In Vietnamese, an aunt's position in one's extended family is clearly articulated through a specific form of address, depending whether the aunt is (a) the father's older sister (bác), (b) the father's younger sister (cô), (c) the mother's older sister (bác), or (d) the mother's younger sister (dì). Furthermore, the word "aunt" also changes when the relation is not by blood but through marriage. For example, the wife of your father's younger brother is called thím, but the wife of your mother's younger brother is called mợ. To add to the complication, the form of address also changes depending on the geographic location, whether one comes from North, Central, or South Vietnam.
Vietnamese is a tonal language, consisting of six tones: flat/ level (no diacritical mark), falling (` huyền), rising (/ sắc), falling-rising (? hỏi), sharp-glottal-rising (~ ngã), and low-constricted-falling ( . nặng). The tones can drastically change the meanings of words that look similar.
In poetry, tones are classified into two distinct groups: (1) bằng ("level, flat") for words with either a level or falling tone, and (2) "trắc ("sharp") for words with rising (/ sắc), falling-rising (? hỏi), sharp-glottal-rising (~ ngã) and low constricted falling tones (. nặng). To maintain rhyme and/or rhythm, words with tones belonging to a particular tone group must occur at certain intervals within either a line or stanza. The poets I translated here either wrote in free verse or a loose meter scheme. Whenever possible, I have tried to replicate some of their rhythms and/or rhyme schemes in English. To emphasize the importance of tones in Vietnamese, in translation I have kept intact the diacritical marks in the poets' places of birth and geographical locations mentioned in the poems.
Washington D.C., January 2015