Tài liệu VIETNAMESE PERSONAL PRONOUNS docx

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 t

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

(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-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’,

[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

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)

EM, meaning ‘younger male / female’, ‘younger brother / sister’ [21], has close

sound correspondence with Mường ‘Ủn’, and Japanese ‘Imoto’ (younger

sister) ‘Em’ could also be metaphorically related to ‘Enh’ (Mường) denoting

‘elder male’, or [?ənh] in Mon-Khmer In meaning, ‘Em’ was derived from

‘baby’ (em bé) or ‘young’, corresponding to Thai word [awn] ‘Em’ also has a

cognate in Minnan (Fujian) [eN], Sino-Japanese [ei], and Mandarin [er] [5]

[11] [25] Chị, elder female or sister, has etymons in [*tsi] or [*ci(q)] or [*ji(q)]

in Mon-Khmer [6], and [tsi] in Wu, [chia] or [che] in Minnan (Fujian) [5]

3 He, She, Him, Her, and It

The third singular personal pronoun ‘He, She, Him, Her and It’ illustrates the contributory feature of different dialects or languages in the formation of Vietnamese

As noted by Nguyen [2], wide range of thesaurus of a certain word, or presence

of compound words in a mono-syllabic language like Vietnamese, may constitute strong manifestation of ethnic and tongue mixing in the past Illustrative examples about wide range of thesaurus include verbs like: ‘To throw’ and ‘To carry’ ‘To throw’ or ‘to cast’ can be translated into at least 8

different Vietnamese verbs: Ném, Liệng, Quăng, Chọi, Đôi, Thảy, Vứt, Phóng,

…each shown to be linked with a different language or dialect in the region [2]

‘To carry’ or ‘to bring’, when carried over to Vietnamese, will involve no less

than 30 different translations: ẵm, bồng, bế, mang, đem, chở, đèo, tải, vác,

khuân, khiêng, xách, kèm, chuyển-vận, chuyên-chở, đeo, cầm, dẫn, đái (đới), đảm, công kênh, ôm, cõng, quảy, gánh, bê, độ, cáng-đáng, tha, bưng, mang, đội, kẹp, etc., which could be grouped into different linguistic sources

Compound words are quite common, combining 2 separate words of the same

meaning, each sourced from different tongues: đường xá, chín muồi, thân thể,

thẳng tắp, chia sẻ, tâm địa, chậm trễ, etc For illustration, consider đường xá

(road) and chín muồi (ripe) In đường xá, the first word (đường) was derived from Cantonese [dou] and [dung], whilst the second (xá) has cognate in Fijian [sala] and Champa [salan] Chín in chín muồi (ripe) could be a combined sound

of Champa [drih], Cantonese [tsing], and Minnan (Fujian) [chheN] The latter two [tsing] and [chheN] however seemed to involve a metaphorical transfer or

shift in meaning, from ‘green’ (unripe) Muồi on the other hand likely came

from Burmese [hmède] and Tongan [momoho], also interestingly related to French ‘mûr’, and Tamil [mudirnda]

The feature of contributory lexicon from different dialects or tongues, as described above, is reflected extensively in the third personal pronouns

Vietnamese third personal pronoun in general does not have gender distinction,

though more words, by habit, are used to denote the male: Hắn, kẻ, gã, y, va

(ya) However, when coupled with the demonstrative ‘this’ or ‘that’, the noun

used will assign gender to the third personal pronoun For example: Ông kia (that man), Cô ấy (that young lady), Bà nầy (this lady), or Anh nọ (that young man) in which kia, ấy, nầy and nọ, are demonstratives

The most common Vietnamese singular third ‘personal’ pronoun is perhaps:

Nó, applicable to both genders, as well as animals, birds, and fish

Nó has cognates in Mường [Nả], Hmong [Nws] {pronounced as [Neu]},

Tongan [Ne], and [Nong] in Chinese, which can be ‘I / me’ or ‘He / she / him / her’, or ‘you’ in the Shanghai dialect The P’u-Noi, an ethnic minority living near the Vietnam-Laos border, also denote ‘You’ by [No] [2], similar to

Shanghai [Nong], and identical to Vietnamese ‘Nó’ for the third person.

Hắn may involve a sense of dislike or derision ‘Hắn’ could come from

Cantonese [Hang] 牼 , meaning ‘a man’ [Hang] has close connection with

some dialect pronunciation in Vietnam of ‘Hắn‘ as [Héng] Hắn is also very

close to Cantonese [Heoi] which is also related to the third person pronoun in

the plural ‘Họ’ The Mường on the other hand use ‘Ho’ (without the

Nặng-Tone) [16] as the first personal pronoun ‘I / me’ A popular Mường pronoun for the third person is ‘Lũ’, being shifted to describe ‘They / them’ in Vietnamese,

equivalent to ‘Bọn / Chúng’ ‘Lũ’ also has sound correspondence with the Wu

pronoun 娌 for ‘He /She’, pronounced in Cantonese as [lei] [5] Over long distance (see [1]), ‘Lũ’ evokes a similar sound in French: ‘lui’, whereas ‘Y’

(see below) and Hắn (or Cantonese [heoi]), have similarity with French ‘Il’ and

English ‘He / Him’

Kẻ and Gã have similar sound correspondence [Ke] and [Goat] in the

Cambodian (Khmer) language, and cognates in Cantonese [Kei], [Keoi] and

[Gei] ( 其 渠 ) ‘Kẻ’ with metaphorical shift, also appears to be related to

Hmong [Koj] (2nd person) and Champa [kow] (1st person) Over long distance,

Kẻ, pronounced as Ké in Mường, has similar sound correspondence in Rapanui

[Ko ia] and Fijian [O KOya], also involving another 3rd pronoun ‘Ya’ Kẻ and

Gã are often used with demonstratives: Kẻ ấy, Gã đó The Mường equivalent to

demonstrative ấy, or particularly đấy, is [đỉ]: Ông đấy (V)=> Ông đỉ (M); Bà ấy (V)=> Mễ đỉ (M), noting that the Sắc-tone in Vietnamese normally corresponds

to Hỏi-tone in Mường: đấy=> đỉ (that), tiếng (V)=> thiểng (M) (language/ speech); Nó=> Nả (he / she); Chúng=> Chủng (they); đột phá=> đôt phả (original) Sắc-tone in Vietnamese may also correspond to Hỏi-tone in Tày-Nùng: đỏ chói (strong red) => ‘đeng chỏi’ N), chúng (a group) => chủng

Y and Va {pronounced: [Ya]}, probably more familiar in the Southern dialect,

have sound correspondence to a number of languages in the region Y is derived

from 伊, Mandarin [yi], Hakka [Y], Fujian [I], Hainan [Ee], and Sino-Korean

[I] ‘Y’ also has corresponding sound in Mon-Khmer: [I] ‘Y’ via Chinese can also refer to ‘ấy’ meaning ‘that’ ‘Va’ is in itself a quốc-ngữ mis-spelling,

purporting to unify the three initials [W], [V] and [Y] (or [By] {[β]}) among the main constitutive ‘dialects’ of Vietnamese, into one [V] The fact that ‘Bya’

is more familiar in the Southern dialect speaks for its initial sound being [Ya] or [Bya] ([βa]) The pronunciation [Ya] or [βa], for the third person pronoun, thence would easily concur with: Hakka [za], Malay [Dia] or [Ia], Tagalog [niya], Sinhalese [Eya], and Polynesian [Ia]

[Ta] 他 the most common Chinese pronoun for ‘He / She’, does not reflect in

Vietnamese, other than ‘Tha Nhân’ (other people), with ‘Tha’ often mistaken as

a Sino-Vietnamese word, but in fact a Fujian pronunciation [tha], or a Wu corresponding sound [Tha], for [ta] The Tay-Nung dialect has [Te] [14] [15], derived from [Ta] for ‘He / She’

Cái, Kia, Ấy, Nầy, Nọ, Nớ, with Cái normally known in Vietnamese as a

counting article or classifier [13]: 1 cái bàn (one table), 6 cái ghế (six chairs),

and the rest as demonstratives, used to make up third person pronoun by

preceding a noun Often ‘Cái’ is thought as a Nôm-word borrowed from Sino-Vietnamese ‘Cá’ coming from Mandarin [Ge] 個 But in fact, both ‘Cá’ and

‘Cái’ have identical sounds in Hakka: [Ka] and [Kai], corresponding to

Mandarin [Ge], and Sino-Korean [Kay] [5], being a counting adjunct to demonstrative ‘this’ (này, ni) or ‘that’ (nọ, kia, ấy)

Demonstratives Kia, Ấy, Nầy, Ni, Nọ, Nớ, etc all have sound correspondence with Southern Chinese dialects Kia comes very close to Hakka [kia] 其 –

which is the same character for Kẻ and Gã (He / She) Ấy corresponds to ‘Y ’ 伊,

with meaning as both ‘that’ and ‘he / she’ (Ấy equivalent to Ái in Tay-Nung [15] [18]) Ấy also has a Mon-Khmer sound cognate: [?a:y] Nầy, Ni, Nọ, Nớ, etc

correspond to a wide range of Chinese sounds and characters meaning ‘this’ and ‘that’ For example: 呢 Hakka [ni] & Cantonese [nei] (this), 那 Hakka & Cantonese [no], [naa] {that} “Nầy (Ni)” and “Nọ (Nớ)” also correspond to Cambodian [nih] (this) and [nuh] (that), respectively

TABLE I: Personal Pronouns (Singular)

Languages I / me You He/She/Him

/Her/It

NOTES

Vietnamese Tôi, tớ, tui, mỗ,

ta, tao, mình, qua, em, anh, chú, bác, …

Anh, chị, mầy, mi, cô, chú,bác,ông,

bà, Cụ, …

Nó, cô ấy, anh ấy, hắn, kẻ đó, gã, Y,

va (ya), …

Personal names can be used

in place of pronouns Mon-Khmer: ?anh (anh), saqu (tao), nqua (qua), min (mình)

Mường Ho, qua, ha, thôi Da, Enh, ủn,

ông, etc.

Nả, lũ, enh đỉ, ông đỉ, mễ đỉ, …

Ha = ta; Miềnh = mình; ủn= em; đỉ= đó; enh=anh Tày-Nùng Hây, Câu, noọng mầu, pỉ, chai Te, mền, Noọng= young girl, hô=guy

Korean Nae,na,che, cho Dangsin,no Kubun,kunyo, ku Gu-saram: that person

Hakka Mi, ngai, ai, chit,

sa, za, tsa Ni, ngi, li, gwi, nai Ta, zih, zu, ix, za Chit{Hakka}~Cháu(Viet)

Za => ta Mi => Mình Mandarin Wo, yu,… Ni, nin Ta, tuo, zhi TA: Tha nhân= other people

Cantonese Ngoh, mau, o,

mei, jyu, tseoi, zaa, gau

Nei, lei, joek Ta, zi, kei, keoi,

heoi

Tseoi => tôi Zăa = you+me / me => ta Gau => câu (Tay-Nung) Fujian Sa, gua, hok,

hou, bi

Ni,kui, joa, Li

Tha, chi, I [ee] Sa ~ ta Gua ~ qua

[Bi] => [Mi] / bỉ nhân (me)

Burmese Cănaw, Tjano(M)

Cămá, Tjama (F)

K’ămyà(M) shin (F) Thu / thu title, kinship, occupation

tjano => ta Thai Chan Khun Khao/Thur/Mun Khao ~ keoi (Cant) 3 rd pers.

Malay /

Indonesian

suadara

Dia, ia ‘Ia’, ‘Ya’ (Polynesian,

Tagalog) ~ Viet [ya] {va}.

Tagalog Ako, ko, sa akin Ka, mo, sa

iyo, ikaw

Siya, niya, sa kaniya

(ni)ya / (kani)ya ~ ya (Viet)

• Koj => keoi (Cantonese) => Kẻ / Gã (Vietnamese) – Nws => Nó (He / She)

• Ta => other people => Tha nhân (người khác)

• In many languages, such as Hindi, second or third person pronouns are formed

by placing ‘This / That’ (yeh / voh) in front of a noun

TABLE II: Personal Pronouns (Plural)

Vietnamese Chúng ta, tụi mình,

bọn mình Chúng tôi, hai đứa tôi, bọn này,

…

Các anh/ chị, Chúng bây, quý ông,…

Chúng nó, họ, bọn

ấy, bọn nó, đám đó, các cô ấy,…

Kinship / address / title

Mường Tàn miềnh, tàn ha Qua, chủng thôi Tàn pay, chủng

ỗi, chủng da Tàn nả, hõ, tàn lũ, pẫu

Tàn=chúng Ha=ta Tày-Nùng Boong Hây (Khỏi) Boong Câu Boong Mầu Boong Te Boong=Bọn

Champa Khol ita, khol trey

Chúng ta (V)

Khol tahlă’ [20] Oy’ [ụơk] Khol nhu [20] Oy’: nàng

(darling) Korean Uri, uri ga Uri Dangsin, nohidul Gu-saram,gu-got,

kudul No 3

rd pers Pronouns Hmong Peb / ob (2) leeg Nej, neb (2) Nej, neb (2) Lawv, nkawd (2) Nej ~ Ni Hakka Zam, za Ngai-teu Ixtngix Zu, zhi Za ~ ta Mandarin Zan-men,Wo-men Wo-men Ni-men Ta-men Men: plural Cantonese Ngoh-deih Ngoh-deih Neih-deih Keui-deih No inc/exc Fujian Lan Gun Lin ?In

Hainan Gua-mui Gua-mui Du-mui Y-mui (ee-mui) NO in/exc

distinction Persian Ma Ma Shoma Ishan Ma ~ man Hindi Ham Aap Ye, ve Ye / ve= these,

those these/those =>pronouns Burmese Cănaw-dó(M),

cămá-dó (F)

Cănaw-dó(M), cămá-dó (F)

K’ămyà-dó(M), shin-dó (F)

Thu, thu-dó [dó] plural

marker Thai Pouk Rao Rao Pouk Khun Pouk Khao

Khmer Yaeng Yaeng Awh lowk Gee, puak gee ‘You’ [7] Malay Kita Kami Saudara

(kamu)sekalian Mereka Kita ~ ta Rapanui Ko taua Ko maua Ko korua Ko ra’ua Taua ~ ta Fiji Da, datou, daru (2) Keimami,

keitou,keirau (2)

O ni, o dou, o drau (2)

Ra, ratou, rau Clear on in/

exclusive Samoa Tatou, ta’ua(2) Matou,ma’ua(2) ‘Outou,‘oulua(2) Latou, la’ua(2) (2):dual Tonga Mau, kimautolu, ma

/ kimaua (2) Tau,kitautolu, ta / kitaua (2) Mou,kimoutolu

Mo/ kimoua (2)

Nau Kinautolu,

na / kinaua (2) (2):dual

Tau ~ tao

Tahiti Tatou, taua Matou, maua ‘outou, ‘orua Ratou, raua (2) Tatou ~ ta

Tagalog Tayo, sa atin Kami, sa amin Kayo, sa inyo Sila, sa kanila Tayo ~ ta

• In Hindi, ‘these / those’ (ye / ve) are used to form Plural Personal Pronouns

• Polynesian languages favour further distinction in the Plural of 2 people

(marked (2) in the Table), as in Vietnamese: hai đứa mình (tôi), hai ta,

• Mớ tôi / Mớ qua [3] [4] => wo-men => We Mớ ~ [Mui] (Hainan) ~ [Men]

(Mandarin) In Mandarin, inclusive & exclusive distinction for ‘We / Us’ is

more pronounced in the North

4 Personal Pronouns in the Plural

General rule for making Vietnamese personal pronouns in the Plural, is to

attach a plural marker (Chúng, Các, Bọn, etc) to their counterparts in the

Singular:

- Tôi (I / me) => Chúng Tôi, Bọn Tôi, Tụi Tôi, etc (We / us)

- Anh, Chị, Bạn, Ông, Bà, Bác, Cô, Cậu (You) => Các Anh, Các Chị,