characteristic, being, one, the pronouns are related to kinship terms or social
deference address system, and two, the first personal pronouns in the plural
(We / Us) involve both inclusive and exclusive forms, formatted by the use of a
plural marker (chúng / tụi / bọn). These two features, as shown in the
following, in fact share some commonality with many languages or dialects in
the region, postulated by Nguyen [2] as constitutive components of the
Vietnamese language in its evolutionary formation.
Some salient characteristics of Vietnamese personal pronouns, with reference
to their counterparts in neighboring languages and dialects, seen as constitutive
components of the language, will be examined as follows.
1. I and Me
Vietnamese words denoting the first person pronoun are plentiful: Tôi, ta, tớ,
tui, tao, mỗ, mình, miềnh, qua, …, together with a range of vocabulary taken
directly from the speaker’s own social role in the speech: Anh (elder brother),
em (younger brother), chị (elder sister), em (younger sister), chú (uncle), cô / dì
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(aunt), cháu (grand-son, grand-daughter, nephew / niece), Thầy / Cô (teacher),
Bố / Ba (Dad), Mẹ / Má (Mom), Cậu (Uncle / young man), Cô (Young lady),
Con (Son /daughter), etc. Consider the first person pronouns in singular form,
applicable to both genders, as follows.
Tôi (and Tớ): meaning ‘I / me’, frequently has declension ‘Tui’ especially in
the Southern dialect, following a rule in sound correspondence: [u] <=> [ô], as
between ‘Kung-Fu’ and Công Phu, Mandarin [Gong] and ‘Cung’ (bow),
Cantonese [Ung] and ‘Ông’ (Mister) [27], tòng and tùng (fir, subordination),
thúi and thối (smelly), etc.
Many dictionaries, particularly the early ones, such as Alexandre de Rhodes’
Annamite-Portuguese-Latin dictionary [3], often assigned ‘tôi đòi’, or ‘đầy tớ’,
or ‘tôi tớ’, meaning servant or maid, as etymons of Tôi and Tớ. This is quite
consistent with modern-day pronunciation [Toi] {儓} in the Hakka and
Cantonese dialects, meaning ‘Servant’. Mandarin pinyin for [toi] is both [tai-2]
and [dai-4], showing ‘tôi đòi’, or ‘đầy tớ’, and Mandarin [tai dai] are well
connected. In fact, ’Tớ’ has closer sound to Hakka [tsut] or [su] and Cantonese
[zeot] or [syu] written as 豎 or 卒, both meaning ‘servant’. More likely,
however, a cognate of ’Tớ’ can be found in the Hmong language as [Tub]
where ‘b’ is a rising tone marker, similar to the Vietnamese Sắc accent in ’Tớ’.
Under the Tay-Nung dialect, “Khỏi” is equivalent to ‘Tôi” with both meanings:
I/Me and Servant.
The Alexandre de Rhodes dictionary gave a remark about ‘Tớ’ being normally
used in an angry mood: ‘Tớ đã làm chi ngươi’ = I have not done anything to
you – where ‘ngươi’ refers to ‘You’ with a social or kinship rank lower than
that of the speaker, Tớ, who is in an angry mood.
Present-day Cantonese has the word [tseoi] 余, being likely a cognate of ‘Tôi’,
reserved for ‘I’ or ‘Me’ in formal speech. Its pronunciation in the Hakka and
Wu dialects is [Y] {[I]}, which is similar to the phoneme for the third person
pronoun, in Chinese as well as Vietnamese (see Table I, below). ‘Tôi’ can also
be found in the Mường dialect using an aspirated initial ‘T’, as ‘Thôi’.
Mỗ: Rarely used nowadays for the first singular personal pronoun. It could be
related to [mau] in Cantonese. Huình Tịnh Paulus Của’s dictionary [4] listed it
as 某 [mou] with meaning ‘tôi (I), min (me), tên nọ, tên kia (that person), (chỉ
trống) (some / certain)’. Mandarin sound is [mou] meaning ‘certain, some’.
Chinese compound word [mo lian] 磨 练 , with [mo] very close to [mỗ] in
sound, meaning ‘to forge (steel)’ or ‘to temper’, often ‘translated’ into
Vietnamese as ‘tôi luyện’, shows that at some time in the past ‘Mỗ’ and ‘Tôi’
were interchangeable. It is of interest to note that many word sounds re-
constructed in the 20th century gave [ma luyện] as the ‘official’ Hán-Việt (Sino-
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Vietnamese) equivalent of Chinese [mo lian], possibly unaware of the ‘relation’
between ‘Mỗ’ and ‘Tôi’. Under the topic of ‘similarities over long distance’ [2],
it can be seen also that Mỗ is close to French ‘Moi’.
Mình: In Mường and in some parts of Central Vietnam, Mình is pronounced as
[Miềnh]. In the 17th century it was [Mềnh] or [Min] [3]. Mình is close to Hakka
[mi] 微, Cantonese [mei], and English [me]. Essentially it refers to one’s own
body (thân mình) [23]. Its usage varied with time. In the Alexandre de Rhodes
dictionary [3], it was said to be used when the speaker is of a higher social or
kinship rank.
In modern usage, it seems Mình is used among people of close relationship.
Sometimes it can be used as the second personal pronoun: Mình ơi, mình ở đâu
= Darling, where are you?
Etymologically also, Mình is related to [Ming] and [*minqu] in Mon-Khmer.
Ta (and Tao): Very likely both ‘Ta’ and ‘Tao’ have strong link with the Mon-
Khmer variety. Burmese words for ‘I / me’ are [Tjano] and [Tjama] depending
on the gender of the speaker. [Tja] in [Tjano] and [Tjama] is very close to
Vietnamese ‘Ta’. The main Champa word for the first person pronoun is
[Tahlă’]. Likewise, ‘Ta’ has a straight sound correspondence with [Tsa] 咱in
Hakka, and [Zaa] in Cantonese, [Sa] 洒in Fujian, and [Saa] in Cantonese [5],
all meaning ‘I’ or ‘me’. In a sub-dialect of Cantonese, [Zaa] 咱 can be
pronounced as [gau] which corresponds to the Tay-Nung sound for ‘Ta’ or
‘Tao’: [Câu], Boong Câu = Bọn Tao (we /us).
According to Hayes [6], ‘tao’ is closely related to Mon-Khmer [saqu]. It is also
possible that ‘Tao’ is a derivationally combined sound between ‘Ta’ (or Tôi)
and Polynesian word ‘Au’ for ‘I / me’ (see Table I).
Qua: ‘Qua’ is perhaps the least understood pronoun in Vietnamese, as it is
often mistaken as a peculiar word of the Southern dialect. In fact it has many
cognates separated over long distance. First, the Mường dialect has similar
word ‘Qua’ or ‘Wa’ for the first personal pronouns ‘I / We’, though more
frequently used for ‘We / us’. Similarly, [gua] is a Fujian / Hainan word for ‘I /
Me’. The Japanese language seems to combine both ‘Wa’ and ‘Ta’ into one
word for the first person pronoun: Watashi. And ‘Qua’ has a number of
cognates in Mon-Khmer dialects [6]: *aku, *nqua, *iqua, *inquan, etc.
One relatively popular first person pronoun in Vietnamese is ‘Anh’ normally
reserved for speaker being an elder brother or older male, seems to be
cognately related to [?ənh] or [ănh] or [?inh] in Mon-Khmer, meaning ‘I / me’,
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[enh] in Mường, and ‘Ani’ in Japanese, and from afar, ‘aîné’ in French.
In Mường, the most popular word for ‘I / Me’ is [Ho], which has [Hou] 予in
Fujian, [Hây] in Tày-Nùng as cognates. Mường [Ho] also has similar sound to
Cantonese [o] which is a sub-dialect pronunciation of [ngo] 我, being the
‘official’ Chinese word [Wo] for ‘I / me’ [15]. ‘O’ in Vietnamese with meaning
‘bà cô’ (aunt) could be an innovation related to Cantonese [o] above.
Pronoun for the interrogative ‘AI’, equivalent to ‘Who’ in English, was
discussed in [1] & [2]. Basically, ‘Ai’ has an alternative pronunciation [Ngai],
in the Hakka dialect, meaning ‘I / me’, having sound similarity to many other
languages in the region: [AI] in the Mạ ethnic group in Central Vietnam, and
the Kha group along the Laos-Vietnam border, [Atashi] in Japanese (optional
for female), [Aku] in the Malay language, [Au] in the Polynesian languages:
Maori, Tahiti and Fiji. The alternative [Ngai] in Hakka, appears to undergo a
metaphorical shift to the second pronoun ‘You’ attaching ‘respect’, like ‘Your
Excellency’ in English. Similar sound to [Ngai] in a good number of dialects
including Mường, is equivalent to ‘Người’, used to denote ‘person’ or ‘human
being’ [19].
2. You
The second person pronouns in Vietnamese illustrate strong cultural influence
in kinship and social deference address system, quite similar to the Mon-Khmer
and many other languages in the region. Like the first person pronoun ‘I / me’,
the second pronoun, can take on any noun describing a person’s kinship or
social role with respect to the speaker, as mentioned above: Anh (elder brother),
Em (younger brother/ sister), Ông (Mister), Bà (Madam), Cô(Aunt), Chú
(Uncle), ông Nội (paternal grandpa), bà Ngoại (maternal grandma) [8], etc.
Gilbert and Hang [7], showed a total of 17 different words used for ‘You’ in the
Khmer language, depending on kinship and social standing. Among the range
of lexicon for ‘You’, [bpaa] (‘Cha’ in Vietnamese) and [bpuu] (‘Chú’) showed
striking similarity with Vietnamese counterparts, in meaning as well as in
metaphorology [2]. [Bpaa] means Father (Cha), and [Bpuu] (Chú) means
‘Uncle’ in the wide sense, meaning a male (related or not) nearly as old as the
speaker’s father.
Father’s elder brother in Vietnamese is called ‘Bác’, which could be
metaphorically generated by ‘Ba’ (father). The same can be said between Cha
(father) and Chú (uncle: father’s younger brother), or [Bpaa] and [Bpuu] in
Khmer, respectively. Note that both Bác (Uncle: father’s elder brother) and
Cậu (maternal brother) have almost identical cognates in Cantonese: [Baak]
and [Kau], whereas ‘Chú’ (father’s younger brother) appears to be a combined
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sound of Cambodian [Bpuu], Fujian [chek] and Mandarin [shu] 叔 (‘Thúc’ in
Sino-Vietnamese, and [suk] in Cantonese and Hakka). Chú’s wife is called
‘Thím’ being sound correspondence of Hakka [tsim] and Minnan [chim] 嬸.
‘Cô’ (father’s sister) also has etymon in Wu [ku] or Fujian [kou] {姑}, while
‘Dì’ (mother’s sister) was sourced from Mandarin, Hakka, Cantonese [yi] 姨,
and Fujian [I]. Maternal brother’s wife, ‘Mợ’, has cognate in [kau-mou] [26].
Vietnamese kinship and social deference address forms for the second personal
pronouns also bear some resemblance with pronouns in Cantonese as well as
Mường. One exception is Cantonese [Nei] (Ni) or Mường [Da], widely used as
second personal pronoun, for anybody, from younger to older, lower to higher
social rank: Da ti no? Mày đi đâu: Where are you going? Da ăn chi? Anh ăn
gì? [9]: What would you eat?. ‘Da’ however, may indicate some shift in lexical
role when considering Hakka [za] for first [24] and third person pronoun, and
Vietnamese [ya] for third personal pronoun (See Table I). Like [nong] 儂 in
Chinese for ‘I / me’, or ‘he /she’, and ‘You’ in the Shanghai / Wu dialects, [Da]
or [za] or [ya] shift among the first, second, and third personal pronoun can be
ascribed to some kind of transfer in metaphorical field, often found in
languages during formative stage, involving intensive mixing of dialects or
languages of different ethnic groups [10].
Perhaps the most common forms of address for “You”, incorporating respect, in
Vietnamese are “Ông” (Mister) and Bà (Madam/ Missus / Mrs). Ông, with two
common meanings: Mister and Grandpa, has cognates in Thai [Ong] for
addressing holy personage, king, and monk, and in Champa [Ông]. Similarly
for [Ù] in Burmese. Bà, on the other hand, is likely derived from, or related to a
range of lexicon in the region referring to Mother, elderly lady, or address term
with respect for a female, such as [iBu] (Indonesian), [poo ying] Thai, [Ba]
Burmese, [Bawng] Khmer, and a large number of Southern Chinese dialects
with sound around [Pu] or [Bu], or most commonly, [Bo] (i.e. [lao bo] for
Wife).
Ancient Vietnamese had a somewhat ‘gender-neutral’ pronoun [Bạu] [3] which
has long declined into ‘bậu bạn’ or simply ‘bạn’, literally meaning ‘friend’,
nowadays used to address friend or acquaintance, not much older or younger.
Bạn in fact is related to Khmer [bouung], and Cantonese [pang] 朋. A
compound word for ‘You’ is ‘anh em’ (as in ‘người anh em’), being a direct
equivalent of Chinese [xiong di] (huynh đệ), literally: older-or-younger brother
[8]. Another ‘You’-word, used to call a person of ‘lower’ social rank is ‘Mày’
which could be linked with ‘Bây’ (Bay in [3]), as both initial [M] and [B] are
bilabial. Alexandre de Rhodes’ dictionary [3] remarked that ‘Bay’ is not as
preferable as ‘Anh em’. ‘Mày’ is very close to ‘Mi’, which could be another
metaphorical transfer from Hakka [Mi] or Vietnamese [Min / Mình] denoting
the first person ‘Me’ (see Table I).
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