--- In conlang@y..., Nik Taylor <fortytwo@G...> wrote:
> 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.
[...]
It's mprecisely this sort of thing which is what got
me over my Japanophilic phase, and I _was_ a Sensei
for a while <g>
Stephen
______________________________________________________________________
Movies, Music, Sports, Games! http://entertainment.yahoo.ca