God and pronouns
(Update: See note below, it’s even more interesting than what I wrote initially, which is a bit wrong.)
It’s interesting to me that English now lacks a common feature of many languages – a polite version of the pronoun “you”. As you may be aware, we used to have one – “you”. We were so polite that the familiar form, “thou”, and its verb conjugations, has fallen into disuse. (For some reason, English speakers imagine that “thou art” is more polite. I suppose because it sounds old-timey, harking back to an imaginary era when people had some god-damned respect.)
It can be tricky when learning a foreign language to remember to use the polite form or to know when to use it. We’ve all made a few mistakes with Usted, vous or Sie. And there can be a few surprises. It’s pretty clear what to use when you greet a customer, headmaster or prime minister. What about your parents or grandparents? In European languages, and in Chinese, the parents seem to get the familar treatment. (After all, we would think a kid who called his dad “Sir” had an unusually strict upbringing.) In Chinese, though, grandparents get the more respectful term. Not surprising in a culture where age is respected – even revered.
What about God? The traditional Lord’s prayer tells us that in English we historically use the familiar form (“who art in heaven… thy name”). This hadn’t occurred to me when I discovered that Germans use the familiar form, “du” for God. It seemed to me that if you are talking to God you probably believe in him, and if anyone deserved respect, it’d be someone who could decide the outcome of your latest war or give you an aneurysm without working up a sweat. But we Westerners seem to have a more casual relationship with the almighty – “Dear God: Hey buddy, please make sure my pizza gets delivered soon, ‘k, thanks.” The same is true in Spanish, for instance – although you probably wouldn’t say “tu” to God, the conjugation of the verbs indicates familiarity. The Chinese on the other hand are a bit more cautious – God gets the 您 (nín) polite treatment here. What does this say about the respective cultures?
I’m especially curious how this all works in Japanese, which is famous for many levels of formality and a plethora of pronouns. Can anyone enlighten me?
Update: Actually, asking some more Chinese, I’ve been contradicted on both the grandparents and God situations- it apparently varies, and seems to be a generational thing. For instance, someone told me you would never address a grandparent with 您 (nín, polite) or 你 (nǐ, familiar) at all – only by “title”, such as grandmother, which I admit makes little sense to me. What’s even more interesting, though, is there is a separate pronoun just for God that I wasn’t aware of – pronounced the same, but with its own character. Thanks to leyan for pointing me at John Pasden’s excellent write-up at Sinosplice.
There is also a character 祢 especially for this usage : see for example the excellent article of John Pasden explaining its use : http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2005/04/12/respectful-characters
In French it is not really consistent but the “tu” is more and more prevalent I guess.
Thanks for the Sinosplice link and the insight into the French situation. Looks like the rules are less hard and fast than I expected.
Using formal Japanese is not always easy, even for Japanese. Some older Japanese like to complain that younger Japanese don’t know how to use respectful language properly (which is not that different from most other languages I imagine).
Generally you should use respectful languages with people that are older than you or your seniors at work.
Traditionally because of the Japanese seniority workplace system where everyone advances at the same rate, if someone was older than they were your senior. But that has changed now. One of my students who was a young manager said he was often unsure at work how to address his team of workers, most of whom were much older than him.
The rule that catches a lot of people out is that even though you should use respectful language to refer to your “group” (e.g company president), you should humble language when talking about them to someone that doesn’t belong to your group.
Some nouns are made more respectful by using a “go” or “o” prefix. Some nouns permanently have these attached (e.g onaka is stomach (respectful hole/inside). There are cases where women traditionally used respectful language towards objects, but men didn’t. (Women traditionally used “oniku” for “meat” and men used “niku.”)
There is also a special “mi” prefix that is used for things related to the gods.
People learning Japanese like to complain about how difficult the respectful language is, but having taught English, I think English “respectful” language is more difficult, simply because it is not clearly defined.
With Japanese there are lots of rules to remember, but at least there are rules.
People studying English just have to learn case-by-case which is more “respectful” language in a business situation.
e.g
“May I help you sir?”
vs.
“Do you need any help?
vs.
“Are you okay?”
Of course most people won’t be offended by less “respectful” language anymore.
Japanese generally avoid using names and pronouns whenever possible.
The god that is usually translated for “god” “kami” comes from Shinto gods, which is more an animist thing, there are millions of spirits.
“Sama” is the more polite version of “san”. You’ll hear it a lot in shops “okyaku sama” (honorable customer)
I’ve heard kids calling on “kami sama” when they want a bit of luck, for example rolling a die in a game.
There is a pronoun (for “I”) that is reserved just for the emperor.
The Wikipedia entries on Japanese pronouns and Japanese honorifics have more details.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorific_speech_in_Japanese
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_pronouns