12.2 Inside and outside — Epoché
What you will be able to do Use the right word for a family member, depending on whose family it is. Say why the boundary is not the same as the boundary between people you know and do not know. Recognise the same division at work in a company, a school and a shop. Say what this has to do with the honorific system you will meet in phase 3. Prerequisites : lessons 12.1 and 6.2 — the scripts, and the words for family. In 6.2 you learned two words for father and were told to use one about your own and the other about somebody else's. In 7.1 you were told that a shop assistant is polite to you in a way you do not return. In 7.4 the same thing happened in a restaurant. In 8.2 the text about a family used the first word for father throughout, and the exchanges in volume 7 used the second. All four are the same fact, and this lesson is that fact. It is the most important idea in Japanese that can be stated in a paragraph, and it is worth reading twice. Terms Four words, and the first two are the whole lesson. Term Meaning Notes うち ja uchi inside — my family, my company, my group; also home , and a word for I うちのおとうさん、いそがしいんだ。 My dad is busy. うちのさんなんです。 He's our third son. そと ja soto outside — everybody else, and the direction you are polite towards けいご ja keigo the honorific forms: raising the person you are talking about けんじょうご ja ken jōgo the humble forms: lowering yourself and your own group The first word is the one to notice. It means inside , it means home , and used as a pronoun it means I — in some dialects it is the ordinary word for I . The same four syllables covering all three is not an accident of sound; it is the idea itself. Two words for every relative Twelve pairs, and the rule is the same for all of them: the first column is what you call your own, speaking to somebody outside the family; the second is what you call somebody else's, and also what you call your own to their face and within the family. Relation Your own, to outsiders Somebody else's — and yours, addressed father ちち おとうさん mother はは おかあさん elder brother あに おにいさん elder sister あね おねえさん younger brother おとうと おとうとさん younger sister いもうと いもうとさん grandfather そふ おじいさん grandmother そぼ おばあさん husband おっと ごしゅじん wife つま おくさん son むすこ むすこさん daughter むすめ むすめさん Notice that the plain forms are short and the polite ones are longer, with a prefix and a suffix. That is the shape of the whole system: the inside is unmarked and the outside is decorated. Notice also that the distinction is not about respect for the person. Saying the short word about your own father is not disrespectful to him; it is respectful to the person you are speaking to, by declining to raise a member of your own group in front of them. A Japanese child addresses their father with the long form and refers to him at school with the short one, in the same afternoon, with no change of feeling. The same division everywhere else In a company. This is where it surprises English speakers most. Speaking to a customer, an employee refers to their own company president without an honorific and to the customer's junior clerk with one. Inside the office, the same employee speaks to and about that president in the full honorific register. The boundary has moved, and with it the whole grammar. Rank inside the group is real, but it is switched off the moment somebody from outside is present. In a shop or a restaurant. The customer is outside and above, permanently, which is why the politeness runs in one direction only. There is a saying that the customer is a god; it is quoted with some irony, but the grammar behaves as though it were true. In a school. A teacher is addressed by title rather than name, and a student's own teacher is spoken of respectfully even to outsiders — because a teacher is inside the group and above it at the same time. This is the one common exception to the company rule, and it is worth knowing because it shows that the system is about relationships rather than about a mechanical in-or-out test. In a house. Shoes come off at the boundary, and the boundary is physically marked by a step. The word for the step, the word for inside, and the word for home are related. A guest is given the best of everything and is also, gently and permanently, outside. Real sentences: your own family Four sentences about the speaker's own family, to somebody outside it. Every one uses the short form. Japanese English すみません。ちちはいえにいません。 [1] I'm sorry, my dad is not at home. ちちはあしたいえにいるのでしょう。 [2] My father will be at home tomorrow. はははいつもいそがしい。 [3] My mother is always busy. はははいつもいえにいるわけではない。 [4] My mother is not always at home. The first is what you say on the telephone when somebody asks for your father. The short form there is not brusqueness; using the long one would sound as though you were elevating your own household in front of a stranger. Real sentences: somebody else's, and addressed Four with the long form. The first two are addressed to a child about their own parents — inside the family, the long form is normal — and the last two are about somebody else's mother. Japanese English おとうさんがさがしているよ。 [5] Your father wants you. おかあさん、いえにいる？ [6] Is your mother at home? あのこのおかあさんですか？ [7] Are you her mother? あなたはおかあさんににていますね。 [8] You look like your mother. The same word, the same speaker, a different direction. Nothing in the grammar has changed except which side of the boundary the person stands on. Real sentences: the group word Four with the word meaning inside , used as a possessive for anything the speaker belongs to. Japanese English うちのおとうさん、いそがしいんだ。 [9] My dad is busy. うちのさんなんです。 [10] He's our third son. うちのむすめはウルトラマンがすきだ。 [11] My daughter likes Ultraman. あなたのおうちのみなさまによろしく。 [12] Please remember me to all your family. The first three are the speaker's own household — our father, our third son, our daughter — where English would say my . Japanese prefers the group to the individual here, and the effect in English translation is either warmer or more rustic than the origi