In general, a Vietnamese pronoun can serve as a noun phrase. In Vietnamese, a pronoun usually connotes a degree of family relationship or kinship. In polite speech, the aspect of 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.
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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 categorized into two classes depending on whether they can be preceded by the plural marker chúng or các. 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.
The first person tôi is the only pronoun that can be used in polite speech. The second person ta is often used when talking to oneself as in a soliloquy, but also indicates a higher status of the speaker (such as that of a high official, etc.). The other superior-to-inferior forms in the first and second persons (tao, mày, mi, bay) are commonly used in familiar social contexts, such as among family members (e.g. older sister to younger sister, etc.); these forms are otherwise considered impolite. The third person form nó (used to refer to animals, children, and scorned adults, such as criminals) is considerably less arrogant than the second person forms tao, mày, mi, bay. The pronoun mình is used only in intimate relationships, such as between husband and wife.
The pronominal forms in the table above can be modified with chúng as in chúng mày, chúng nó. There is an exclusive/inclusive plural distinction in the first person: chúng tôi and chúng tao are exclusive (i.e., me and them but not you), chúng ta and chúng mình are inclusive (i.e., you and me). Some of the forms (ta, mình, bay) can be used to refer to a plural referent, resulting in pairs with overlapping reference (e.g., both ta and chúng ta mean "inclusive we").
The other class of pronouns are known as "absolute" pronouns (Thompson 1965). These cannot be modified with the pluralizer chúng. Many of these forms are literary and archaic, particularly in the first and second person.
Unlike the first type of pronoun, these absolute third person forms (y, hắn, va) refer only to animate referents (typically people). The form y can be preceded by the pluralizer in southern dialects in which case it is more respectful than nó. The absolute pronoun người ta has a wider range of reference as "they, people in general, (generic) one, we, someone".
Kinship terms
Kinship terms are the most popular ways to refer to oneself and others. Anyone can be referred to using kinship terms, not just people who are related. It is quite common, for example, for lovers to call one other anh ("big brother") and em ("little sibling"). (While this can sound incestuous in Western languages, it parallels the pet names in other East Asian languages, whose speakers are just as nonplussed by English's romantic use of "daddy" and "mama".) The Vietnamese kinship terms are quite complicated. While there is some flexibility as to which kinship terms should be used for people not related to the speaker, there is often only one term to use for people related by blood or marriage, for up to three generations. Some of the kinship terms are:
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 corresponding 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).
Singular kinship terms can be pluralized using the plural marker các, as in các anh. When speaking to an audience in a formal context, kinship terms are often strung together to cover common individual relationships: các anh chị em refers to an audience of roughly the same age, while các ông bà anh chị em, sometimes abbreviated ÔBACE, refers to an audience of all ages.
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 "lad").
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 cannot address 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:
Pairs
With the exception of tôi, pronouns typically 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.