How do I address you? Let me count the ways...
From: David Waters
Date: Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 10:53 PM
To: VSG Vsg <vsg@u.washington.edu>
How do I address you? Let me count the ways...
Tuoi Tre News
Eric Burdette
August 25, 2011
“A close friend of mine told me that when Tet comes around and all his relatives are at home, he can’t keep their proper terms of address straight and just starts referring to them by their names.”
Enjoy
D. D. Waters
UW-Madison
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From: Melanie Beresford
Date: Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 11:35 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
As a rather poor speaker of Vietnamese I've always found this issue the most difficult. But I recently made friends with the under-2-year-old son of an Italian student. He began by referring to himself as Tu (which is Italian familiar for you). After about six months of this he began calling himself Tu Lui (you him). When they moved back to Italy, the locals just called him by his given name. So now he has three ways of referring to the concept 'I' or 'me'. He hasn't yet got the concept of himself as an entity separate from his relations with others (the Vietnamese 'toi'). I will be very interested to see when he develops that. Another PhD student of mine said that her son initially did the same thing.
Anyway I figured that this is the way Vietnamese pronouns work. If your parents start out calling you 'con', you use the word 'con' to refer to yourself whenever you speak to them. Others may call you 'chau', so you use that when you talk to them. And so on. Hard for people like me who didn't grow up using it, but were taught to switch to I and me.
Maybe there's a language development expert out there who can confirm or deny my theory?
cheers,
Melanie
--
Melanie Beresford
Associate Dean Research, Associate Professor in Economics
Faculty of Business & Economics
Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia
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From: Jeffrey Race
Date: Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 1:08 AM
To: Melanie Beresford <melanie.beresford@mq.edu.au>, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
It works this way in Thai as well. You are
called "child [luuk]" or "mouse [nuu]"
and adopt for yourself the term by which you
are addressed.
Makes sense to me. Everybody knows his
place. Society doesn't get all messed up.
Jeffrey Race
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From: Benjamin Swanton
Date: Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 1:12 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I guess it depends what sort of society you want Jeffrey. If it's one characterised by control and unequal power relations based on morally arbitrary factors (e.g. age, position within the family etc.) then it would indeed make sense.
Ben Swanton
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From: Melanie Beresford
Date: Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 2:56 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
My feeling precisely. In VN ultimately you have to include everybody in your extended family based on their age and sex. But I was more interested in the language development angle - very curious that in my 'scientific sample' of two western kids, that at age 2 or thereabouts they had no concept of 'I'. The flip side of that coin is when and under what circumstances do Vietnamese refer to themselves as 'toi'?
Melanie
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From: Thi-Bay Miradoli
Date: Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 4:58 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I know several bi-cultural Italo-Vietnamese children but it is the first time I hear of one of them referring to self as "tu". I wonder if this is related to complete bilingualism? The fact that the child is processing the Italian language according to Vietnamese syntax. Indeed very interesting from a linguistic perspective. I'm curious, did the child refer back to adults as "tu", "lei" or "voi"? Different degrees of social hierarchy and of family status (if from certain Italian regions where, father and sometimes grand-father are "voi" and never "tu" to connotate patriarcal status) which would be the closest to any semboance of Vietnamese pronoun distinction.
Thanks
Thi Bay
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 5:03 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Arbitrary? What's arbitrary about one's position within a family? I know exactly what my position is within my family. Woe betide my sons if they dared call me by my first name as if I were just one of their chums. :)
As someone who did not learn to speak Vietnamese until I was 9 or 10, I was flummoxed by the seemingly endless number of people who were my "uncles" and "aunts." I eventually learned that those I referred to by their number Bac Hai. Thim Bay, etc.. were my true relatives (Thim being the wife of one's father's younger brother). The rest were family friends. And, by and large, they were good, reliable friends.
I used to ask my students to draw up a family tree to show them the different ways Americans and Vietnamese think and speak of kinship. No more. There are too many ex-spouses, step parents, boyfriends, girlfriends, etc... One student said she preferred to put the family dog on the tree rather than some uncle whom she never got to meet...
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
Kenneth T. Young Professor
of Sino-Vietnamese History
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 5:18 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Melanie,
Now that I am older, I do use the pronoun "toi" a lot more than when I was growing up--which was almost never. I would never use it within my extended family. "Toi" in fact, does not indicate complete equality. Thus, speaking to a graduate student in Vietnam, I would refer to myself as "toi" and to the student, depending on age as "anh," "chi," "chau" (or more likely, being a southerner, as "con") or by the student's first name. The "anh" or "chi" is meant to suggest that the student is of the same generation as one's child, not older than oneself! In the student's response, the student would refer to himself/herself as "chau." So my increased use of "toi" does not, unfortunately, denotes my allegiance to equality but to creeping old age.
For someone who is younger, to call himself or herself "toi" in dealing with someone of higher status (whether through age of social position) would be considered disrespectful.
There are aspects of fictive kinship language that make me uncomfortable. This is when colleagues who happen to be the children of older colleagues whom I call "anh" or "chi" feel they must, as a result, call themselves "chau."
When I read materials from the 1920s or 1930s, especially from the North, I am taken aback by the servility expected of social inferiors, who might refer to themselves as "chau" despite their age, when dealing with social superiors, including the children of their employers. I believe this is something that has largely, if not totally, disappeared.
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From: Alec Soucy
Date: Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 7:06 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I was taught that I should address monks and nuns as "thay" (teacher) and refer to myself as "con" ("child"- though I have been told that this refers to being a child of the Buddha, not in relation to the monastic). Last year a monk told me I should reserve "con" for when I have a relationship with the monk (or nun), but otherwise just refer to myself as "toi". I have been doing this since that time, but I have to say that I continue to be concerned about being disrespectful. Any thoughts on how to address monks?
Alec Soucy
Dept. of Religious Studies
Saint mMary's University
Halifax, Canada
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From: Minh Nguyen
Date: Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 7:48 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Being in the North, I would call monks depending on their ranks as 'th?y' 'c?', 'bác', 'chú', if I know their rank and address myself as 'con' or 'cháu'. I think the monk may have insisted on you addressing yourself as tôi because you are a foreigner to them.
More on other addressing terms, my mother, or my grand mother for that matter, would usually call me 'mày' or 'con' and address themselves as 'm?' or 'bà'. When they feel like I am putting on an act, they would tell me 'Thôi ch? oi, ch? v?a v?a ch?, tôi xin ch?'. Or when they are offended by my certain behaviour, they would call me 'ch?' too. When they feel I am being overly smart, they sometimes address me as 'bà', more to mock than anything else.
I call some of my close same-age friends 'bác' while addressing myself as 'tôi'. I call some other similarly close friends 'c?u' and myself 't?' or 'mình'; some others 'mày' and myself 'tao'. These are fixed for us, and perhaps denote certain tone in the particular friendship, which would take time to go into. My less close same-age friends are called 'b?n' in relation to 'tôi'.
Domestic workers often refers to their younger female employers as 'cô' and to themselves as 'tôi'.
Minh Nguyen
Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology
Halle, Germany
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 8:05 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I agree with the first paragraph.
I have never been called "may" by my parents, though I was known in my family as prone to talking back. The ironical use of "ba" or "chi" to deflate a child was also unknown in my family, though I did hear northern family friends use it. We were told to address our maid as "chi" and treat her with all the respect due to someone her age. She called me "em" and usually referred to me as "con Tam." Nothing servile about her. She categorically refused to teach me how to cook, saying I was hopeless, and got into an argument with my grandmother. My mother had to soothe her ruffled feathers as well as placate her irate mother.
I think northerners in general were more status-conscious and thus a greater effort was made to reform modes of appellation. Judging by my experiences in Hanoi, it has not quite succeeded.
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From: Alec Soucy
Date: Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 9:06 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Actually, the monk in question felt that I should call myself "con" with him and use "toi" with other monks with whom I had no relations. It had nothing to do with being a foreigner - except perhaps that he wanted me to be his follower (de tu) perhaps because I was a foreigner and it might give him bragging rights.
Alec Soucy
Saint Mary's University
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 9:15 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Ah, in that case, you need not play his little game. But, as a Vietnamese, I would not expect to call myself "toi" to a monk or nun, unless he or she was very young. I am agnostic, so there is no question of being anyone's disciple.
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From: Charles Waugh
Date: Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 9:44 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Professor Tam,
Your comment--"For someone who is younger, to call himself or herself "toi" in dealing with someone of higher status (whether through age of social position) would be considered disrespectful"--interests me. If "toi" was originally a way for a subject to refer to him or herself in relation to the emperor, how did it evolve to suggest disrespect in relation to others of higher status? Is there some sense of individuality or disconnectedness that "toi" expresses that seems disrespectful, or is it something else? Do foreigners get away with using "toi" more frequently because they're not seen as connected in the first place?
Charles Waugh
Assistant Professor
Utah State University
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 12:08 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
That is indeed an interesting question. Note that "to" which is used even more colloquially, is part of the single phrase "toi to" or also "day to" meaning servants.
I do not believe that the emperor had dealings with ordinary subjects; only with officials of high rank. As far as he and they were concerned, they were equally his subjects, but of high status. That would be my interpretation, explaining both equality among unrelated people (since relatives must perforce be distinguished according to degree of kinship and birth order), and higher status.
I once heard Ali Mazrui give the Reith Lectures on the BBC about the French Revolutionary slogan. He declared that the concept of fraternite clashed with both liberte and egalite. I suspect any Vietnamese could have said so.
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From: Melanie Beresford
Date: Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 5:22 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I was instructed to use toi with a male colleague and good friend a few years older than me. To call myself 'em' might have signalled an inappropriate relationship (so he also called me chi!). Did it signal exclusion from the Vietnamese family? Or just that the system of pronouns based on kinship relations cannot deal with change in the old hierarchy of social relations? As a foreign female, I have always felt treated like an honorary male - I'm thankfully not expected to conform to the gender stereotypes that oppress my female Vietnamese colleagues
As for fraternite, I'm reminded of the line in Beethoven's choral symphony 'alle menschen wirden bruder' (all men shall be brothers).The nation as extended family (of men!). It is certainly the case that this late 18th-early 19th century notion of solidarity clashed with notions of individual liberty and equality - which has been a problem for the Left ever since. Mind you, liberty has not exactly demonstrated itself as compatible with equality either.
cheers,
Melanie
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From: Grace Chew
Date: Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 6:32 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Interesting sources, Co Tai. I wonder if you could let me know some of the sources that you mentioned in the following:
"...When I read materials from the 1920s or 1930s, especially from the North, I am taken aback by the servility expected of social inferiors, who might refer to themselves as "chau" despite their age, when dealing with social superiors, including the children of their employers."
Best wishes,
Grace
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From: Kristy Kelly
Date: Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 6:45 PM
To: vsg@u.washington.edu
While on the topic of terms of address, I wonder if anyone might comment on shifting usages for the term "dong chi," comrade.
I am interested in who uses the term, where, when, with whom, for what purpose and with what affect. I am interested in generational differences, gender differences, regional differences and public-private usage differences.
Kristy Kelly, PhD
Postdoctoral Research Scholar
Weatherhead East Asian Institute
Columbia University
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 6:51 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Yes, calling an unrelated woman in the same generation as oneself "em" would have inappropriate connotations. By the same token, chi denotes lack of relationship but not necessarily respect. For example, one could call a hotel staff "anh" or "chi" and that would denote the person's inferior status.
The other lectures by Ali Mazrui did focus on the tension between liberty and equality. I heard them back in the late 1970s. If I remember correctly, he said that the notion of brotherhood was intended to be another argument in support of equality, but with the added dimension of kinship. However, in a family, individuals are bound to be either older or younger, and therefore forever unequal. But he also said that of the three pillars, fraternite had fallen by the wayside.
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From: Anh-Minh Do
Date: Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 7:47 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Hi Melanie,
Just curious, are you sure that the kids were not using "tui"? Which is a rather popular colloquial informal word for "I", basically the informal version of "toi".
Cheers,
Minh
--
Anh-Minh Do
Indochina Tourist & Trade
¡¡¡Vi?t Nam oi!!! (the bilingual edition)
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From: Melanie Beresford
Date: Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 8:11 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
@ Minh. The kids I referred to were (a) Italian, using 'tu' to mean I or me and (b) local Australian using 'you' to mean I or me. It struck me as a usage similar to the Vietnamese pronoun system (though of course in both Italian and English it is incorrect - and disappears with time). Both kids just picked up on how their parents referred to them and used it to mean 'I'.
@Tam. I think in the north it was a habit of the communists to call everybody anh chi with no connotation of inferiority. So I was told to use anh for a Deputy PM 20 years my senior.
cheers,
Melanie
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 8:37 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Melanie:
There was certainly an effort, but it does not seem to have had a lasting effect. I wish, for example, that colleagues would refrain from calling themselves "chau" merely because I call their parents "anh" and "chi." or that younger colleagues did not so deferentially call me "giao su" and themselves "chau" or "em."
It was in a northern village that an 87-year old lady, looking at my white hair, decided to call me "cu." When she was told that I was about 25 years younger than she, I got dropped in status, much to my relief." That was less than 10 years ago.
I would need a degree of acquaintance to call someone "anh"--and that person's permission (but see my comments about people in the service industry). A 20 year gap would allow me to call him "anh." And I would expect him to call me "chi" as a sign of respect toward an unrelated woman. I would use toi" to refer to myself, not so much to underline our equality as to stress the fact that I would not be related to him.
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From: Neubert, Brian T (Ho Chi Minh)
Date: Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 10:29 PM
To: vsg@u.washington.edu
Try being 37 and being called Ong by people older than your parents because of your position. I find I get a lot of credit for trying, though as a man it is different from female foreign colleagues.
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From: Anh-Minh Do
Date: Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 12:15 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Hi Brian,
I hate to one up you, but when I went to the countryside as a child (only 16), I met one of my distant cousins who was the great great grandson of my paternal grandfather's (Ong Noi) oldest sister (Ba). The kid called me Ong (grandfather or great uncle), and my parents Ong Ba Co (great grandparents or great great uncles). And he was only 9 years old. These titles really get out of hand....
Cheers,
Minh
¡¡¡Vi?t Nam oi!!! (the bilingual edition)Skype: caligarn
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From: Jeffrey Race
Date: Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 5:49 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
This mode of discourse has not disappeared in Thailand
nor can I foresee its ever doing so. At least in
Thailand it relates not to servility but to honor
rendered to others.
Example from my (college-educated 60-year-old wife):
Addressing uses
- her husband: her given name
- a monk: yom (but a younger person would call
herself nuu = mouse)
- any older chan or dichan (formal term)
person
- an older nuu (= mouse)
person to
whom one
wishes to
render respect
No one is uncomfortable about this in Thailand.
Except lately I've become uncomfortable when
--at 68-- friendly younger people sometimes
address me as "lung" (=uncle).
Jeffrey Race
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From: Jeffrey Race
Date: Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 5:52 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I always used it with my liberal friends.
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From: Kiet Tran
Date: Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 3:31 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear all,
To share my experience, I am a Swedish Viet Kieu with very modest Vietnamese language skills and have lived in Vietnam for just over a year and currently work with a state company in Vung Tau.
People in the company address each other by em, anh, chi (many northerners in the company.)
My mom from the very very south of Ca Mau usually say "mai, tau, con, no," intermittently in speaking with me and my brother. Colleagues in company really stress i should not use it in my language and prefer that i for example use the word "ho" instead of "no" and i understand why they prefer it in considering the situation those words are used by colleagues (in disrespectful and bad ways.) So it is very interesting how a system that is used very commonly in the south is only used in bad ways in the north. (that is, if my guess is right about north and south.)
The Confucian way of addressing people (i guess it is Confucian right?) is a most uncomfortable everyday experience of my stay in Vietnam. It is like nails and worms creeping under the skin. This is just my feeling and not to make a judgement on the system.
I address everyone by anh, chu, chi or their name. From my point of view, always safer than risking with the use of em. I never address friends as em, chi, anh or any other connotations and always by their names.
Best Regards,
Kiet
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 3:58 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Kiet:
Southerners also use "ho"; it has nothing to do with northern/ southrrn differences. "No" refers to a third person of inferior status. So, I would say "no" when referring to my younger sibling but not to my older one. " no" is also used for animals and inanimate objects. "ho" can also refer to third persons in the plural.
Southerners also use may, tao when talking to inferiors. My family was a bit more formal than most, so my parents did not make use of these pronouns much; they would refer to us as "con".
One difference between northerners and southerners is the southern use of " con" when northerners would say "chau" to someone of the younger generation. Another is rural southerners' use of "qua" as first person singular when talking to someone unrelated.
keep up the languge learning.
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From: Benjamin Swanton
Date: Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 4:39 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I might add that in the north it is common for people to use 'no' disrespectfully to refer to others by reducing them to the status of an inanimate object (literally 'it'). When used between close friends it can take on a more affectionate tone. The same also applies with the classifier 'con' which is normally used for animals but may be used for people to indicate disrespect e.g. 'con Ben'.
Best,
Ben
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 4:53 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Ben|
Can you give an example of using "ho" in a disrespectful manner?
As for "con" you are right about its disrespectful meaning, but surely, you would be referred to as "thang Ben", " con" being used for girls?
Hue Tam Ho Tai
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From: Benjamin Swanton
Date: Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 7:59 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Hue,
I was referring to the word 'no' not 'ho'. For example, 'anh bao no' roi nhung no' khong muon nghe.'
With respect to usage of 'con' and 'thang' you are absolutely correct, 'con Ben' was a bad example.
Best,
thang Ben
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 8:43 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
My bad. I read "ho" when you wrote "no." Must be the effect of Irene!
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From: Erik Harms
Date: Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 9:00 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear VSG colleagues,
I’d like to follow up on this discussion of the use of “nó” with a specific example from some recent field work. Reading through some interviews I recently collected from residents facing eviction in HCMC, I noticed that many informants call the compensation authorities or members of local People’s Comittees “nó.” For example, this following example comes from an informant describing dissatisfaction with the compensation process, and the agents involved in calculating their claims:
« M?i d?u thì cung có hài lòng. Nhung sau thì không. T?i vì nhà mình có 8 nhân kh?u, nó d? là không có nhân kh?u nào h?t, nhà mình có d?ng h? di?n, nó b?o là không có. R?i nó g?i gi?y cu?ng ch? xu?ng, mình lên nói nó, nó b?o là n?u không hài lòng thì di khi?u n?i di, nó d?n bù l?i. H?i dó dâu có ai ch?u vào dây ? dâu, sau này nó làm quá b?t bu?c ph?i di thôi. Nhà mình y?u th?, làm sao ch?ng l?i ngu?i ta. «
Now I’m inclined to read this as a very dismissive and critical way of speaking about “them”, but wonder what VSG opinion might hold. (In relation to previous discussions, VSG members might also find it interesting to see how “mình” works quite well in difficult or otherwise ambiguous places of self reference. I also find this particular quote interesting because the person says “nó” are stronger than “mình” and then how “nó” turns into “ngu?i ta”.)
Further background. When I shared this example with a colleague working with people displaced from dams in the Northeast, she did not agree with my assessment that this use of “nó” implied the latent critique of “the government” that I had originally suspected. My colleague wrote:
If your informant is Kinh people, then “nó” ch? các cán b? d? án, ngu?i tr?c ti?p gi?i quy?t công vi?c liên quan d?n h?. KHÔNG ph?i là de ch? government. Of couse they were unhappy to talk about the problem then encountered. But I dont see any problem with the word "nó" in that case.
In my case, the informants are ethnic minority people, and they ALWAYS use the word "nó" for the third person, including their spouse or children.
So, my question for VSG is: “how would you interpret the use of “nó” to refer to compensation authorities in this case?” “How might is differ regionally?”
thanks,
Erik
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From: David Brown
Date: Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 9:58 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
This has been an interesting but thoroughly inconclusive thread -- in my view, doubtless because there's no consistency in the way Vietnamese deal with the problem of addressing Vietnamese-speaking foreigners, or, indeed, how we foreigners deal with it as, gradually and haphazardly, we are integrated into a web of relationships.
The US State Department (specifically the legendary Eleanor Jordan) taught me to refer to myself when I was sent off to Saigon in 1965 as toi and to address every adult I met as ba or co (depending on marital status) or ong until invited to use 'anh,' 'chi' or some other term -- and not to address anyone over 12 as em. That worked well enough at the time -- I was in my early 20's.
Returning to Vietnam at 60+, and this time (2005-10) the north (Hanoi & Ha Long City), I had to work out a whole new system. Very quickly it became apparent that ong and ba are used much less rarely in contemporary VN -- apparently in the south as well, is this the consequence of revolutionary levelling? I settled on addressing/referring to professional colleagues of all ages as anh or co (including married women I knew in their professional capacities) and was variously addressed (often after an exchange aimed at establishing my age in relation to my interlocutor's own or father's) as bac, chu, thay or anh. Though this is but a pale reflection of the nuanced shadings the northerners use among themselves, it served fairly well.
'Dong chi' was a word that the people I worked with at the Ha Long Bay Management Department, at Hanoi National University and at VietNamNet use only when they attended the obligatory meetings of the unit's Party chapter. And, quite often in Hanoi I heard the regime or apparatchiks collectively referred to as 'chung no.'
Regards, David Brown
erstwhile diplomat &
sometime journalist
Fresno, CA
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 10:21 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
to Erik and David:
In the examples that Erik provided, I do not think that "no" showed dissent or necessarily disrespect. If it had been a specific, higher status individual, I doubt that "no" would have been used. But "no" here was an indefinite number of anonymous persons. It could be used interchangeably with "ho" a little bit more informal.
David is right that people have become more informal, though I'm not sure how much in the northern countryside. That was my first and only experience being called "cu" and I did not appreciate it, having bought into the American idea of eternal youth :)
I remember my mother objecting to being called "cu" when she was in her 50s just because my then 23-year old brother had come back from France with an engineering degree. She was told that since he was called "ong ky su" it would not do to call her "ba."
David is right that foreigners are not expected to abide by Vietnamese naming practices--and Vietnamese do not use the same terms when talking about foreigners. I would not dream of referring to my (Chinese) husband as "no" but many Vietnamese women married to Chinese or other foreigners do so as a matter of course.
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From: David Brown
Date: Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 11:01 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
'Naming' within the family is a much different thing than naming in respect of my professional relationships. In the former case, I am expected to attain a much different standard and, just ten days ago, have at last been promoted to 'ong ngoai'! David
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From: Tai VanTa
Date: Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 12:37 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear VGS,
I confirm Professor Hue Tam's finding--which is also my experience in contact with clients in law practic-- that many Vietnamese women call their foreign husbands as "nó' in such sentences as "th?ng ch?ng em nó k? l?m" or "th?ng ch?ng em nó t?t l?m"--withour derogatory meaning or disrespect, as if these women have been liberated enough for marrying foreigners who treat them on an equal footing (no more "ch?ng chúa v? tôi" as in some old-fashioned families) and it is ok to refer to husbands as "nó"--
Or is it these Vietnamese women's literal translation of "him" into "nó"in the mind of these women who have forgotten the more refined way of referring to husband as "anh ?y", "ông ?y", "anh chàng ?y","nhà tôi"?
T? van Tài
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 12:49 PM
To: Tai VanTa <taivanta@yahoo.com>, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Or more colloquially, "ong xa?"
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From: Kiet Tran
Date: Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 5:37 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear all,
To follow up on the latest discussion and thanks for sharing the experience. I notice too that people in my company say 'no' to refer to foreigners but would never use it to refer to Vietnamese groups. This makes me wonder if this is to mark that foreigners are separated from Vietnamese, or if it is to mark less respect for foreigners amongst themselves. But reading from Tai Van Ta about VN wifes referring husbands to 'no' then im a bit less certain.
But then again, actually, my mom refer to her husband and all of her older and younger sisters as 'no'. When reading Erik's extract i can imagine it would be something my mom could easily say, maybe a bit more cautious if she knew she was interviewed but definitely like that to all her friends and family and anywhere she knew she would not face major consequences from being informal.
Going back to Hue-Tam Tai's response, when thinking about it, i think you are right about 'ho' in regards to northern/southern non-distinction. From my experience though, i rarely hear southern people say 'ho'. And also, i have a different experience of 'mai, tao, no' when it comes to southern people where they use it to stress equality among their themselves rather than to stress inferiority/lower status/lower family or age hierarchy. And you are right that one never refers to anyone older (higher status like mom, dad, older brother and sister) as 'no'. The only time i hear 'mai,tao, no' from northern people is from the old guards in my house (i would always say Bac of course.)
Finally, i hope i dont give the impression that im sitting here in Vietnam and note down every time anyone uses an address system or that i try my hardest to find the differences between northern/southern when in fact i should find common grounds (but really, one rarely find common grounds fascinating as there are too many of them.) Just want to share my recent experience here in Vietnam.
Kiet
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From: Andrew Wells-Dang
Date: Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 7:07 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Thanks to all for a fascinating discussion. I thought I understood terms of address in Vietnamese pretty well, but some of the details and experiences you all have shared convince me otherwise!
A few instances of my own to share: in my northern Vietnamese extended family, I am often referred to in the third person as bo^' no' ("his/her father") with the no' indicating my daughter or son, not me. At first I questioned this, but was assured it isn't at all derogatory.
When working with Vietnamese colleagues and partners, especially officials, it's one thing to be addressed as o^ng by someone much older than me, but even worse (at least, to me) to be called Nga\i. At this point I usually smile and say "xin goi bang anh la duoc thoi". I once addressed a much older official as ba/c in a work setting in Hanoi and was told this is inappropriate and would make him feel old, I should only use anh, even though everyone (including the official's own staff) all referred to him as bac in the third person behind his back.
Em Andrew
Andrew Wells-Dang
Network and governance consultant
Hoi An, Vietnam
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From: Nhu Miller
Date: Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 8:07 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Another term that is interesting is cái which some women call their peers, as
in cái Huong, for instance. It's rather like an objectification of gender,
like "the Donald." Am not sure whether men call each other "d?c"
because I've only heard it among women (in the north) as a term
of intimacy and artless disdain.
'Nó' I consider the equivalent of "it" when Vietnamese use vis
a vis foreigners. Not really pejorative, but still a bit disrespectful. In
the center, of course, it's "háng" and just as dismissive.
The use of "mày" and "tao" might be the equivalent of tutoyer,
or "du" in German - a term of great intimacy which also
implies disregard because one KNOWS this person so
well that one can insult them!
T.T. Nhu
Berkeley, California
WhAnothen working with Vietnamese colleagues and partners, especially officials, it's one thing to be addressed as o^ng by someone much older than me, but even worse (at least, to me) to be called Nga\i. At this point I usually smile and say "xin goi bang anh la duoc thoi". I once addressed a much older official as ba/c in a work setting in Hanoi and was told this is inappropriate and would make him feel old, I should only use anh, even though everyone (including the official's own staff) all referred to him as bac in the third person behind his back.
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 9:05 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
"Bo no" (sorry, I still cannot do diacritics): It makes you sound old. My parents would say "cha no, me no or cha sap nho, me sap nho" (father or mother of the young ones), "bo" being a northern term for father. Or they would call each other "minh," not "anh and em" (that was for younger couples). Confusingly, one could refer to oneself as 'minh" when speaking to an equal (and calling that equal by his or her first name as in "Andrew cho minh cai nay di."
I have not heard the term "cai" with a girl's name used by southerners, but northerners use it a lot as in "cai Huong". Southerners would just say "con Huong."
I have not heard "duc" used to refer to men except in the humorous phrase "duc rua" to connote a clumsy, dull-witted guy. There's a funny anecdote used to explain the origin of that phrase: two brothers are expected to share an inheritance equally. The smarter one says, I'll take anything that is female and you take anything that is male. He proceeds to say "cai nha, cai ban, cai ghe...." until his desperate brother blurts out "duc rua." That becomes the sum total of his inheritance.
"may,tao" I heard it used by boys rather than girls. My brother was allowed to use it with his chums. My sister and I were not. It's not quite the equivalent of "tu" since "tu can be used to address superiors, such as one's parents." Try saying "may" to members of the older generation in your family!
Ngai: Wow! Should we now bow to you, ngai co van? :) I can't say I ever heard this used in the south.
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From: Jason Gibbs
Date: Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 9:33 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To lighten up the subject here's an old song:
http://www.nhaccuatui.com/nghe?M=d7K6j0HpEB
"Ð?ng g?i anh b?ng chú" - Don’t call me your uncle
Composed by Anh Thy (1967) sung by Duy Lê & Y?n Thanh
Em oi! d?ng g?i anh b?ng chú
Khi em, em chín thom hoa m?ng
Chua v?n vuong gì, em lúc xuân thì
Còn anh m?i dôi muoi.
My dear [little sister]! Don't call me [big brother] uncle
When you, you are a ripe fragrant flower of dreams
Not yet in love, you're in the spring of life,
And I've just turned twenty...
Xin d?ng g?i anh b?ng chú
Ô hay sao chú ua mo m?ng
Sao chú hay nhìn sao chú hay cu?i
Làm con bé bâng khuâng
Please don't call me uncle
Hey, why do you [uncle] love to daydream so?
Why do you [uncle] often look, do you [uncle] often laugh?
It makes a kid feel a yearning sorrow
Jason Gibbs
San Francisco
Official SFPL Use Only
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From: Tuan Hoang <thoang1@nd.edu>
Date: Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 2:17 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
If I may add to the light-hearted mood of Jason's post... One of my funniest memories about Vietnamese usage of terms of endearment has to do with Westerners rather than Vietnamese: VSG's own Christina Schwenkel and her husband. In their company a few years ago, I asked him what he called her in Vietnamese, and he replied, "I call her em." I then asked Christina what she'd call him and she replied, "I call him em." There were several people and everyone burst into laughing.
Hopefully Christina doesn't mind me sharing this anecdote. It's funny because it came from two non-Vietnamese, not the other way around.
~Tuan Hoang
University of Notre Dame
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From: Dao The Duc
Date: Wed, Aug 31, 2011 at 7:43 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear Jason,
This afternoon, a Hre lady told me that minority people did not have gender equality. Husband and wife called each other 'may tao'. Revolution brought the gender equality to them. They started to call each other 'anh em'. I explained to her that 'anh em' is not equal. She said no woman wants to be 'chi' of her husband.
Say hello to Nghia and Oi.
Duc
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Wed, Aug 31, 2011 at 10:11 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
A distant relative of mine married a woman ten years older than him, against the wishes of his parents (the young couple were in France so the parents could not really interfere). One argument his parents advanced was how he was going to call his wife.
I have to say it was a bit strange hearing him call her “em.”
Hue-Tam
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From: Kiet Tran
Date: Wed, Aug 31, 2011 at 6:03 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
I find it strange anyone refers to anyone else including themselves as em. i swallow hard and good and focus on the reason that it is only language structure and nothing else whenever i have to say it. But it is hard sometimes, especially when in company arguments when i feel like doing one of those sentences that usually settles all arguments: 'em kg hieu!' directed at he arguer.
i call my vn gf by her name and she sometimes complains and i usually counter by telling her to dump me and get a good traditional gentlemanly local guy instead of me.
Kiet
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From: Charles Waugh
Date: Mon, Sep 5, 2011 at 10:19 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Professor Tam,
Thanks very much for your reply. I wanted to reread Greg Lockhart's introduction to _Light in the Capital_ before responding. The two things that strike me from that essay is that he says that Tam Lang's using "toi" was to "stand up before a wide audience and act as though everyone in it was of equal age and equally humble status." That seems to confirm the sense of impropriety that you suggested. Lockhart's essay and your comment that not many people would actually address the emperor also got me wondering about how much writing had an impact on the use of "toi." Maybe the most likely place a subject (and probably only a high ranking one) would address the emperor would be in a report, so the writer would need to use a pronoun like "toi"? Or is that just not right? Was "toi" originally a word used more in writing, or was it always used in spoken language too?
I guess I still don't really understand how the "toi" that suggests the speaker's humility and servitude evolves to suggest a leveling of the audience's status. Do you know whether anyone has done an etymological study of "toi"?
Charles Waugh
Utah State University
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From: Tai, Hue-Tam
Date: Mon, Sep 5, 2011 at 11:42 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear Charles:
You raise some interesting points. I've puzzled over the same question of how "toi" came to change meaning. It's one thing to claim that all officials were equally servants of the emperor; but it's another to argue that, as a pronoun, it is used to signify equality with an interlocutor.
Unfortunately, I don't know of any work tracing the history of this transition.
I should note that the allied word "to" as in "toi to" or " day to" elicits less attention because its use is even more restricted. As far as I know, it's used among men' not among women or between men and women (there may be some regional variations of which I am not aware, however). But the etymology is even clearer than for " toi."
Another thing: the use of "toi" is somewhat age related even among kin. As a child, I had no grounds on which to use "toi". As I grow older, I can use "toi" when speaking to people who are slightly older than myself, or of slightly higher status than myself, but still within the same generation. For instance, I would not use "toi" when speaking to an aunt or uncle, but I do so when talking to my older brother's wife. I call her older sister (she,s actually a couple of years younger than myself). She in turn uses " toi." to refer to herself but calls me " eighth aunt."
Complicated? very. But now that I've figured out the different terminology, I find myself wondering about the exact relationship of people described as aunt or uncle of the speaker.
When speaking to a diverse group, then "toi" is the most appropriate pronoun.
I do wish a historical linguist would tackle your question.
Hue-Tam Ho Tai