Honorifics and pronoun usage in Japanese is a really big deal in anime. It's subtle but can express lots of stuff, and it's damned near impossible to translate. I just stumbled on a couple of articles on the Tropes page: honorifics pronouns

You ask the linguists, they'll tell you that Japanese doesn't have pronouns. Yet anywhere you look you'll find really long lists of them. I finally figured out what's going on: those words in Japanese are actually terms which have come to be used as place holders. It's like addressing someone as "turkey" or "babe" or "jerk" or "bastard" or "sweetie" or "dude". You can use those kinds of words in English in place of "you" (often with minor grammatical reconstruction of the sentence) and we commonly do, but those words are not pronouns. And neither are all the Japanese words we're talking about. But since Japanese doesn't have real pronouns, it's usual among everyone who isn't anal to use the term to refer to this long list of such words which are sort of used that way but which aren't real pronouns.

That's why Japanese "pronouns" are so expressive of attitude: nearly all of them were originally either insults or compliments. (Though it's often the case that the original meaning has been subverted, probably through sarcasam.)

In the honorifics list it says that -dono rates slightly higher than -sama. Is that really true?

Originally "Lord," in the feudal sense. A step higher than -sama, and conferring the highest possible respect. Unlike -sama, however, it doesn't necessarily imply lower status on the part of the speaker, and is a face-saving way for high-ranking jidai geki characters to address others of high rank.

I've come to think of "dono" as translating pretty well as "your excellency", with "sama" translating as "milord" or "milady". But maybe I'm wrong about that, because in traditional usage "your excellency" would rank lower than "milord". Ambassadors would be addressed as "your excellency", for example, even if they were not nobility.

The third episode of Tenchi Muyo: GXP has a critical scene between Seina and Seto. Seto is the Jurai no oni hime (the "demon princess of Jurai"), a big-time political operator, and power behind the throne. Real big-time person, and everyone always refers to her as -sama. (Except, if I recall correctly, Mikami sometimes, who is also nearly the only person in the Tenchiverse to not be even slightly intimidated by Seto. But then, Mikami is effectively the head of the Kuramitsu clan, so at the very least she's looking across level at Seto, if not somewhat down. Anyway, they're friends.)

Seto invariably uses -dono to refer to Seina, and so do all her subordinates. (Well, except in some of the ero-roleplaying situations, but that's a subversion.) I suspect that's the first time in his life that anyone has used dono with Seina, and I really expected him to be embarrassed by it, especially when coming from someone like Seto. But that doesn't happen, and I don't quite understand why. I guess it means I'm still not really up on the fine points.

Since it shows up so early in the series, and is so key to the overall story, it isn't really a spoiler: the point of that interview is that Seto wants to make sure that Seina really wants to join the GP. The nominal problem is that there's a law against taking people from planets too primitive to have developed starflight into space, let alone letting them enter the GP. It is possible to grant a waiver to that law, and Seto eventually offers to use her influence to get such a waiver granted. But she tries to impress on Seina just what it means for him: entering the GP will be dangerous for him.

He thinks about it before answering. It's a very genuine scene. Kanemitsu (one of Seto's aides) is there and thinks that Seto is putting one over on Seina, but he's wrong. Seina really, genuinely, thinks about it, and makes a decision. And he never regrets having made it and never reconsiders it for the entire rest of the series. (That's one of the reasons that Seina comes off as an admirable character, and part of why the series works.)

Seto puts it to him, perhaps a bit harshly. What do you want to do?

He responds, "I want to stay here" -- and he uses ore. Virtually always in the series he uses boku. Under the circumstances (speaking with someone as distinguished as Seto) I would think that would be considered grossly rude. But I think the implication was supposed to be that it was an indication that the boy had become a man in that instant.

I like the fact that translators are starting to bring the honorifics through in the subtitles, by the way. But there's no real way for them to bring the subtleties of pronoun use through to the same extent, so a lot of flavor gets lost if you don't listen closely and pick up the usage. That use of ore instead of boku doesn't come through at all; there's no way it could without a big footnote.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in at 05:28 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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1 Jay Rubin makes extensive use of the concept of the "zero pronoun" in his (very accessible) book Making Sense of Japanese, arguing that it's the only true pronoun in Japanese, and everything else is only used when the shared context between speaker and listener is insufficient. Conveying your attitude towards someone is an obvious use of that. An excellent example is in Ai Yori Aoshi, where Miyabi always refers to herself formally as "watakushi".

She also refers to the main characters as Kaoru-dono and Aoi-sama. From her point of view, Aoi is a high-status member of her in-group, while Kaoru is an equally-high-status member of an outside family, and must be honored. (see the Wikipedia entry on uchi/soto)

In modern Japanese, -sama is probably the victim of genericide, since it's the suffix of choice for honoring anyone outside your in-group who doesn't merit a more specific title, like -sensei. And, of course, in stores, where every customer is o-kyaku-sama.

-j

Posted by: J Greely at April 11, 2008 06:37 PM (2XtN5)

2

Honorifics are a perfect example of a translation problem with no good solution.  I reluctantly agree putting them in untranslated is the best solution in many cases, but the problem (as noted above) is that the non-Japanese readers only have a vague idea of what they imply (as much as many of the otaku, with their near-infinite knowledge of Japanese culture, would like to believe otherwise).

As I said, no real solution...except learn as you go, I suppose.  And there are times they're really not required.  Off the top of my head--I saw no need for them when I was doing Narutaru (Shadow Star).

j, I have to say that in 25 years of visiting and living in Japan, I've only heard one person referred to as "Naninani-sama" non-ironically (at least, outside the otaku community).  It seems pretty rare on the ground in real-world conversation.

Rubin's book is excellent, highly recommended.

Posted by: Toren at April 11, 2008 07:15 PM (4NJ4h)

3 As always, I defer to someone who's spent more than two weeks in Japan. I heard a few -sama's in that trip, outside of an otaku context, but I could easily have missed irony or other context. Spoken Japanese at a natural pace can go past me in a blur, especially if I'm just overhearing someone else's conversations.

-j

Posted by: J Greely at April 11, 2008 07:22 PM (2XtN5)

4 ...come to think of it, most of the occasions during that trip where I was in a position to clearly hear random people speaking Japanese were either at temples and shrines or on late-night television.

-j

Posted by: J Greely at April 11, 2008 07:54 PM (2XtN5)

5 I can not claim the knowledge of anyone else here, but on at least one occasion the ore/boku dichotomy was somewhat thrown in my face by Code Geass.  In relation to Suzuku, Lelouche recalled a point after which Suzuku changed how he referred to himself.  Whether he changed from ore to boku or vice versa, I'm not certain but it was a turning point in his life. What it meant was completely lost on me, other than context.

Posted by: ubu at April 11, 2008 08:41 PM (Hy4RP)

6 There was a similar incident in ZOE TV, where the (generally unprepossessing) son decided "to hell with it" and started calling himself "ore", then caught flack from his sister for it.

That really is a translation problem with no clear or easy solution. I don't LIKE leaving in suffixes, honestly, because they're not really adding information to the viewer. On the other hand, when Kagami suggests that Konata call her "Kagami-sama"... and Konata does... it's like... if you don't use the honorific, what the hell DO you do?

But my objection is purely from the perspective of a subtitler, where screen real estate is valuable and not to be used casually. ;p

Unfortunately, "-kakka" translates to "your excellency", so "-dono" doesn't. (Most of the time that I've seen it, it's referring to Meiji-era nobility, or European nobility, or European-derived nobility such as in CotS. I get the feeling that it was one of those tacked-on facets of the system...) As you say, it has specific conditions for usage, where -sama is purely relational.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at April 11, 2008 09:45 PM (d2LNE)

7

One of the first things I had to learn when I was in Japan is never use anything you learned off anime, manga, or TV (except the NHK) as a template for conversational Japanese.  Right after that came "don't learn how to speak colloquial Japanese by listening to anyone other than your same sex and age group."

People there do good-naturedly tease me sometimes for my quasi-keigo Japanese, but I'd rather be teased for that than sounding like an anime character or a girl.  One American fan I met at the Comic Market a few years ago was adequately fluent, and amazingly had avoided picking up too much "anime-speak," but was talking like a middle-aged woman (it was especially grating to hear him constantly using "Ara maa").  I finally took him aside and had a quiet word, but I suspect his habits will be hard to break.  As Frederik Schodt warned me 25 years ago, you have to be careful what you learn because "practice makes permanent."

j is right, -sama does show up in certain specific places but just not very damn often in your average conversation between normal people.  Late night TV is excellent listening practice, but not a good place to learn snappy new phrases. :-D

Oddly enough, the very first manga I worked on, The Legend of Kamui, threw me into the deep end on what to do about honorifics.  It's a ninja jidai-geki and honorifics are really important.  I asked Viz if I could use them, and put in a glossary, but they refused.  So I certainly don't 100% object to the use of them, just when it doesn't add more to the understanding of the story that it takes away.  And it's nothing compared to the random use of bleeding chunks of Japanese that scanslators somethings throw in--like "baka"--so that the otaku can feel like they can read Japanese.  Those really grate.

I'd never given much thought to the honorifics problem with regard to screen real estate.  I've only worked on subtitles for a few movies (eg. Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer, Venus Wars, Ghost in the Shell, and the first version of Royal Space Force --none of which needed honorifics at all) and I was never given any concrete limitations, so I just winged it based on gut feel and looking at other subtitled movies.  Any editing needed was done by the subtitling house.  But I can see how honorifics could really stack up and take space better used for a more fluid translation.

Posted by: Toren at April 12, 2008 02:46 PM (Zvalr)

8 Myself, I'm not too worried about any of that stuff because I don't ever expect to learn enough Japanese to be able to converse in it, and I don't expect to ever be in a situation where I'd want to, anyway. Such unstructured study of Japanese as I've done has been entirely in service of my hobby of watching anime -- so study of how Japanese is used in anime is the ideal source material.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at April 12, 2008 05:50 PM (+rSRq)

9 I'm trying to be careful what I pick up, because in all of my classes we've only had two male native speakers, and one of them was flamboyantly gay. We almost got a tutor who had graduated from NHK broadcast school, but she had to return to Japan due to a health problem.

Not that I don't enjoy the presence of female tutors...

I found late-night television quite useful for listening practice, particularly trying to pick up enough to explain what was going on to my friend. Sadly, my skill was insufficient to explain Macha-Macha's antics in a cooking show.

-j

Posted by: J Greely at April 12, 2008 10:00 PM (2XtN5)

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