ExclusiveThe depth behind how Vietnamese people address each other | Vietnam Within Us

In English, there's the term of endearment just three words long. One that works for almost anyone. I love you. One I for the speaker. One you for the listener. No matter who that listener is. But Vietnamese works differently. That same love gets spoken in countless ways. A child say it to a mother. A grandchild to a grandmother. An older sibling to a younger one. A grandmother to a grandchild. Every relationship carries its own way of saying it. So today on Vietnam Within Us, let's pause together on something so familiar we rarely stop to notice. The depth behind how Vietnamese people address one another. Here's the first thing that stands out. In Vietnamese, we have almost no fixed word for ourselves. In front of our parents, we call ourselves con, the word for child. In front of grandparents, we become cháu, grandchild. With our younger child, we are anh or chị, older brother or older sister. With someone older, we turn into em, the younger one. Then once we have children of our own, we become bố and mẹ, father and mother. The same person, yes the word for I, keeps changing depending on who's standing in front of us. Vietnamese does have neutral words like tôi or tớ, but they sound distant and almost too polite. Vietnamese people value closeness. So instead of those colder words, we reach for the words we'd already use at home. Grandfather, grandmother, aunt, uncle, older siblings, younger sibling, and call each other by them as if everyone were a family, as if everyone were family. In other words, Vietnamese people almost never define themselves alone. We are always someone's child, someone's grandchild, always placed inside a relationship. And these words keep climbing upward, like steps on a staircase. Above our parents are our grandparents. Above our grandparents become cậu, the great-grandparents. Above that comes kỷ, the generation before them. And above them all stand our ancestors. This is how people in the old days counted kinships, tracing back nine generations. Those nine generations line up in a single column, connecting the living of those who came before. So every time we say con or cháu, child or grandchild, we're quietly admitting we didn't simply appear in this world on our own. Behind us stands a long line of people who came before. A single word of address, and this already holds an entire memory of where we come from. But what runs deeper is that this way of addressing people doesn't stop with the living. On the family altar in so many Vietnamese homes, in the most honored spot, there's often a wooden tablet inscribed with four words. Nine generations of ancestors, meaning all the grandparents and forebears who have passed. Every time someone lights a stick of incense before that altar, they still pray, still speak, still call themselves con, cháu, child or grandchild. Which means even people who died hundreds of years ago are still called by the same family words. Grandfather, grandmother, great-grandparents, the generation before. Ancestors, even after death, are never pushed into the ranks of strangers. Through the way we speak to them, they keep a place in the home, in every prayer, in the memory of their descendants. Is there a truer way to remember the source when you drink the water than that? Strangers still. Vietnamese people even take these family words and use them with people they have never met. Meet someone your father's age and you call him back, uncle, and yourself cháu, nephew or niece. Meet someone your older sibling's age, you call them anh or chị, older brother or sister. Through speech alone, all of society ends up arranged like just one big family. And on the scale of the whole nation, we call each other by a strikingly beautiful word, đồng bào, meaning born from the same pouch, a nod from the legend of Mother Oca, who gave birth to a hundred eggs. However, far apart Vietnamese people may be, we still quietly think of one another as siblings, sharing one mother, one same origins. It sinks in when you think about it. A people language is really a mural held up to its soul. Our elders used to remind one another with an old folk verse, every person has ancestors and roots, as a tree has its base, as a river has its source. That instinct to remember where we come from isn't hidden away somewhere. It lives right inside our everyday speech. Every time a child is taught to say, taught to always answer with respect, they are being taught the first and most important lesson of all, knowing who comes before you and honoring the people who raise you. Learning to eat, learning to speak. For Vietnamese people, that turns out to be learning devotion to family, learning how to be human. Life has changed today. And sometimes we slip in saying, because it's quicker, easier. There's nothing wrong with that. But it could be a real loss if one day, the warmth of con, chau, thu quietly faded away. Because every time we call our mother and answer to con, every time we teach a child to fold their hands and read their grandparents, we are passing down more than just a way of speaking. Maybe that's exactly how we quietly hand the next generation an invisible thread, one that ties them to everyone who came before, a thread with a name, where we come from.