Re: A question and introduction

Andy Canivet wrote:
> It also doesn't seem far fetched that if a culture lived according to a
> particular philosophy long enough that it might influence their use of
> language.
A great example is pronoun usage.  Modern English has just I/we,
you/(various dialectal forms), he/she/it/they.  Distinctions of gender
in the third person singular, distinctions of number in 1st and 3rd
persons (and 2nd person in informal usage).  But, no distinction of
social class or anything.  Compare Spanish.  Tú "you familiar" Usted
"you formal".  Furthermore, look at Japanese.
Watakushi/Watashi/Atashi/Boku/Jibun/Ore/Sessha and others all meaning
"I" with various degrees of humbleness or lack thereof, and
Anata/Omae/Kimi/Kisama/Anta/etc. all meaning "you" with various degrees
of respect or disrespect.  Third person you can use kare/kanojo, ano
hito, ano kata, etc.  Also, pronouns are often avoided for references to
superiors, using instead names and titles.  One would not ask one's
teacher "Anata no hon desu ka?" "Is this your book?" but rather "Sensei
no hon desu ka?" "Is this Sensei's book?"  You have various ways of
inflecting verbs depending on respect towards your listener and to
referents in the sentence.  For example, Ano hito wa Amerika kara *kuru*
"(S)he comes from America", is neutral.  To show respect towards the
person being talked about you could use Ano kata instead for the
pronoun, and irassharu for the verb, thus "Ano kata wa Amerika kara
irassharu" or "Ano kata wa Amerika kara irasshaimasu" to also show
respect towards your listener.  Japanese is filled with such examples.
All through out the language one must make considerations of who one is
talking to, and what or whom one is talking about, to know the proper
verb forms and lexical choices to use.

--
"There's no such thing as 'cool'.  Everyone's just a big dork or nerd,
you just have to find people who are dorky the same way you are." -
overheard
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