language and history: -dono

[branchandroot]

Thoughts apropos Japanese titles.

If I've got all this straight, then the reason -dono is usually described as "less formal" than -sama is not that is is in any way less respectful. Rather, it is more intimate. Tracing back to its origin as the title form of "tono" (lord, specifically your own lord), addressing someone as Name-dono lays claim to a relationship with them. A feudal one, to be precise and, if I'm not mistaken, one with a certain amount of implied rank since only one of the warrior class would be entering into it.

So when, in Ouran, the twins call Tamaki "Tono", it's a play on the royalty motif and subtly reinforces the fact that all the kids at that school are upper class.

And when, in Rurouni Kenshin, Kenshin addresses Kaoru as "Kaoru-dono" he is implicitly laying claim to a position as a retainer of her house. This one actually fascinates me, because that could be seen as very counter-revolutionary of him (the feudal forms being one of the things the winning Imperialists set about expurgating as too old-fashioned and, more critically, too likely to provide a power base outside of centralized government channels). And at the same time, it could also be seen as an interesting comment on his childhood. Kenshin was born a commoner, after all, not one of the warrior class; as such he isn't eligible to have a lord, not in that particular relationship-sense. So he could, at the same time, be being conservative and old fashioned and also very 'uppity' by claiming a retainer-relationship.

All this was actually occasioned by my frustration that there is no good way to translate the way Basil of KHR speaks into English.

Comments

[kaigou]

We have them, but they're regional and require tone to add the nuances, instead of the word being a pretty straight-forward meaning (outside of the flips of sarcasm). Or more like, we have them, but in English, it's something buried in the language, not necessarily spelled out, but still regional. Like the difference between calling someone precious ("oh, she's just so precious") which usually operates on a level of familial or long-time-friend intimacy but only from elder to younger; a child wouldn't refer to her god-mother as precious. For a woman you've just met, who's older than you, to call you precious means she's kinda taking the same claims on a relationship (of a certain intimacy) that Kenshin is doing, if not so carefully spelled out; I daresay most folks wouldn't be entirely aware of why they go along (or get cranky at it), only that they have this specific reaction to someone doing that.

Like the way I get very cranky if someone new-to-me calls me by the diminutive version of my name + nickname. That's common enough in the South, but it's still only something that's done from elder to younger. I don't like it when older strangers do it, but if my step-daughter does it, I don't find it funny at all, but incredibly offensive, if not outright infuriating. Japan may have the benefit of spelling it out -- that is, Kaoru is likely well aware of the implications of the -dono suffix, but if I met an older man at her age and he called me 'Miss H', I would take it with the same respect levels -- because that's lower-to-higher, as opposed to 'Missy' or even diminutive-version, which are both definitely higher-to-lower.

aaaaand there I go rambling again. Sorry. I was trying to read this article about intersectionality until I knocked up against epistemic and aphoria and went OMG JARGON IDEK OMG and decided I needed chocolate instead.

[zombiecookie]

I think a lot of what you're saying isn't purely regional, at least when it comes to the usage of something like Miss. It isn't used commonly up north, but it has the same connotations of being polite, lower-to-higher language.

We think tend to show relationships more using what comes after a title though (if we use it). There is a big difference between Mr. Davidson and Mr. D, even if both are more polite than using a first name.

[annotated_em]

*laughing* Point well taken. I was thinking more in terms of the difficult of conveying those Japanese gradations in written English, and less about the actual usage of other markers within spoken US English.

...

Is it really sad that "epistemic" no longer pings me as jargony? I've been in grad school too long.