By Claytonian
I and my friend went into a soba (buckwheat noodles) restaurant the other afternoon. As he is of obvious Asian decent and I am of obvious snow giant decent, it caused a bit of a stir in the restaurant when I did most of the talking. I'll try to remember to blog my thoughts on said stir in a future post, but for today's entry, I would like to focus on what one of the patrons (a very drunk and old one, who also surreally had 3 ponytails at random angles) said to my friend.
I mean the language he used was what struck me, because he said something along the lines of " Why are お前ぇ (you) losing to the white boy with that face, 貴様 (you)?!" He threw in a few 手前ぇs (also meaning you) in there too as he grumbled on incoherently, among with some old man cackles. So why did he use so many different terms for you, and why did they raise my prodigious eyebrows? Well, that's what I'm about to explain.
You see, addressing someone as you (usually by using the word anata) is a bit risky in the first place in Japan. It can come of as very personal and accusatory. Subjects and pronouns are dropped altogether in Japanese if we can help it (this is known as Japanese telepathy). Then there are even stronger versions of "you," which this old goat used, some of which we'll explore here. The funny thing is, they didn't always have this strong reputation. Here they are:
貴様 kisama: from 貴 (ki, an honorific) and 様 (sama, another honorific that is kind of like "m'lord"). Kisama was first used during the middle ages in letters between warriors as a highly respectful form of address. But in recent times commoners got a hold of it, turned it into a spoken word, and the meaning lost it's respectfulness pretty fast. It started to get used by people to refer to their equals and lowers. Then the upper classes and ladies started to be like, we are so done with this word and it became a word used as an insult. I recommend not using it unless you want to fight, and even then, your opponent will probably start laughing because you used a word that we usually only see in comics these days.
お前/お前ぇ omae/omē: from the honorific お (o) and 前 (mae, front). Omae used to refer to being in the presence of greatness, be it gods, buddhas, or noblemen. But as the years went on it saw the same dilution that kisama did, to the point where it became a brusque form of address. The omē-style of pronunciation is a more modern development. Many vowels get transformed into e sounds these days to add a little rough manliness to them.
手前/てめえtemae/temē: from 手 (te, hand), and 前 (mae, front). This one can mean lots of things, most of them harmless. You can even use it to talk humbly about yourself. But when you use it for another person, you place them at an equal or lower level than you. Like the omē above, it has been further roughened with an e sound. In fact, I think people say it the rough way more often to keep the meaning clear.
So as you can see, these words all have respectful or humble roots, but as old drunk men sitting in soba shops got their hands on them, they became rather rude versions of "you". Use them with caution. No, on second though, you shouldn't use them at all, you.
I and my friend went into a soba (buckwheat noodles) restaurant the other afternoon. As he is of obvious Asian decent and I am of obvious snow giant decent, it caused a bit of a stir in the restaurant when I did most of the talking. I'll try to remember to blog my thoughts on said stir in a future post, but for today's entry, I would like to focus on what one of the patrons (a very drunk and old one, who also surreally had 3 ponytails at random angles) said to my friend.
I mean the language he used was what struck me, because he said something along the lines of " Why are お前ぇ (you) losing to the white boy with that face, 貴様 (you)?!" He threw in a few 手前ぇs (also meaning you) in there too as he grumbled on incoherently, among with some old man cackles. So why did he use so many different terms for you, and why did they raise my prodigious eyebrows? Well, that's what I'm about to explain.
You see, addressing someone as you (usually by using the word anata) is a bit risky in the first place in Japan. It can come of as very personal and accusatory. Subjects and pronouns are dropped altogether in Japanese if we can help it (this is known as Japanese telepathy). Then there are even stronger versions of "you," which this old goat used, some of which we'll explore here. The funny thing is, they didn't always have this strong reputation. Here they are:
貴様 kisama: from 貴 (ki, an honorific) and 様 (sama, another honorific that is kind of like "m'lord"). Kisama was first used during the middle ages in letters between warriors as a highly respectful form of address. But in recent times commoners got a hold of it, turned it into a spoken word, and the meaning lost it's respectfulness pretty fast. It started to get used by people to refer to their equals and lowers. Then the upper classes and ladies started to be like, we are so done with this word and it became a word used as an insult. I recommend not using it unless you want to fight, and even then, your opponent will probably start laughing because you used a word that we usually only see in comics these days.
お前/お前ぇ omae/omē: from the honorific お (o) and 前 (mae, front). Omae used to refer to being in the presence of greatness, be it gods, buddhas, or noblemen. But as the years went on it saw the same dilution that kisama did, to the point where it became a brusque form of address. The omē-style of pronunciation is a more modern development. Many vowels get transformed into e sounds these days to add a little rough manliness to them.
手前/てめえtemae/temē: from 手 (te, hand), and 前 (mae, front). This one can mean lots of things, most of them harmless. You can even use it to talk humbly about yourself. But when you use it for another person, you place them at an equal or lower level than you. Like the omē above, it has been further roughened with an e sound. In fact, I think people say it the rough way more often to keep the meaning clear.
So as you can see, these words all have respectful or humble roots, but as old drunk men sitting in soba shops got their hands on them, they became rather rude versions of "you". Use them with caution. No, on second though, you shouldn't use them at all, you.
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