I know that the different ways of saying "I" or "You" have actual meanings, like:

Watashi - "private"
Boku - "servant"
Sesshha - "bumbler"


Kimi - "l__d"
Omae - "(honorable) front" or "the (honorable) person in front of me"
Onore - "(honorable) oneself" (though the opposite is implied either way)
Kisama - "extremely esteemed person" (though the exact opposite meaning is implied)
Otaku - "your (honorable) house" (though such now normally carries a negative meaning)


I wonder...
What does "ore" and "anata" mean?

No, I AM NOT asking about the right ways to use these pronouns, but rather their meanings.



P.S. The "honorable" is put in parentheses, since I think the "o" in front of the pronouns are the "honorable" "o"s. Of course, I am not even an intermediate student of Nipponese, so I am most likely wrong.

Very interesting thread and one of the reason I took up languages was to find the real reason behind words, and Japanese is rich with these.

I would also like to add 我（われ）・われわれ to it if it has any special meaning behind it.

I got an easy one.
私--> あたし ^__^

Dankoochoo Wrote:Kimi - "l__d"

Why did you censor "lord?"

Quote:Onore - "(honorable) oneself" (though the opposite is implied either way)

The O in onore isn't a prefix, it's part of the word.

Quote:Otaku - "your (honorable) house" (though such now normally carries a negative meaning)

Otaku is a polite pronoun. It's only negative when it's describing geeks, and in that usage it's not a pronoun anyway.

Quote:What does "anata" mean?

It means "over there."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_pronouns

あなた - 貴方, 貴男, 貴女 - Dear

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%BF%BA
おれ - 俺 - Originally a second person pronoun. Gradually changed into a first person pronoun.

@Jimmyseal: あなた only means "over there" when written as 彼方. 貴方 could be considered another kosoado word though..（こなた・そなた・あなた・どなた）

LazyNomad Wrote:http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%BF%BA
おれ - 俺 - Originally a second person pronoun. Gradually changed into a first person pronoun.

I can find no evidence of that. Wiktionary is full of mistakes though so I wouldn't trust it. The only gradual change that happened is that it's no longer used by women (normally).

Here are some somewhat uncommon ones I came across playing Zelda yesterday: 妾(わらわ)、私(あたい), both being feminine versions of "I".

爾 - おれ　- 1. (archaic) (vulgar) you

http://www.mahou.org/Kanji/3C24/

I am also not sure, though...

Perhaps someone could correct me, but わたし is a Japanese word. It was only by chance that the kanji 私was used to denote it (in fact a different kanji was used for a while right? Jarv or Aijin/Magamo could clear that up, but I think it was the original chinese 我. So anyway, connotations of private come about from the Chinese character, 私's original meaning of private, pronounced 「シ」.


Anyway if learning the meanings of pronouns if for your own interest then so be it, but if you think learning the meanings of pronouns will help you understand their connotations, nuance, etc I don't think it will be of much help to you. It'd be interesting, but not of much help to your language ability.

Let's not forget the 田舎 style おいら. And the actually decently polite second person pronoun 其方 (そなた).

Also, 儂 （わし）.

liosama Wrote:Perhaps someone could correct me, but わたし is a Japanese word. It was only by chance that the kanji 私was used to denote it (in fact a different kanji was used for a while right? Jarv or Aijin/Magamo could clear that up, but I think it was the original chinese 我. So anyway, connotations of private come about from the Chinese character, 私's original meaning of private, pronounced 「シ」.

私 is the only kanji I (or my dictionaries) know for わたし, but since it's a 和語 one could have logically given it any kanji you wanted (as long as the kanji means I) in ye olde days. Wago -> kanji assignments were pretty half-ass, which is why it's 掌 not 手の平 and 試みる, not 心見る. It's also why あげる can have five+ kanji depending on the nuance.

A better definition of 私 is self, not I or private. If you think of it as self then 私立大学 means self-established university, aka a private university, while still making sense as a first person pronoun. Unfortunately there are a ton of other kanji with similar meanings so heisig had to give it the name he did.

The reason that 私 is used as the kanji is that originally (as Jarvik7) indicates, the word わたくし was not a personal pronoun, it was a word meaning "private". The personal pronoun meaning developed later. (liosama: the kanji was assigned to the word because it meant private, not the other way around.)

The Koujien does indicate that 俺 was once used as a second-person pronoun as well as a first-person, but it doesn't say that the second-person meaning was first...I suppose, though, that may be the case since the quotations are for the second-person pronoun are from the Kojiki and the Makura no Soshi.

我 has always been われ, not わたし.

Jarvik7 Wrote:Unfortunately there are a ton of other kanji with similar meanings so heisig had to give it the name he did.

You say this as though Heisig were making some sort of compromise by using the word "private" for this character, but "private" is a perfectly correct word for it, and there's nothing "unfortunate" about it. Look in any 漢英 dictionary and you'll see "private" listed as one of the meanings, like here:

http://zhongwen.com/d/168/d112.htm

I wouldn't agree that "self" is a better definition for it either.

What the Japanese language tells us about the alleged Japanese relational self (with Yukio Hirose). Australian Journal of Linguistics, vol. 25, 219-251, 2005. - Might find that interesting. I think it goes into details about personal pronouns around page 18 or somesuch.

More from the same author: http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~hasegawa/pub.html

Just noticed I cited this person before: http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~hasega...ccent.html

Much obliged, everyone, especially since none of the comments were actually painful to read. (I think you can guess why I was scared.)

Either way, I will wait for a few more before I get to the next (more embarrassing!) question.

JimmySeal Wrote:

Dankoochoo Wrote:Kimi - "l__d"

Why did you censor "lord?"

I grew up with "Jesus" and "Lord" being synonymous. Although "Lord" is not strictly a religious term, I do not really feel right writing "Lord" without reference to Jesus.

What if you are talking about a Mexican landl__d?

Jarvik7 Wrote:What if you are talking about a Mexican landl__d?

I imagine that discussing British politics would also be troublesome.

...never mind that, please. /frustration/

or a Colombian drugl__d

or L__d of the Rings

I guess that's why Lord Voldemort is He Who Shall Not Be Named.

Okay, I will just ask this.
What are the "real" meanings of "temae" and "temee"? (I know that both are provocative forms of "you;" I just want to know their "actual meaning.")

Dankoochoo Wrote:Okay, I will just ask this.
What are the "real" meanings of "temae" and "temee"? (I know that both are provocative forms of "you;" I just want to know their "actual meaning.")

I always imagined it meant something along the lines of "one before me who's 'bout to get SLAPPED, son!"

But it's probably not that simple... It never is. :/

手前 = 手前に居る人
I don't think it's any deeper than that.

And it took the same path as other things like 己、お前、 and 貴様 in that it used to be polite but now is not. Although actually, it may be that 手前 (pronounced as てまえ, not てめえ) can still be used politely in certain formal usages.

(お前/おめえ is still polite in some dialects, particularly among the elderly.