Talk:Japanese honorifics

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Japan To-do:

[edit] Surprising assertions

There are some assertions on Japanese honorifics that I find surprising.

I've never heard anyone's boss referred to with the "sama" honorific. This is, however, used routinely to address customers: 客様. I wouldn't call it "rare."
I've never been aware of a rule governing how wo o- vs go- prefixes get used, but if it relates to onyomi/kunyomi, it's clearly a rule with a lot of exceptions, as my previous line makes clear, likewise お電話 and numerous other examples. adamrice 03:19, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

- - Wow, this article is a mess. It reads like someone's class notes. Anyway, sama is used by people working at businesses to refer to their customers every day. I get called okyakusama even at 711. On the other hand, I've never heard anyone refer to their boss, or anyone else's, as ~sama. Even the mayor of my city is called shicho-san (Mr. Mayor), not shicho-sama. And I agree, if that's an established rule there are plenty of exceptions. Please sign your posts. Exploding Boy 01:31, Jul 22, 2004 (UTC)

- - - Yes, it's a rule that o- is for kun' and go- is for on', although there are certainly many exceptions. お電話 in particular is an exception because the word is so common and everyday that people have come to unconsciously think of it as a kun' reading. Yeah, -sama is usually used to address customers nowadays, but I seem to recall hearing that in offices it is still used occasionally (anyone who's worked in a Japanese office care to confirm?) --Shibboleth 05:37, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

- - - - I think the reason is that -sama sounds like formal but a bit distant and less friendly. It's exactly like English "Mr./Ms." prefix. It is fair to say when someone says -sama, s/he is emphasizing the personal distance between the speaker and the listener, which is considered to be good when dealing with a customer. But outside the customer-servant context we generally don't use -sama. If you use -sama for those who personally know you, they will think you're making fun of them. And you shouldn't call your boss with any hororable title in front of your customer, because that means you're bringing your boss to the same position as the customers. Again, the point of honorific here is to emphasize the social distance. Euske 21:42, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Removed from article

-ko (こ): Sometimes used for pets. (A great Japanese pun is to name a cat Cally, which becomes cally-ko, that is, calico). Usage: ???

I have never heard this, and besides, a form of address used for cats can hardly be called an honourific. Exploding Boy 04:03, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)

Its a real suffix.It should belong in honorifics.cats are just a subset of use.

It's real alright. Only, it's a long o, and it's written 公. Hachiko ring a bell? (Of course the lame cat pun has *got* to dissapear.) TomorrowTime 01:59, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

One more thing - honorifics are a grammatical cathegory. They don't necessarily imply respect or politeness. TomorrowTime 02:01, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] uchi-soto

Is there really no article yet on uchi-soto (in-groups and out-groups), or am I just searching in the wrong places? This is tightly linked to the present topic, as honorifics can't be used properly without an understand of who's in your in-group/out-group, who's higher and lower than you in the hierarchy, etc. --Shibboleth 05:30, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] suggest moving article, recasting intro

It occurs to me that, as it stands, this page is all about Japanese honorifics. There are honorifics in other languages, none of which are addressed here. This article should probably be retitled as "Japanese honorifics." Thoughts?

It also occurs to me that the honorifics under discussion do not exactly mark "honor" (as mentioned in the first graf). In the case of personal honorifics they mark social rank, intimacy gradients, and situational rank (getting at what Shibboleth mentions). In the case of omizu and the like, again, I think "honor" is the wrong word to describe what's going on. Perhaps the prefix is marking esteem. I realize I may be splitting hairs here. adamrice 20:05, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree. I've been thinking for a while now of moving this article to Japanese honorific. As for what honorifics do... well, they do a variety of things, but they're called "honorifics." In the case of "omizu," what is being honoured is water. Seems odd, but there you are. There is some logic to it though: things deemed worthy of respect are referred to with "o" (sometimes "go") -- o-sake, o-cha, o-mizu, etc. You don't often hear people (except extremely pretentious people) referring to o-ko-hi- (coffee), o-kokako-ra or o-wain... Exploding Boy 22:11, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Too much

The heading reads Examples of Japanese honorifics. That list is growing a bit big. You could probably live in Japan for a year and never come across -tan, -chi-, or -chama. -Han ought to be under the Kansai-ben article as an example of a mutation. -Dono and -ue are useful in case you run across them, but still rarely used. If there are no objections I'm going to pare this list back down to just a handful of examples. --Bigpeteb 13:50, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I agree about tan, chi and chama, but don't think we need to cut down the list of examples beyond that. The article is called "Japanese honorifics." Exploding Boy 17:00, Nov 2, 2004 (UTC)

But I think we still need the examples. Maybe not on this article, but perhaps List of Japanese honorifics? I added "-chi" because I've actually encountered it several times among my Japanese friends. :P It is dearly affectionate among adults, though I still don't completely understand all the contexts in which it is used (or not used), or what exact equivilents it may have in English. What I know is that I have two different friends who have called me "-chi", one of whom likes himself called "-chi", so I address them as such. ^_^ Could "-chi" simply be a slang contraction of "-chan"? - Gilgamesh 03:18, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Not sure where the "cute" -chi comes from, but it's actually a -cchi, with an obligatory small tsu... TomorrowTime 02:04, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Too little

I totally disagree. This is supposed to be an encyclopædia, a reference, a place to check when you don't know meaning of something. As such it should contain the most comprehensive list of all possible honorifics that can be encountered. That includes mutations, dialects, baby talk, and references to pets, all of which should be classified and organised. There's no such thing as too much information in an encyclopædia, there can be only too little, or there can be redundant information that can be reduced to just a few sentences without losing its meaning.

I think the word "Examples" should be removed, and that list made much more comprehensive. For example this article is totally inefficient in finding a meaning of "-neechan". First of all no search engine would be able to pick it up. Second of all even if someone deliberately came here looking for it, they would not be able to find it here at a first glance, unless they read entire article carefully to the very end, which they won't do, because they will prefer to keep searching for other resources. And even if they do find it here, they still won't understand what exactly does "nee" mean.

I came here looking for explanation of "-senpai" and "-chin", none of which are here. I urge you to make this page as comprehensive as possible. --Delicates 06:17, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Having a comprehensive list just so people know which ones exist can be useful, I agree, but that really belongs on a separate page so as to not crowd out the usage information that's here. If you just want a place that explains what each term means, that belongs on the Wiktionary.

Providing a comprehensive list that covers the topic, especially if it's a finite list, has nothing to do with being a dictionary. If we had a separate article for each honorific, then yes, that would be Wiktionary realm. Description of each honorific is the usage information in this case, and having an incomplete list would be equal to having an incomplete usage information. The article should answer a question of how to address someone of a particular stature, and if a suitable honorific is missing - the article becomes useless. --Delicates 16:07, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

True, it's important to know how to use each one. But that still doesn't belong here. Japanese honorifics ought to be about what honorifics are (not "what are some honorifics"), when and how to use them. Someone looking for the opposite of what you are, a general overview of what an honorific is, having never heard of them before, would be innundated with useless information if 90% of this page were a list of them. That's why so many Wikipedia articles are separated into the description and the list. And don't forget, o- and go- are also honorifics. Are you suggesting we list on this page every word that doesn't use the expected honorific? It's "usage" information, but it's just too specific.

This is one of the benefits of an electronic encyclopedia. You don't have to put all the information in one page to keep people from jumping around. If I read the article on computers, I would expect to find out what a computer is, how it evolved, and what people use it for. I would expect there to be links to other pages describing what makes up the computer, and if I wanted to know more about how a CPU works, I would expect it to have links to some of the technologies it uses, like pipelining. If the authors of those articles had tried to cram all of that into computer just because it's about computers, the article would be useless.

Let me put it another way. When you think of "usage information for Japanese honorifics," you think of when and why each different honorific is used. When I think of it, I think of the fact that they go in front of or behind the word, and the fact that there are different ones for different uses. Again, it's the different between "What is an honorific in terms of Japanese?" and "What are some Japanese honorifics?" Bigpeteb 14:39, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

What you think about would belong to Honorifics. What I think about would belong here. The example you provided doesn't relate here, because it is about different terminology, rather than a set. Here we are dealing with a finite set of Japanese honorifics, which are a subset of all possible honorifics in different languages (eg. Sir, Señora, Chevalier or Your Worship). You can talk for hours about computers without mentioning pipelining but you can't talk for hours about Japanese honorifics without mentioning them all. --Delicates 00:55, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Examples are like wine. There should be just enough to accent the article and bring out its flavor, but not so much as to become the main focus. Bigpeteb 14:31, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Examples are appropriate when there is a great number of possible instances. But when there is just a dosen or so, that can fit into a neat finite list, all possibilities should be included. If this article was about honorifics in general and in different languages, then a few examples would be appropriate, but this is a specific article about Japanese honorifics, so all of them should be listed, especially since there aren't that many. I believe the word "Examples" was left over from before this article was made Japanese-specific, and now it should be removed. --Delicates 16:07, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The problem I have with that line of reasoning is that it obscures the truth of the matter. Yes, there are a dozen, or perhaps two dozen name honorifics. In reality, there are about 6 that any student of Japanese should be required to know, and only half of those are likely to be used on a daily basis (depending on what you do). If you have examples and a separate list, that becomes obvious; the important ones are probably the ones chosen as examples, unless noted otherwise. Combine the two, and you lose that distinction. So by your own logic, you'd be making a worse encyclopedia by obscuring some information. Bigpeteb 14:39, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I still address some of my friends as "-chi". I used it this morning. It may not be common, but I use it. (It's a term of great endearment, which as I've been told actually has no meaning and no kanji, so it's probably slang. In this case, it means "among the dearest of friends". Rather pre-Victorian in platonic affection.) - Gilgamesh 15:35, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I don't see what Japanese students and their use of honorifics have to do with this. You are basically limiting this article to one particular social group, and determine a honorific importance by that group's merit. There is really something wrong with your reasoning here. I never said anything about obscuring information. I did however said "classified and organised" and "neat". --Delicates 00:55, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

And to answer your question: -senpai means "senior", and is used in places where there's a clear hierarchy, but no other title. Schoolchildren use it for upperclassmen, and people in an office would use it for people who, for instance, are at the same level, but have been with the company longer. As for -chin, I've never heard of that one. Bigpeteb 14:31, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Senpai isn't really a honorific, it just declares hierarchy. And as for -chin, well you wouldn't have heard that one, it is (or rather, was) used exclusively for members of the royal family. TomorrowTime 02:11, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] sanzuke?

Since there are quite a few of these -san, -sama, etc., does anyone think it would be a good idea to just briefly mention the sanzuke (さんづけ) phenomenon? I mean like adding -san to such things as company names and banks and so on. --KittySaturn

I think that the article is getting rather carried away with name suffixes. There are many related phenomena to Japanese honorifics, but I have never thought of it as a big part of Japanese honorifics or keigo. I would be very happy with creating another article about Japanese name suffixes or by any other better title, but I do not feel that most of the information belongs here except for -san and -sama and perhaps brief mention of -dono or -ue. --Sudachi 05:57, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Links?

Can someone please Google and link here a comprehensive article about honorifics written in Japanese language? --Delicates 01:00, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

How about http://www.jref.com/language/japanese_suffixes.shtml ? (KevinJr42 02:46, 2005 Jan 1 (UTC))

[edit] recent revert

I reverted the latest change as confusing. The original version was much simpler and easier to understand. Exploding Boy 18:34, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)

I understand that it was harder to understand but there are a few things that are incorrect that I had fixed. I will try and find an easier way to explain them and fix them. --Sudachi 01:18, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Removed

as being not very well written, suspect, and not in the right place. Sensei is not really an honorific, not in the same way as -san or -sama at any rate. Exploding Boy 22:41, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

-sensei (せんせい, 先生). Sensei can be used by itself to mean teacher. However, it can be used as an honorific to replace -san if the person being addressed is a teacher or a professor. People with PhD's also fall in this category and may be addressed with the honorific -sensei; this is the equivalent of saying "Dr. Jones", which presents an indication of deserved respect. Medical doctors and certain respected professions such as lawyers, are commonly included in this category. Because the social position of teachers in Japan is very high, such a title has been used as an honorific for those deserving of such respect.

However, the -sensei term of respect has been abused often to play vanity upon or flatter the person addressed in a smiliar way a soldier in the field might promote his captain to a colonel by calling him 'Colonel' in order to make him happy.

What about the commonly used "oshikko" for piss. I fail to understand how piss can be honorific???

'o' does not always stand for honorific. It is part of bikago, beautification words. Words like money, etc.. that do not necessarily create a nice or clean image are often softened by adding 'o.' Does this answer your question?Sudachi 04:03, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

"-sensei", like "-senpai", is not really a honorific. It's a declaration of hierarchy, and most importantly, it's different from a honorific in that it can stand on it's own as a meaningful word. "-san" or "-sama" can't. TomorrowTime 02:14, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Sensei is a honorific. The fact that it can also stand alone doesn't mean it's not. It's a honorific because you wouldn't use it to describe yourself, even if you were a doctor. You wouldn't even use the word to describe your work, even if you were a teacher (you'd say kyousi or kyouju). The word wouldn't be used in a newspaper article either (they always write kyouju).Mackan 09:10, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure that newspaper terminology has anything to do with this, it's just a question of register, I think. And -senpai or -kouhai, -senshu and the rest of expressions similar to -sensei can be used independantly to describe oneself.

Nevertheless, the point you make is interesting. True, sensei cannot be used to adress oneself, similar to how you cannot call yourself with any other honorific. Would you say then that this is a honorific that through the course of time gained some independance in informal language in which it can now stand as an independant word, but remains at its core an honorific? And if this is the case, it might be argued that -senpai and the rest of them are independant words that gained usage as honorifics, but are at their core still independant words. What's your take on this? (we really should be having this discussion at Japanese titles... :) TomorrowTime 14:27, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm just saying a word can both be a honorific noun and a honorific title. The word originally came from Chinese though, where it's only a honorific title and not a noun. Mackan 15:02, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removed for discussion

[edit] Honorific in Popular Culture

Japanese popular culture (Anime, Manga, and live action youth television) should not be used as a precise reference for the use of honorific.

It is quite common for Japanese pop culture to over use formal terms that include honorific for scenes between close friends, or to use overly flattering dialog when speaking about somebody of higher status.

Examples of this are Onee-Sama (honored elder sister) used between close female friends, and ojou-Sama (Mistress, Lady) used by a maidservant or subordinate charged with the care of a young lady of status. Neither is regularly used normal conversation in Japan.

Can the person who posted this clarify what they were trying to get at? Can it be rephrased to make it clearer? Can it be verified? Exploding Boy 00:32, August 8, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Removed a lot

I had to remove a whole bunch of stuff which was either wrong or irrelevant from this article. Call it chopping out dead wood or something - anyway I removed quite a lot because I just couldn't see the point of rewriting it all. If there was anything which needed to be kept, please discuss it here and I'll try to reintegrate it. I also added this article on to the Japanese Wikipedian's notice board for attention since the article was in need of lots of attention. It still needs a lot more work before it looks reasonable. --DannyWilde 02:47, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Please place new comments at the bottom of the page, not the top.

Please discuss your proposed changes to this article before making wholesale deletions of relevant and accurate information from the article. Exploding Boy 20:28, September 5, 2005 (UTC)

I don't think it is either relevant or accurate information. As far as I can see it is inaccurate. I have added a list below of the main passages I deleted, with comments. Please note that I offered to add back the information myself if necessary. It's not good to simply made a destructive revert edit, since my edit fixed lots of stuff like spelling mistakes as well as removing paragraphs --DannyWilde 00:00, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Removed and why

QUOTE> This is similar to, though more complex than, the formal use of plurals to convey respect in languages such as French (vous instead of tu), Greek (eseis instead of esei), and early Modern English (thee instead of thou from German Sie and du).

This is irrelevant and inaccurate. Japanese honorifics aren't at all similar to these. --DannyWilde 00:48, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

QUOTE> In general, in Japanese, women tend to use polite and honorific forms more than men, though there are some situations in which honorific speech and the use of honorific titles is mandatory, regardless of the gender of the speaker.

This does not belong at the top of the article. The implication that women use honorifics more may be correct, although I'm not sure of it, but the point of the paragraph is lost on me, mostly because of the "though". --DannyWilde 00:48, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

QUOTE> However many young people find that when they leave school and enter the working world, or even in dealing as an adult with certain types of people, the ability to correctly use and understand honorific language is mandatory and unavoidable. An adult who cannot correctly use and understand honorifics may be seen as uneducated, inconsiderate or, in extreme cases, untrustworthy. Many companies provide specific training in honorific language, and there are hundreds of books dedicated to its correct use.

Again, it's unclear what this paragraph is trying to say. It's possible that young people don't use honorifics correctly, but before this I removed a comment where it was claimed that young Japanese people don't use "san" or other titles. This is incorrect. I'm not sure how such misinformation can be edited into a correct form. I just don't know how this stuff got into the article in the first place. --DannyWilde 03:53, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

QUOTE> Historically, Japanese honorifics have several degrees of honors. Certain types of honorifics are only permitted to use for certain people. Today when you read Japanese classic literature, you will notice that its use of ellipsis is more extensive than the modern Japanese and the subject or object of a verb is frequently omitted. This is because the reader is supposed to infer the subject from its honorifics. For example, the suffix -tamafu (pronunced as -tamou) was the most honorable form and only used for describing an emperor or his/her relatives. There were also lesser honorifics for other noble people. This may also derive at least in part from kotodama practice, where the "vibrations" of sounds are considered to have spritual and physical properties.

This paragraph is speculative, and makes little sense. If there is something here worth saving, what is it? The comments here will only confuse most readers. If it is necessary to include this, maybe it should go under "literary use of honorifics" not in the body of the article. --DannyWilde 00:48, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

QUOTE> In Japanese, as in English, speaking with a superior might require adopting a more solicitous or polite air and tone of voice and the avoidance of coarse language and slang. Unlike in English, however, in Japanese speaking with a social superior also requires modifying one's choice of specific vocabulary or word forms, and each of the three main Japanese honorific categories has particular words, word endings and prefixes. A speaker's status relative to the subject and/or listener in a given situation determines the choice of speech style.

Again, what is "one's choice of specific vocabulary"? The English makes very little sense. One of the reasons to delete things like this is because it is not clear what they mean. Now, "Each of the three main Japanese honorific categories has particular words, word endings and prefixes" makes some kind of sense, but then we get lost again in the next sentence. It's a complete mess. No one reading this who doesn't know the topic could understand it - I'm not sure the person who wrote it understands it either. Again, I feel it would be better to start from scratch here and just rewrite it from the ground up rather than spend hours puzzling over what the original author meant to say. I am sorry for the people who wrote this article, but basically large parts of this article just need to be trashed and rewritten from scratch. --DannyWilde 00:48, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Comparison to other languages

"This is similar to, though more complex than, the formal use of plurals to convey respect in languages such as French (vous instead of tu), Greek (eseis instead of esei), and early Modern English (thee instead of thou from German Sie and du)."

This is irrelevant and inaccurate. Japanese honorifics aren't at all similar to these. --DannyWilde 00:48, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Actually, it is both similar (note: "similar," not "identical to") and accurate, and serves the useful purpose of demonstrating, in a way that will be familiar to many readers who might not otherwise readily understand, what is being discussed. This should be restored. Exploding Boy

I would categorize this as nothing more than a lame analogy which assumes the reader studied high school French. How is it accurate? Further, it assumes the reader is familiar with French, German and Greek, which is an ethnocentric assumption in my view. If you want to discuss those as honorifics, put them on the honorifics page.--DannyWilde 01:06, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Not at all. French, you'll notice, is not the only example given. Three languages are named, and there's a good chance a given English speaker might have studied one of them. I can't understand your problem with this paragraph; it simply provides a point of reference to clarify what might for some people be an inscrutable point. Ethnocentric?? Come one. Exploding Boy 17:42, September 8, 2005 (UTC)

Worth noting in passing that it is in fact completely incorrect and even misleading in the matter of English. It is nonsensical to claim that thee is a plural; it is not and never has been. What it is, is the objective form of the singular thou. The equivalent plurals are you and ye; they did indeed start off as exclusively plural and gradually spread to cover the singular usages as well. However, the situation in which most modern English speakers encounter thou and thee is religious language, in which they are actually used as a kind of deity-specific honorific, not as a familiar form at all. Haeleth 15:10, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Gender differences

"In general, in Japanese, women tend to use polite and honorific forms more than men, though there are some situations in which honorific speech and the use of honorific titles is mandatory, regardless of the gender of the speaker."

I can only suggest that you do your research before erasing information you're not sure of. Women speakers of Japanese--like most women in fact--do use polite forms more frequently than men, and to me the meaning of this paragraph is quite clear: although women use polite forms more frequently, there are situations where such forms are mandatory for any speaker. Exploding Boy

Do they? If you go to the Japanese Seven Eleven, do the women staff speak more politely than men? I don't think so. They both speak the same way. So saying "In general" is no good.--DannyWilde 01:06, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes, they do. It's a much documented phenomenon. And no, the female staff at 711 don't speak more politely than the male staff, a fact that is covered in the paragraph: "there are situations where such forms are mandatory for any speaker." I think this is quite clear. Exploding Boy 22:31, September 7, 2005 (UTC)

I read your previous comments and I added a subsection on gender differences. I invite you and anyone else to add what you think I have failed to put in there. I found Onna kotoba, although this article is not high quality at the moment it is a starting point. I added a link to there from this page. Also, since you say it's well documented, you could add some references. There are a lot of gender differences, such as women omitting the "da" copula, which aren't related to keigo. Then the honorific usage could be added into that. --DannyWilde 03:58, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Keigo in the business world

"However many young people find that when they leave school and enter the working world, or even in dealing as an adult with certain types of people, the ability to correctly use and understand honorific language is mandatory and unavoidable. An adult who cannot correctly use and understand honorifics may be seen as uneducated, inconsiderate or, in extreme cases, untrustworthy. Many companies provide specific training in honorific language, and there are hundreds of books dedicated to its correct use."

In the original context it would have been clear, though I agree this paragraph is poorly written. In essence, younger Japanese people often have difficulty with the minutiae of keigo, and therefore must be trained when they enter the workforce. Exploding Boy

I have added something to the revised article. I think NPOV is a good idea here. posted by DannyWilde

[edit] Historical use

"Historically, Japanese honorifics have several degrees of honors. Certain types of honorifics are only permitted to use for certain people. Today when you read Japanese classic literature, you will notice that its use of ellipsis is more extensive than the modern Japanese and the subject or object of a verb is frequently omitted. This is because the reader is supposed to infer the subject from its honorifics. For example, the suffix -tamafu (pronunced as -tamou) was the most honorable form and only used for describing an emperor or his/her relatives. There were also lesser honorifics for other noble people. This may also derive at least in part from kotodama practice, where the "vibrations" of sounds are considered to have spritual and physical properties."

I agree this sounds like utter nonsense, though it's true that certain words were reserved for certain classes of people (as is still evident in keigo today). Exploding Boy

[edit] Difficult to understand paragraph

"In Japanese, as in English, speaking with a superior might require adopting a more solicitous or polite air and tone of voice and the avoidance of coarse language and slang. Unlike in English, however, in Japanese speaking with a social superior also requires modifying one's choice of specific vocabulary or word forms, and each of the three main Japanese honorific categories has particular words, word endings and prefixes. A speaker's status relative to the subject and/or listener in a given situation determines the choice of speech style."

I'm sorry, but I just don't see what the problem is with understanding this paragraph. It seems quite simple to me: (1) Speaking with a superior requires modifying one's manner of speech in both Japanese and English; (2) In Japanese, one must also select particular words and word forms; (3) This is because each category of honorifics has different words and word forms in Japanese; (4) Depending on the speaker's status vis-a-vis both the listener and the subject, the speaker will select an appropriate style of speech (described earlier in the article). Exploding Boy

That you had to make four different summaries of one paragraph should tell you something about the nature of the contents. Posted by DannyWilde

There were not four different summaries. There are four points in the paragraph and I enumerated them. I think you're being unreasonable and failing to address the issues I'm raising. Exploding Boy 22:31, September 7, 2005 (UTC)

Exactly. A paragraph should only contain one main point. --DannyWilde 03:58, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Now you're being pedantic as well as ignoring the issue at hand. The paragraph is fine as it is. Exploding Boy 17:37, September 8, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Problem or not?

For me, this article was never a huge problem. It has been worked on by a large number of editors so probably it needed a bit of cleaning up, but some of the information you've removed is both relevant and correct, and should be replaced. Editing boldly is great, but simply deleting a large amount of information isn't; in such cases it would be far preferable to discuss your proposed changes in this manner first. One glaring omission, for example, is the brief explanation of honorifics in the opening paragraph, which really needs to be restored. Exploding Boy 16:47, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

For me, as someone who runs his own business in Japan, and has to use Japanese honorifics all the time - on the phone, in person, in email, in letters, etc., the deleted sections of the article were a problem. They were badly written, speculative, and inaccurate - one of the worst long articles I've seen in the Japan-related pages, next to kawaii. I don't have indefinite amounts of time to work on this, but I'm pretty sure it's in better shape now than it was. I understand there are some things which are missing from the current article, but the state of the deleted passages of the old article was very poor, and you must have the experience of re-editing old sentences which did not make sense and trying to make them make sense. It is easier just to start again. Sorry to be brutal. --DannyWilde 01:06, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Again, you'll notice that while I agree that the writing could use some improvement, I disagree with your assertions about accuracy. Sometimes if you find you lack the time to discuss changes you shouldn't make them. Exploding Boy 22:31, September 7, 2005 (UTC)

I'm happy to discuss the changes. I thought we were doing that? --DannyWilde 03:58, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Breaking into "honorifics" and "titles"

I'd like to suggest breaking this article into "Japanese honorifics" and "Japanese titles". Any responses? --DannyWilde 00:49, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

That's what the Japanese Wikipedia does, with ja:敬語 and ja:敬称. Splitting would give the articles clearer focus. I would be more comfortable with a title along the lines of "Japanese honorific language". And instead of "titles" how about something like "forms of address"? (But surely someone can do better than both my suggestions). Fg2 01:59, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

I think "honorific language" is a very good name for the page. I wonder if "Japanese forms of address" would be confused with some postal information? --DannyWilde 12:46, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

No other responses, so I'll go ahead with this plan. --DannyWilde 11:41, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merge with other page

It seems like just a mistaken duplication; is there any other reason why there are these two pages with very similar contents? If no objections, let's merge them. --DannyWilde 11:41, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

Can you provide links to the new articles? Exploding Boy 16:11, September 11, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Distal and polite

I didn't like that merge very much. I've made a start on cleaning up this page. As far as I can see, the distinction made between "distal" and "polite" in the grammar section is just a way of fixing "de gozaimasu" - any other insight into this? I don't think it's worth much more than a note at the end from a pratical point of view. The style of the stuff taken from Politeness and respect (Japanese language) is similar to the style of the other page Japanese grammar in that it looks like a linguistics text more than a practical guide. --DannyWilde 13:04, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, there is people here who are interested in the linguistic part and others care more about practical application. We better compromise. -- Mkill 15:02, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Sure. I'm not suggesting removing it, but the problem is that there is not much indication of how people actually speak. For example "style matrix" etc. - OK, it can stay there, but there should be some indication of what is "regular Japanese" and what is just theoretically possible but unlikely in practice. Very similar to the Japanese grammar, the text is very thorough, but it lacks intuition into what the words actually mean. I suppose it looks more like a "mathematics text" than a practical guide would have been a better way to say that. Anyway, unless someone comes forward to defend "distal", I'm going to put it into a note. --DannyWilde 00:26, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

The "style matrix" is rather misleading as it stands; in my experience there is most certainly no correlation between the use of はい and the use of でございます and 致します, but that's what the current layout seems to be trying to claim. Haeleth 15:10, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Hi. As the (substantive) author of both Japanese grammar and the now defunct politeness and respect (Japanese language), I must say that I would like you (i.e., DannyWilde) to better explain what you mean by "practical guide". Precisely, do you consider grammar articles on Wikipedia to be references, or do you prefer the style taken in more popular grammatical textbooks that often sacrifice precision for (poor word choice here:) simplicity? There are good arguments for either side, and truly I don't particularly like the distant exposition of the Japanese grammar article myself, but I don't see any benefit in creating yet another "Joe Schmoe's Guide to Japanese on Teh Intarweb". That is why I have consciously erred heavily on the side of precision in the Japanese grammar article. In this particular honorifics article, however, I don't see any reason to stress precision over real experience, so I applaud and encourage the modifications you've made so far. Truth be told, the politeness and respect section was a tumorous growth in the Japanese grammar article that was excised and quickly forgotten about, and I am happy that some desiccated remains of it are still visible in a much better article. Well done! — Kaustuv Chaudhuri 19:06, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. Most of the "Guides to Japanese grammar" on the web which you mention are written by people who are still in the process of learning the grammar, unfortunately. I'll discuss any changes to that article on Talk:Japanese grammar itself. The basic notion that I have is of fleshing out the article with concrete illustrations. Also, there are some bits missing. It's not a complete guide. --DannyWilde 23:12, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

By all means, go ahead! And a welcome breath of f{r,l}esh air to these articles may you bring! — Kaustuv Chaudhuri 05:40, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

I forgot to note that the terms "distal" and "polite" aren't mine. They existed in the Japanese grammar article for a long time, before I started to work on it. My contribution was merely to try and substantiate what I saw was the point of these terms. Personally, I see no defence for separating them, though surely there is a difference in register between (de) arimasu and (de) gozaimasu, which might be noted in the article. In fact, now that I've thought about it for a few more minutes, the joutai/keitai/teinei distinction is fairly off-topic in an article on honorifics—which I understand as keigo—but again, this might be a precise point of no practical import. — Kaustuv Chaudhuri 19:26, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for some feedback. The problem is that "distal" and "polite" are two words for the same thing - I asked about this on Usenet newsgroup sci.lang.japan, so if you can reach it via Google Groups or something, perhaps it would be worth reading the replies there. There is a difference between "de gozaimasu" and "desu", and another one between "desu" and "de arimasu". I just wonder if making a general distinction in the tables is a valuable exercise for the reader or not - is it just nitpicking? Further, that table could be restricted to just a "da/desu/dearimasu" table, rather than a general table trying to draw a comparision between lots of other verbs and the copula. Also, I don't think it's possible to be completely robotic about this. For example in the Japanese military, they spoke using the "de arimasu" form or "de aru" form. You can go on and on making a larger table, but I wonder if it's of benefit for the intended reader or just a kind of robotic exercise which is unlikely to get us closer to describing the language. --DannyWilde 23:12, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] A possible defence of distal

On some further reflection and digging through references, I think I have reconstructed the reasons for the 4-way split. The chief reference is Kuno's "The Structure of the Japanese Language" (ISBN 0262110490) pp 18 -- 22. Kuno says:

There are four levels of sentence styles with respect to politeness: informal, polite, superpolite, and formal writing.[...]

These four classes line up precisely with how I had them in the earlier article: informal, distal, polite, formal.

Rather confusing though, no? The word "distal" is used by other authors for exactly the same meaning as "polite". Further, you have made his polite into distal and you have made his superpolite into polite. What bothered me the most was that the previous article had "itashimasu" in the table under "polite", where it most certainly isn't. "Itashimasu" is the humble form of "suru". So it was very hard to understand what was meant by "polite". --DannyWilde 07:03, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Needless to say, his "superpolite" style uses de gozaimasu, and he doesn't mention de arimasu in his examples. (My reconstruction would be that de arimasu is a combination of the formal written and distal styles. At least in my personal experience I've never heard de arimasu used in speech.)

It's not particularly uncommon. For example in formal speeches it occurs In one manga called Yawara, there was a character who spoke in nothing but "jibun" / "de arimasu" form, which is the military style. --DannyWilde 07:03, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

On a related note, the examples for respect in this article were lifted directly from Kuno p.20. Note that he does use jon ga sensei wo omachi suru to illustrate kenjougo; someone has edited it out of this present article and inserted the editorial comment

[...] a sentence like jon ga sensei wo o machi suru (John waits for the teacher) is unlikely to occur.

I wrote it, and I've given reasons why I think it's somewhat unlikely to occur. It is possible in some contexts but "o i-verb suru" is most likely "I will do something for you". --DannyWilde 07:03, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

My personal experience with such constructions seems to align with Kuno, in that I find jon ga sensei wo omachi suru not only likely, but also the only possible way of respectfully stating that fact.

The usual sense of "o machi suru" or "o-machi-shimasu" is "I/we will wait (and I'm/we're doing it as a favour to you, for your benefit)". "Jon-san ga sensei wo matte imasu" is perfectly OK to use to the teacher as far as politeness is concerned. I can think of some cases where a sentence like the original sentence ("jon ga sensei wo o machi suru") might occur. For example, if John is in our in-group and we want to suggest that John is the one of us who is waiting for the teacher, we might say "Jon ga sensei wo o machi shite imasu". Still, although it's possible, it seems a little complicated for the first example of the form. If you just want to illustrate the "o i-verb suru" form, why involve John in the picture? --DannyWilde 07:03, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

BIANANS. — Kaustuv Chaudhuri 06:15, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

This article is titled "A possible defence of distal" but I don't see anything to make me change my mind about "distal" - I mean, my query is, what is the difference between distal and polite? So far there is nothing but "de gozaimasu". I feel this discussion is not useful. --DannyWilde 07:03, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Read the reference I cited above. — Kaustuv Chaudhuri 07:58, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I don't have the reference to hand. --DannyWilde 08:16, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup

I haven't had an opportunity to read the entire discussion yet, but I'd just like to note that the last version of Politeness and respect (Japanese language) before the merge is much more comprehensible than this article in its current form. --Peter Farago 05:54, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Can you be more specific about the problems? --DannyWilde 05:59, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Okay:

Respectful verbs should be a subheading under respectful language, not Humble language, and it should be very clear that their use is a matter of suppletion, not conjugation as with the polite forms. In fact, it ought to be moved to the grammar section rather than the overview.
Use of "distal" and "polite" to mean the same thing is confusing. The dominant or most accurate term should be used throughout.
Use of the term "informal" suggests that it's in some way the opposite of "formal", and causes one to wonder if there's an "impolite" form as well. Wouldn't it be better to refer to it as just unmarked?
I would like to see more on verb conjugations than just the copula. Some of this is covered in Japanese Grammar, but the selection there is inexplicably spotty. On that article, why "polite nonpast", "informal past", "informal negative nonpast", and "informal negative past" but not "polite past", "polite negative", "polite negative past", and "informal negative"? What does "plain polite nonpast" mean, anyway? Are not the plain and polite forms opposites?
The introduction to "expressing respect" duplicates information in the opening of the article, and should be rearranged to match - with "respect for subject" under "Respectful language" and "respect for object" under "humble language".
The "style matrix" ignores the combined "polite formal" form.
Several sentences are given in various cells of the style matrix. Either the differences between them should explained, or a single example used.
Suppletive forms for "informal/distal/formal" should be under "expressing politeness", not "combining respect and politeness"
"Requests" would be better termed "Imperatives".

I hope that this is somewhat clear, anyway. --Peter Farago 06:20, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the criticisms, I think all of them are valid points. However, I'm not so sure this is the fault of the merge. It might be worth having a look at the old version of the page again and see how many of your criticisms apply. By my count, seven of the nine criticisms you've levelled at the merged page also apply to the old unmerged page. Further, this page contains a great deal of completely new material, such as the section on requests, and generally speaking it is a far better page than it was three months ago. I agree that both this page, and Japanese grammar, need a lot of work in order to become readable articles, and you have made some very valid comments about unreadable contents, but I do not really take your point about "unfortunate merge" and would oppose splitting the page. --DannyWilde 06:37, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree, that was just my initial thought upon comparing the two - the pre-merge article has a much more logical structure, although it may very well not have been as accurate. I'm not advocating a reversion, just a cleanup. --Peter Farago 06:57, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Shall I attempt the cleanup myself? I'm not completely ignorant about Japanese grammar, but I'd like someone to double-check me. --Peter Farago 20:58, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Resemblance to honorifics in other languages

The beginning of the article states that Japanese honorifics resemble similar systems in Korean and Chinese. I'm aware of the similarities in Korean, but this is the first that I've heard of similarities with Chinese. Does anyone care to elaborate? Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi 23:59, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Problem is that most Chinese speakers no longer care to be polite. Generally the polite terms are mainly titles, there is an extensive list on WP of ways to say I.218.102.71.125 03:42, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kureru (くれる)

Isn't kureru the humble form for "give?" After all, if I say "My mom gave me a book" I would not use ageru but kureru. Or am I misunderstanding the meaning of "humble" in this context? --Do Not Talk About Feitclub (contributions) 13:00, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

It is true that "kureru" does establish the relationship between the agent (in your example, mother) and the benefactor (in your example, yourself). It can show only beneficience, thankfulness, and sometimes an exact opposite, contempt for the action being done to the observer, but never is it taken to mean humility, the level is most different. I think the easiest way to see this is:

   Sensei ga Eigo wo osiete kureru    vs.   Sensei ga Eigo wo osieru.

In the first example the teacher is teaching English and the relationship that the observeror of the sentence is someone who benefits from this action is made apparent. However in the second example there is just neutrality, the observeror is distance from the agent, and no relationship is defined, most probably because the observor is not being taught by the teacher. The function of "kureru" has more to do with establishing the relationships of parties than it has to do with the relativity of humble and exhaulted states. Does this help any? Sudachi 17:35, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I can't say I fully understand but I'm perfectly willing to accept your reasoning. --Do Not Talk About Feitclub (contributions) 07:54, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Where is this page going?

This page seems to have drifted quite a bit from where it started. Not that I think that's a bad thing, but the page seems to have lost its direction. The name of the page, "Japanese honorifics", uses "honorific" as a noun, but the material in this page doesn't match up at all with what is described on Honorific. That page describes honorific titles, like "Mister" in English, or "-san" and "-kun" in Japanese. This page, however, covers what I might call "Honorific speech in Japanese", covering all aspects from personal titles (suffixes), word prefixes (o- and go-), and verb conjugation/substitution.

I'm not saying the material needs to go; but if you came to this page from Honorifics looking for the Japanese equivalent of "Mister," you would have to go nearly 2/3 down the page to get to a section which is just a link to yet another page.

In light of this, I think some kind of move or clean-up is in order. The information in this page is a little too inclusive to all be under this title. I think some kind of clear distinction needs to be decided on between "styles," "titles," "honorifics (the noun)," and "honorific [speech] (the adjective)." Then once everyone is clear on what each term means, the information can be sifted out into the appropriate pages. Bigpeteb 16:02, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Maybe this page needs another name, i.e. being moved somewhere else, as it covers all aspects of keigo and basically is the English wiki's page on keigo. I don't know if there is another established name though.Mackan 08:37, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] shikari

I was contemplating removing "hai" from the tables at Combining respect and politeness, where it was inserted as a formal variant of "yes". It is indeed a formal word, but not exclusively so. Then I saw the word shikari in the same column. It's supposed to be a formal word for yes. Now, my level of Japanese is, all humbleties aside, very high, but I've never heard of this word before. My Kojien doesn't have it. And Kojien includes all kinds of stuff, even archaic and regional words. So I'm wondering: where does this come from? Can anyone confirm the existance of this word? TomorrowTime 14:47, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

My kojien has it. Maybe you weren't expecting it to be in kanji? しかり【然り】(自ラ変）（シカアリの約）そうである。その通りである。

That said,　I think that entire table is confusing and not really helpful. When it says that ある is formal form, it is obviously not referring to spoken language. Should we perhaps delete it? Mackan 20:54, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Naruhodo. My bad, I missed that.

Well, this: 私 (wata(ku)shi), being the general first-person pronoun, is also used by females isn't an example of a concise and understandable sentence, either. I'm not sure what should be done about the table, but for starters, I'll see if I can clarify the above sentence a bit. Oh, and I'll also remove hai from the "formal" column :) TomorrowTime 11:56, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] keigo in business

I removed this part from the Usage: Business section:

Keigo is used when attendants speak to a customer (even in the supermarket and on trains), in formal business meetings, by women in jidaigeki (in all situations) and by educated people in general.

Ok, point by point:

-attendants to customers: this part I wouldn't mind seeing re-inserted somewhere. The bracketed explanation is a bit superfluos, though.

-formal business meetings: this is already covered in the section.

-women in jidaigeki: huh? I thought the section was on keigo in business enviroments...

-educated people in general: possibly worth reinclusion, but would have to be thorougly rephrased. I've met educated people that weren't all that hot on keigo. Keigo is not a sign of education, and a lack of keigo doesn't necesarily mean a lack of education. TomorrowTime 13:57, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

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