# Vietnamese: kinship terms



## flukedivana

Hello all, I'm new here.


I am interested in Vietnam kinship and I have so many question to ask. especially, i need an information from native speaker.


These are the questions.





_Vietnamese Kinship chart_


- From chart. I saw there are more kinship terms from father side than mother. It's about a society that focuses on men or not ?


- I heard in Vietnam they often used kinship terms as pronoun and main from father side, why ?


- Is it true that Vietnamese society focus on the descent of man is essentially a cousin ? I saw they have some word like Ông nội, Bà nôi which nôi mean inside and Ông ngoai,Bà ngoai which ngoai mean outside.


- Is Kinship term in Vietnamese show position and seniority ?


- Is a conversation in everyday life not necessary to say trai or gái ? example bác trai and bác gái say only bác.


Best Regard


ps.if possible who have reply please send mail to my inbox for an information of native spearker because i need to do a reference. Thanks in advance 


ps.2 sorry for my bad english


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## tritan93

To flukedivana:
1) As you can see from the chart, the father side only has one term (bác) more than the mother side. The term "trai" or "gái" is used to differentiate the gender of that person.
2) We use these terms as pronoun to address others. However, I use all terms from both sides.
3) Ancient Vietnamese society focuses on male members (father, son, etc.). In the modern society, we still continue using these terms.
4) In a daily conversation, when you address a person, you can simply use "bác". However, when you are talking to a third person, you might consider using "bác trai" or "bác gái" to avoid confusion.


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## Bunoc

flukedivana said:


> - From chart. I saw there are more kinship terms from father side than mother. It's about a society that focuses on men or not?
> - Is a conversation in everyday life not necessary to say trai or gái? example bác trai and bác gái say only bác.


Yes. It's the fact that Confusianism societies such as ancient Vietnam, China, Japanese... existed discriminatory attitudes towards women  for generations. But I have to tell you that the terms are variable in different regions. For example,
In Southern: (in which Vietnamese is more official than in the one in your chart)
 mother's elder sister is "bá" or "bác"
mother's elder brother is "bác"
father's elder sister/brother is "bác". It doesn't matter to have "trai" or "gái". We just call them "bác + proper name".



flukedivana said:


> - I heard in Vietnam they often used kinship terms as pronoun and main from father side, why?


I'm not sure what you mean by "main from father side", but I think it's may be not. As far as I know, for each "nội" person/position, we also have "ngoại" counter-word.



flukedivana said:


> - Is it true that Vietnamese society focus on the descent of man is essentially a cousin?


Sorry I don't understand very clearly, if you can rephrase maybe I can help.



flukedivana said:


> I saw they have some word like Ông nội, Bà nôi which nôi mean inside and Ông ngoai,Bà ngoai which ngoai mean outside.


Correct, if you understand them literally.



flukedivana said:


> - Is Kinship term in Vietnamese show position and seniority?


I think this is correct in every culture in the world. It's ethics when you respect your aunt, uncle, parents, grandparents... If there's any difference, it would be Vietnamese kinship terms are more detailed than other languages' ones. Because of that, each person/position in your extended family is (mostly) addressed by a particular word.


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## flukedivana

sorry for a late reply  i had some serious problem for a long time

thank you for your answer and i'll be back asap


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## Peter Tran

The way of calling others in the family members and relatives as well. I will give you directions as a map to make it clarify. Please remember that the way of calling relatives up to the position of your grandfather, grandmother, your father and your mother. It looks like a tree-branch map.
This is the way people in the south and the central of Viet Nam calling together.
For example: If your father and mother each one had one older brother, one younger brother, one older sister, one younger sister, the family position label would be as follow
+Your father's older brother - you call him "uncle" - bác
+Your father's younger brother - you call him "uncle" - chú
+Your father's older, younger sister - you call her " aunt - cô

+Your mother's older, younger brother - you call him - cậu.
+Your mother's older, younger sister - you call her - dì, gì (the same sound)

+The sons and daughters of your father's older brother- you call them "anh" for male and " chị" for female, they have higher position than you even though they might be younger than you.
+The sons and daughters of your father's younger brother - you call them "em" for both male and female, they have lower position than you even though they might be older than you.
+The sons and daughters of your mother's older brother - you call them "anh" for male and " chị" for female, they have higher position than you even though they might be younger than you. the same ways as those of fathers
+The sons and daughters of your mother's younger brother - you call them "em" for both male and female, they have lower position than you even though they might be older than you. The same ways as those of fathers.
That's a close relationship.
Now it's time to far relationship and do the same ways for your grandfather's relatives and grandmother's relative. It's also up to your grandfarents' position, higher or lower
+your grandfather's brothers - you call them "ông"
+your grandfather's sisters - you call them "bà"
+sons and daughters of your grandfather's older brothers - you call them "bác" for all. and their sons and daughters, you call "anh" for male and " chị" for female. you are lower in the position
+sons and daughters of your grandfather's younger brothers - you call them "chú" for male and " cô" for female the same way of calling other in the close relation. and their sons and daughters ,you call " em" for all. you are in higher position
+sons and daughters of your grandmother's older brothers - you call "cậu" for male and " dì, gì" for female. and you call their sons and daughters, you call"anh và chị", higher position than you.
+sons and daughters of your grandmother's younger brothers- you call "cậu" for male and " dì, gì" for female. and you call their sons and daughters, you call "em", lower position than you.
The way of calling in far relative's position is the same as close relationship, It depends on the position of your grandparents.
It's quite complicated, right?but i hope you will get it better through this direction.
Actually, you might pay attention to the close relation only, even me, I don't know much about those who have relationship with my grandparents, and they usually live a countryside so sometimes I drop by my grandfarents' house and haven't known about it until they tell me about the relationship.

In addition, the relationship is close or far which depend on you meet them often or not.

[Moderator's Note: Merged with a previous thread]


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## Radioh

Hmmm... Very complicated. It's worth noting that "dì" and "gì" though pronounced the same informally, they mean completely different things.


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