Re: Spanish Question (with Expanded Politesse)

laokou <laokou@...> writes:

> Okay, now in French, you can express "use the 'tu' form" as "tutoyer" and
> "use the 'vous' form" as "vouvoyer". German has corresponding forms, "duzen"
> and "siezen". So I ask the Spanish teacher at my school (non-native) if
> Spanish has equivalent forms; she says "no". I'm not convinced. I look it up
> here at home and find "tutear".
...
> Immediate question: does Spanish have that "Vd" form? How do other langs on
> the Continent treat this? How do conlangs cope?
European Spanish has 'tutear' for the informal 'tú', and nothing
else. That's probably because you don't need a word for the formal
'usted', since you won't be asking people about that; you use the
formal unless given permission for 'tuteo'.

Latin American Spanish uses 'tutear' in the same way but,
interestingly, in the areas where 'tú' is replaced by 'vos',
people still say 'tutear', while the term 'vosear' is reserved
for the topic of linguistic contrast. That is, in Argentina,
'tutear' means 'using "vos"'.

There's no *'ustedear'. 'Decir de usted' or 'tratar de usted' is
substituted for that.


--Pablo Flores
  http://www.geocities.com/finis_stellae/ng/index.html
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