Vietnamese pronouns

In general, a Vietnamese pronoun (, or ) can serve as a noun phrase. In Vietnamese, a pronoun usually connotes a degree of family relationship or kinship. In polite speech, the aspect of kinship terminology is used when referring to oneself, the audience, or a third party. These terms might differ slightly in different regions. Many of them are derived from Chinese loanwords, but have acquired the additional grammatical function of being pronouns over the years.
Vietnamese terms of reference can reveal the social relationship between the speaker and the person being referred to, differences in age, and even the attitude of the speaker toward that person. Thus a speaker must carefully assess these factors to decide the appropriate term. It's not unusual for strangers to ask each other about age when they first meet, in order to establish the proper terms of address to use. If the speaker does not know the stranger there is a certain pronoun that they can address the speaker in order to sound respectful.
True pronouns.
True pronouns are categorized into two classes depending on whether they can be preceded by the plural marker "chúng", "bọn" or "các". Like other Asian pronominal systems, Vietnamese pronouns indicate the social status between speakers and other persons in the discourse in addition to grammatical person and number. 
The table below shows the first class of pronouns that can be preceded by pluralizer.
The first person "tôi" is the only pronoun that can be used in polite speech. The first person "ta" is often used when talking to oneself as in a soliloquy, but also indicates a higher status of the speaker (such as that of a high official, etc.). The other superior-to-inferior forms in the first and second persons ("tao", "mày", "mi", "bay") are commonly used in familiar social contexts, such as among family members (e.g. older sister to younger sister, etc.); these forms are otherwise considered impolite. The third person form "nó" (used to refer to animals, children, and scorned adults, such as criminals) is considerably less arrogant than the second person forms "tao", "mày", "mi", "bay". The pronoun "mình" is used only in intimate relationships, such as between husband and wife.
The pronominal forms in the table above can be modified with "chúng" as in "chúng mày", "chúng nó". There is an exclusive/inclusive plural distinction in the first person: "chúng tôi" and "chúng tao" are exclusive (i.e., me and them but not you), "chúng ta" and "chúng mình" are inclusive (i.e., you and me). Some of the forms ("ta", "mình", "bay") can be used to refer to a plural referent, resulting in pairs with overlapping reference (e.g., both "ta" and "chúng ta" mean "inclusive we").
The other class of pronouns are known as "absolute" pronouns (Thompson 1965). These cannot be modified with the pluralizer "chúng". Many of these forms are literary and archaic, particularly in the first and second person.
Unlike the first type of pronoun, these absolute third person forms ("y", "hắn", "va") refer only to animate referents (typically people). The form "y" can be preceded by the pluralizer in southern dialects in which case it is more respectful than "nó". The absolute pronoun "người ta" has a wider range of reference as "they, people in general, (generic) one, we, someone".
Kinship terms.
Kinship terms are the most popular ways to refer to oneself and others. Anyone can be referred to using kinship terms, not just people who are related. The Vietnamese kinship terms are quite complex. While there is some flexibility as to which kinship terms should be used for people not related to the speaker, there is often only one term to use for people related by blood or marriage, for up to three generations. Some of the kinship terms are:
Except the terms for "father", "mother" and "child", all others, such as "elder brother", "elder sister", "younger sibling", "uncle", "aunt", "nephew/niece/grandchild", etc. are usable for cousins, and cousinship is inherited from older generations and through marriage. In this regard, your grandparents, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, etc. are a kind of closer "cousins" to you; the further a relative is from you, the further back you'll have to trace in order to know exactly whether you should address them as "grandpa", "grandma", "uncle", "aunt", etc. Distant cousins with "grandparent status" that are younger than you may be referred to as "ông/bà trẻ" ("young grandpa/ma"). This phenomenon is highlighted in a Vietnamese proverb: "Bé bằng củ khoai, cứ vai mà gọi" (Small as a potato, but call by rank). In practice, age differences are commonplace, and some people may be hesitant to take advantage of their superior cousin status.
Despite this complicated system of kinship, when talking about cousins, even most Vietnamese are only concerned about "anh họ", "chị họ" or "em họ". Whether someone is your "elder brother", "elder sister" or "younger sibling" is dependent on your parent's relation to theirs: for example, if your uncle is your mother's younger sibling, his children are also always your "younger siblings" regardless of whether they are actually older than you or not. If you are married, you also inherit your spouse's cousinship, which means you will become an "older brother" or "older sister" to his or her "younger sibling" cousins, again even if they are older than you.
Outside of actual kinship, kinship terms are used depending on age differences, in informal contexts, or in a friendly way toward children. When addressing a stranger, you may have to consider whether this person is a bit or a lot older or younger than yourself or your parents. This could be done by asking and knowing their age, or simply through guesswork. If you are rather young and you are talking to a very old person, it is generally safe to call them "ông" or "bà", and yourself "cháu" or "con". In formal contexts, however, only a few terms can be used based on how young or old the stranger appears: "anh" (young or middle-aged men), "chị" or "cô" (young or middle-aged women), "ông" (old men) and "bà" (old women); the reciprocal term would be the true pronoun "tôi" mentioned above. For rather young people in their early twenties, the non-kinship term "bạn" ("friend") is also a recognized usage.
Singular kinship terms can be pluralized using the plural marker "các", as in "các anh". When speaking to an audience in a formal context, kinship terms are often strung together to cover common individual relationships: "các anh chị em" refers to an audience of roughly the same age, while "các ông bà anh chị em", sometimes abbreviated "ÔBACE", refers to an audience of all ages.
Non-kinship terms used as pronouns.
In Vietnamese, virtually any noun used for a person can be used as a pronoun. These terms usually don't serve multiple roles like kinship terms (i.e. the term has only one grammatical person meaning). Words such as "doctor", "teacher", "owner", etc. can be used as a second-person personal pronoun when necessary. When referring to themselves, Vietnamese speakers, like speakers of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean languages, tend to deprecate their position while elevating the audience. While many of these terms are now obsolete, some remain in widespread usage. The most prominent of these words is "tôi", literally meaning "servant". It is used as a fairly neutral term for "I" (not very friendly, nor very formal). "Tớ", also meaning "servant", is also popular among young people to refer to themselves with close friends (used in conjunction with "cậu" for "lad").
Pronouns that elevate the audience still in use include "quý khách" (valued customer), "quý vị" (valued higher being). "Bạn" (friend) is also popular among young people to call each other.
Vietnamese speakers also refer to themselves and others by name where it would be strange if used in English, eliminating the need for personal pronouns altogether. For example, consider the following conversation:
Directly translated into English, the conversation would run thus:
A normal translation of the conversation into English would be:
While always referring to oneself or the audience by name would be considered strange in English, in Vietnamese it is considered friendly and slightly respectful, especially between acquaintances of different sexes who are not very close (as to use even more familiar terms such as "tao", "mày"), or between young girls. Referring to oneself by name is also the preferred way used by music artists, or even actors, models, etc. However, in a kinship context, people with a lower rank cannot address their superiors by name.
Obsolete pronouns.
Some pronouns are no longer commonly used, such as the royal we "trẫm". Many of them are no longer applicable because they refer to royalties, and Vietnam is no longer a monarchy. Some archaic pronouns include:
Pairs.
With the exception of "tôi", pronouns typically go hand-in-hand with another: when one is used to refer to the speaker, the other must be used to refer to the audience.