Japanese honorifics
This may be seen on small maps often used in phone books and business cards in Japan, where the names of surrounding companies are written using -san.
San can be attached to the names of animals or even for cooking; "fish" can be referred to as sakana-san, but both would be considered childish (akin to "Mr.
Appropriate usages include divine entities, guests or customers (such as a sports venue announcer addressing members of the audience), and sometimes towards people one greatly admires.
Deities such as native Shinto kami and Jesus Christ are referred to as kami-sama, meaning "Revered spirit-sama".
In business settings, young female employees are addressed as -kun by older males of senior status.
Moe anthropomorphisms are often labeled as -tan, e.g., the commercial mascot Habanero-tan, the manga figure Afghanis-tan or the OS-tans representing operating systems.
Senpai (先輩、せんぱい, "former born") is used to address or refer to one's older or more senior colleagues and students in a school, workplace, dojo, or sports club.
Sensei (先生、せんせい, literally meaning "born earlier") is used to refer to or address teachers, doctors, politicians, lawyers, and other authority figures.
They can be applied to things like a garden (お庭, oniwa) or to people in conjunction with a suffix, like a doctor (お医者さん, oishasan).
Thus, the difference in politeness was a result of the average social station of women versus men as opposed to an inherent characteristic.
Dropping the honorific suffix when referring to one's interlocutor, which is known as to yobisute (呼び捨て), implies a high degree of intimacy and is generally reserved for one's spouse, younger family members, social inferiors (as in a teacher addressing students in traditional arts), close friends and confidants.
Within sports teams or among classmates, where the interlocutors approximately are of the same age or seniority, it can be acceptable to use family names without honorifics.
Honorifics are not used to refer to oneself, except when trying to be arrogant (ore-sama), to be cute (-chan), or sometimes when talking to young children to teach them how to address the speaker.
When translating honorific suffixes into English, separate pronouns or adjectives must be used to convey characteristics to the person they are referencing.
In a business setting, it is common to refer to people using their rank, especially for positions of authority, such as department chief (部長, buchō) or company president (社長, shachō).
Still, now an effort is made to distinguish between suspects (容疑者, yōgisha), defendants (被告, hikoku), and convicts (受刑者, jukeisha), so as not to presume guilt before anything has been proven.
When actor and musician Gorō Inagaki was arrested for a traffic accident in 2001, some media referred to him with the newly made title menbā (メンバー), originating from the English word "member", to avoid the use of yōgisha (容疑者, suspect).
[citation needed] But in addition to being criticized as an unnatural term, this title also became derogatory almost instantly—an example of euphemism treadmill.
When mentioning a company's name, it is considered important to include its status depending on whether it is incorporated (株式会社, kabushiki-gaisha) or limited (有限会社, yūgen-gaisha).
Tono (殿 との), pronounced -dono (どの) when attached to a name, roughly means "lord" or "master".
This title is not commonly used in daily conversation, but it is still used in some types of written business correspondence, as well as on certificates and awards, and in tea ceremonies.
While its use is no longer common, it is still seen in constructions like chichi-ue (父上), haha-ue (母上) and ane-ue (姉上), reverent terms for "father", "mother" and "older sister" respectively.
Junior and senior students (先輩 and 後輩) are categorized separately based on experience level.
In aikidō and some systems of karate,[citation needed] O-Sensei (大先生) is the title of the (deceased) head of the style.
Many organizations in Japan award such titles upon a sincere study and dedication of Japanese martial arts.
[13] Levels of black belts are occasionally used as martial arts titles: In informal speech, some Japanese people may use contrived suffixes in place of normal honorifics.
Although the range of such suffixes that might be coined is limitless, some have gained such widespread usage that the boundary between established honorifics and wordplay has become a little blurred.
Unlike a proper honorific, use of such suffixes is governed largely by how they sound in conjunction with a particular name, and on the effect the speaker is trying to achieve.
Some honorifics have baby talk versions—mispronunciations stereotypically associated with small children and cuteness, and more frequently used in popular entertainment than in everyday speech.
When referring to one's own family members while speaking to a non-family-member, neutral, descriptive nouns are used, such as haha (母) for "mother" and ani (兄) for "older brother".
