OF THE INDO-CHINESE NATIONS. ^69 



and office ; a great deal of the idiom of the language 

 consists in the different modes of expressing the 

 respective relations subsisting between the speaker 

 and the person addressed : hence originates the 

 number of personal pronouns, expressive of these 

 relations, as well as numerous circumlocutory forms 

 of expression ; the genius of both the Anam and the 

 Chinese language requiring, that as often as possible, 

 appellative nouns, and names of office, dignity, 

 relationship, or consanguinity, should be substituted 

 instead of the simple personal pronouns. Thus, a 

 husband addressing his wife, and using the pronoun 

 /, instead of saving tazv, fa, or gua, any of which 

 has the signification of the simple pronoun /, ought 

 to say (inh, which signifies elder brother ; and his wife, 

 on the other hand, ought either to denominate her- 

 self toi, handmaid, or eng, younger sister ; a woman, 

 in like manner, addressing herself kindly to another, 

 who is either younger in years, or inferior in rank, 

 ought always to denominate herself elder sister ; a 

 husband addressing his wife, in polite terms, ought 

 always to term her younger sister ; and, in general, 

 speaking to a young woman, she should use the 

 same expression, but an old woman he ought to term 

 bau or aimt. A lover, addressing his mistress, terms 

 her younger sister, while she, in return, terms him 

 elder brother. A son, addressing his father, ought 

 not even to term him cha, father ; but anh, fathers 

 elder brother ; chu, fathers younger brother, or cau, 

 mothers brother: in a similar manner, addressing his 

 mother, he ought not to term her me, mother; but 

 either c6, fathers sister, or di, mothers sister. It is 

 easy to perceive that this minute accuracy of phra- 

 seology must have occasioned great trouble to the 

 catholic missionaries in rendering portions of scrip- 

 ture into the Anam language ; accordingly we find, 



