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Re: Second person/polite pronouns (fuit Re: Another Ozymandias)

From:Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>
Date:Wednesday, July 26, 2006, 16:21
Quoting Benct Philip Jonsson <bpjonsson@...>:

> FWIW honorific 1st person pronouns occur in natlangs > -- usually as "deference forms", but are there 'aloofness > forms' too, at least in some conlang?
Isn't this what Japanese _chin_ is? It is, IIUC, a 1st sg pronoun only used by the Emperor. Quoting Benct Philip Jonsson <bpjonsson@...>:
> One interresting aspect of this is that when the system > eventually was abolished people started using the familiar > second person singular pronoun _du_ to everyone. There > had been some use of the second person plural _ni_ > with singular reference on the French model, but this > had been associated with people who didn't wish to > draw attention to their 'lowly' occupation, yet be > formal towards one another, and so this usage was > frowned upon by practitioners of the occupational > title addressing system. FWIW the use of singular > _ni_ has bcome in vogue in later years among younger > people who want to affect social distance or > 'uppity'. I and many with me frown on it as being > stuck-up rather than polite. I usually answer such > address in the first person plural, and AFAIK none > of these pompous brats has understood what I was > doing. Of course they don't know about the > _pluralis majestatis_ any more than they know about > the real stylistic value of the "V-forms" in Swedish.
FYI, this pompous brat is fully aware of the _pluralis majestatis_. Back to honorifics in conlangs, I've not got any yet, but I'm considering putting some into Meghean. Meghean being Meghean, it'll have to be some rather baroque system ... Andreas