Re: Colonels (was: Old Norse)

John Cowan wrote
>Also true in Brazilian Portuguese, to the extent that "o senhor" and "a
senhora"
>are taught to students long before any second person pronouns.>
Similarly in Indonesian.  In Wolff's beginning text, (publ.late 60s) we
learned to use _saudara_ (Sanskrit) 'brother'-- but hardly anyone in
Indonesia used it; in fact, they said it made them uncomfortable.  I wonder
if it wasn't a holdover from the early idealistic/Sukarno days, and perhaps
felt like "comrade" must now feel to E. Europeans...?  Most common polite
addresses:  to a male, Bapak (father),  or Pak optionally with last name, or
only name in the case of many Javanese; to a female, Ibu (mother) or bu plus
name.  Any official title could also be used, often preceded by Pak (Pak
Jendral e.g.).  Young people were also starting (in the 70s) to use _yu_,
surely adopted from English lessons, but curiously, it has a perfectly good
Austronesian history too, though not in Malay/Javanese.

Then there's _anda_, superpolite 2nd person, used only in advertisements and
public announcements-- on the train, for ex.,  we were summoned to the diner
with "We invite you to proceed to the restaurant car, where we hope you will
enjoy your delicious evening meal" (in BI, of course, utterly perfect
grammar, and all _anda's_).  It has a really meally-mouthed and pretentions
feel to it, and you could see everyone giggling and cringing as they
listened.