đi

See also: đĩ and Appendix:Variations of "di"

Serbo-Croatian

Interjection

đȋ (Cyrillic spelling ђи̑)

Alternative form of đȉha, đȉja (“giddyup”)

Vietnamese

Etymology

From Proto-Vietic *diː ~ tiː (“to go, to walk”); cognate with Muong ti, Chut [Rục] tiː², Thavung tiː² and Tho [Cuối Chăm] tiː².

The similarity to 移 (SV: di) is purely coincidental (a false cognate).

The development of the verb "to go" into an imperative marker is a Sprachbund phenomenon. Wu & Huang (2018) and de Sousa (2022) discuss similar usage of "to go" in the Northern Tai and Sinitic lects of Guangxi in particular (Zhuang bae, Nanning Cantonese 去 (hy³³), etc.)^[1]^[2]

Pronunciation

(Hà Nội) IPA^(key): [ʔɗi˧˧]
(Huế) IPA^(key): [ʔɗɪj˧˧]
(Saigon) IPA^(key): [ʔɗɪj˧˧]
Audio (Hà Nội): (file)

Verb

đi • (𠫾, 𪠞)

to go
đi đến ― go to

đi ngủ ― go to bed

đi chợ ― go to the market

đi mua sắm ― go shopping
to leave; to set out
Tàu hoả mấy giờ đi?
What time does the train depart?
- 2007, Quang Vinh, Bảo Thy (lyrics and music), “Vẫn tin mình có nhau [Still Think We've Got Each Other]”:
  Thôi chào em, anh đi. / Vậy thì người đi đi!
  Alright, goodbye, I'm leaving / Then leave, you dummy!
(vehicles, of people) to go by; to board; to get on
đi máy bay ― go by plane
(of vehicles) to go/run/travel
(euphemistic) Short for đi ỉa (“to shit”) or đi ngoài (“to defecate”)
(Northern Vietnam) to wear (footwear)
Synonym: mang

mèo đi hia ― Puss in Boots

Adverb

đi

away; out of sight
Nó chạy đi đâu rồi?
Where the hell did he go?
- 1941, Nam Cao, Chí Phèo:
  Ðó là cái bản tính của hắn, ngày thường bị lấp đi.
  That is his nature, which is usually hidden away.

Particle

đi • (𠫾, 𪠞)

at the end of a sentence, conveys an urging or commanding tone
Thôi dẹp đi!
Cut it out!
- 1941, Nam Cao, Chí Phèo:
  Thấy Chí Phèo không nhúc nhích, cụ tiếp luôn: - Nào đứng lên đi. Cứ vào đây uống nước đã.
  Seeing that Chí Phèo wasn't budging, the old man continued, "Get up now. Come here and have some water."
- 2007, Quang Vinh, Bảo Thy (lyrics and music), “Vẫn tin mình có nhau [Still Think We've Got Each Other]”:
  Vậy thì người đi đi!
  Then leave, you dummy!

Alternative forms

đê

Derived terms

References

^ de Sousa, Hilário. 2022. The Expansion of Cantonese Over the Last Two Centuries. In: Ye, Z. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Chinese Language Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore.
^ Yang, Huang, and Fuxiang, Wu. 2018. Central southern Guangxi as a grammaticalization area. In New trends in grammaticalization and language change, ed. Sylvie Hancil, Tine Breban, and José Vicente Lozano, 105–134. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

[1] Sousa, Hilário. 2022. The Expansion of Cantonese Over the Last Two Centuries. In: Ye, Z. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Chinese Language Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore.

[2] Yang, Huang, and Fuxiang, Wu. 2018. Central southern Guangxi as a grammaticalization area. In New trends in grammaticalization and language change, ed. Sylvie Hancil, Tine Breban, and José Vicente Lozano, 105–134. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

[1]

[2]