tôi

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Related to Proto-Katuic *sool (“slave”) (whence Pacoh xoul (“slave”)). Cognate with Muong thôl (a humble first-person pronoun). See also Central-Southern form tui.

“Slave; servant” > “I”.

The development of first-person pronoun from humble nouns such as “slave; servant” is a pan-Sprachbund phenomenon in the Southeast and East Asian region. Per Nguyen (2000), the pronominal use of this word was not attested in poems by Nguyễn Trãi and Nguyễn Bỉnh Khiêm in the 15^th–16^th centuries, and was postulated to have appeared at the end of the 16^th or the beginning of the 17^th century. Its introduction as a humble first-person pronoun posed as a disturbance to the preexisting tao–mày system: it resulted in an asymmetry with an empty second-person addressee slot corresponding to the humble tôi (see the table below), and led to the use of an appropriate noun, usually a kinship term or status term, to respectfully address the other party, precipitating the now-widespread use of kinship terms as personal pronouns in Vietnamese.

	First person	Second person	Third person
Horizontal pronouns (no social hierarchy)	tao	mày	nó, hắn
Vertical pronouns (with social hierarchy)	tôi

For similar grammaticalizations of pronouns, compare tớ, and in other languages, compare:

Japanese 僕 (boku), Mandarin 奴 (nú), Khmer ខ្ញុំ (khñom), Thai ข้า (kâa), Lao ຂ້ອຍ (khǭi), Burmese ကျွန်မ (kywanma.), Malay hamba.

tôi • (碎, 𪝬, 𫇈, 𫬮)

1. (archaic, historical) slave; domestic servant
   • 14th century, Mạc Đĩnh Chi, Giáo tử phú 敎子賦:

     𱙎妸挼碎
     誇咹誇黙

     Anh ả nuôi tôi,
     Khoe ăn khoe mặc.

     Men and women want to own many servants,
     To show off their wealth and lifestyle.

2. (archaic) servant of a monarch

   Synonym: tớ

   nghĩa vua tôi ― a good relationship between a king and his servants

   tôi trung ― a loyal servant

   • 16th century, Nguyễn Thế Nghi's (attributed) Tân biên Truyền kỳ mạn lục tăng bổ giải âm tập chú (新編傳奇漫錄增補解音集註), giải âm/translation of Truyền kỳ mạn lục ("Casual Record of Transmitted Strange-Tales") by Nguyễn Dữ.

     碎庭臣𪢍𤽗立言蒸𣦛

     Tôi đình thần ghét ngươi Lập Ngôn chưng thẳng.

     The royal court servants/the mandarins at the royal court hated the honest Lập Ngôn.

   • Phan Châu Trinh Đạo đức và luân lí Đông Tây :

     Tôi là gì? Tôi là người tùng phục vua (vua chư hầu) hoặc là người làm nô lệ cho vua, hoặc là người làm công cho vua. Đem mình ra đầu tên mũi đạn đổi lấy một mảnh giấy vàng, một dấu ấn đỏ; đang đầu ra giữa trận mưa dầu nắng lửa để đổi lấy chung rượu lạt, tiếng ban khen. Nói tóm lại, tôi là người tôi mọi, đã bán rẻ vừa hồn lẫn xác cho vua vậy.

     What's a servant? A servant serves his monarch (the monarch and his vassals), or is the monarch's slave, or the monarch's workhorse. He brings himself to the battlefront in exchange for a golden certificate, a red stamp; he fights against the elements in exchange for some bland liquor, some praise. In short, the servant is subservient, he's already sold out his soul and his body to the monarch.

tôi • (碎, 倅)

1. (Northern Vietnam, informal, typically men's speech) I/me (used by someone with status equal or higher than his or her conversational partner, but doesn't want to sound too intimate to them)

   Không dám. Tôi sao sánh bằng chú được.

   Please, I can't compare to you, really.

2. (Northern Vietnam, informal, familiar) I/me (used when talking to one's friends)

   Synonym: tui

   Antonyms: ông, bà

   Bà ơi, cho tôi xin tờ giấy.

   Hey, can you lend me a sheet of paper?

   Cái bà này lạ ! Làm sao tôi biết được !

   Aren't you a funny one? How the hell should I know?

3. (formal in all dialects) I/me (used in formal contexts, regardless of the difference in status between the speakers)

   bạn và tôi ― you and I/me

   • 2012, Joe Ruelle, Ngược chiều vun vút [Whooshing toward the Other Way]‎, page 234:

     Ý tôi không phải “phương Đông – phương Tây” là cách phân chia văn hoá vô tác dụng.

     I do not mean that the “Eastern – Western” categorization of cultures is invalid.

4. (literary, endearing, men's speech) I/me (used by a man to a woman he loves)

   Synonym: anh

   Antonym: em

   • 1829, Alexander Pushkin, translated by Hoàng Thúy Toàn, Tôi yêu em [I Loved You], translation of Я вас любил, published 1999:

     Tôi yêu em âm thầm, không hi vọng,
     Lúc rụt rè, khi hậm hực lòng ghen,
     Tôi yêu em, yêu chân thành, đằm thắm,
     Cầu em được người tình như tôi đã yêu em.

     I loved you, without words, without hope,
     Sometimes I felt shy, sometimes I felt tortured with jealousy,
     I loved you, truly and deeply,
     I pray you'll find someone who loves you as much as I ever did.

   • 1942, Paul Éluard, translated by Phùng Văn Tửu, Tự do [Liberty], translation of Liberté:

     Và bằng phép màu một tiếng
     Tôi bắt đầu lại cuộc đời
     Tôi sinh ra để biết tên em
     Để gọi tên em
     TỰ DO.

     And by the power of one word
     I start my life over
     I was born to know you
     To say your name
     Liberty.

   • 2005, Lương Bằng Quang (lyrics and music), “Chính em [It's You]”:

     Nếu tôi không tìm thấy, cuộc đời này nhỏ nhoi vắng em thật vô nghĩa.
     Sẽ như trăng kia, một mình tìm tình yêu bay suốt đêm thâu !
     Nếu tôi không tìm thấy, nguyện cầu được tìm trong giấc mơ vòng tay ai.
     Chính em, em ơi ! Tìm gì vì tình yêu của em chân thành !

     If I can't find you, this puny life without you would be completely meaningless.
     Like the moon above, looking for love by itself all night long!
     If I can't find you, I wish to be found in a certain someone's arms in a dream.
     It's you, my love! I'm looking for something all for your true love!

Tôi is a generic way to refer to oneself; however, Vietnamese speakers usually use a complex system of kinship terms to address each other. For example, anh is used to address an older brother, a husband, or a man slightly older than the speaker. The Wikipedia article on Vietnamese pronouns provides a detailed look at these terms. Because kinship terms require knowledge of the audience's age, gender and social status in relation to the speaker, it is not always practical to refer to someone using these pronouns; instead, the speaker can employ generic words such as tôi and ta, but note that these are considered stiff. Alternatively, the speaker may simply use his or her name (and that of the audience) when conversing.

Note also that, although tôi always refers to the speaker, kinship terms variously refer to the speaker or the audience, depending on context.

• tui

See the usage note above for details on how to use these words, most of which are not interchangeable:

See the usage note above for details on how to use these words, most of which are not interchangeable:

Non-Sino-Vietnamese reading of Chinese 焠 (SV: thối).

tôi • (𤏣)

1. to temper; to anneal

   Thép đã tôi thế đấy ― How the Steel Was Tempered

• Nguyễn Phú Phong (2000) “Personal pronouns in Vietnamese and in Mường”, in The Fifth International Symposium on Languages and Linguistics‎, Ho Chi Minh City: Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities, archived from the original on 16 June 2015, pages 261–265