address forms inversion
Address forms inversion | Raymond Sheehan | March 12th, 2003
I read a novel by Rohinton Mistry recently, set in India. In the book, the uncle and aunt were addressed, or referred to, as Sally Aunty and Santosh Uncle (for example. I can't remember the exact names). Has anybody come across this kind of inversion before? Is it only in India, in certain parts of India, or among certain groups? Is the inversion confined to uncle/aunt, or does it also include professions?
Raymond
UAE
Re: address forms inversion | Karen Masatsugu | March 12th, 2003
Hi Raymond,
When names are used address forms are inverted in Japanese. I'm Karen san/sensei (Ms/teacher) or Masatsugu san/sensei, my in-laws are Hiro-ojichan (uncle) and Mari-obachan (aunt) to my daughter, etc. I remember the same thing in India too, I was Karen-auntie or sister depending on the age of the addresser (though I can't remember the exact word now, it was in Karnataka, south India).
Children call the local bobby (police officer) o-mawari-san in Japan by the way. He who goes round and round....
Karen, who should be doing a 6 month late IIC project.
Re: address forms inversion | Colin Graham | March 12th, 2003
Hello all you inverts out there!
When names are used address forms are inverted in Japanese. I'm Karen san/sensei (Ms/teacher) or Masatsugu san/sensei
Karen, I think inverted in a Japanese sense would be saying "sensei Karen". Japanese uses a different form of address from English but I wouldn't say Japanese address forms were inverted (i.e. non-standard), which is the point Raymond was raising, I think, with his English examples.
I know that in (northern) India, where the conker comes from :-), "-ji" is added as a suffix respect form (like the o- or go- prefix in Japanese) and I've heard people saying "thank you-ji" or "guru-ji", so it maybe that this is extended to other respect forms, but English words are used instead of their Indian equivalents.
On this theme of inter- or cross-lingual interference/similarity, it was interesting for me when I returned to Scotland last year and noticed that "but" was used at the end of sentences as a kind of softener, like "ga" or "kedo" in Japanese. For example, my cousin asked me "How are youz nae doin the training but?" [why aren't you going to do the training?]. I met with a Welsh college friend and he said "Big she was, isn't it?" [she was big, wasn't she?] English is his second language and he was basically using Welsh word order and question tag (invariant in Welsh). Fascinating stuff eh....?
Colin
\(^_^)/
Banzai!
Re: Address forms inversion | Karen Masatsugu | March 13th, 2003
Colin Graham wrote:
Karen, I think inverted in a Japanese sense would be saying "sensei Karen". Japanese uses a different form of address from English but I wouldn't say Japanese address forms were inverted (i.e. non-standard), which is the point Raymond was raising, I think, with his English examples.
Yup, I realised that afterwards...which is why I rarely contribute to e-mail discussions, sigh.
Karen
Re: address forms inversion | Lori Solbakken | March 13th, 2003
Hi Raymond,
I'm not sure what you mean exactly by 'inversion', but in Chinese, titles are backwards from English:
Wang tai tai= Mrs. Wang
Lin su su= Father's younger brother uncle Lin
There are about fifty times more family address labels in Chinese than English as each name goes according to family rank and position, maternal, paternal, and all that. I can never get them straight! Also, people in families typically call each other 'younger brother = didi', 'second sister = er jie', etc, more often than by their given names.
Then, in traditional companies, there are such terms as: Chen Jin li or Manager Chen, or Chen Manager, in English.
But since the first name in Chinese is the surname, it makes sense, really.
Lori
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