Honorifics and such

cynlee · Post by **cynlee** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 5:21 -0700

Over at Mikey's this guy is on a tear about how one of the versions of TMNT (probably the current, but I could be wrong) refered to a female warrior by her name followed by "san", which he "knows for a fact" is only used with men.

So, what is used with women?

ziritrion · Post by **ziritrion** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 6:38 -0700

As far as I know, no Japanese honorific suffix is gender specific, although some of them are used more commonly in certain genders or age groups. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_h ... fic_titles for details.

Stan Sakai · Post by **Stan Sakai** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 6:46 -0700

"-san" is not gender specific. There are a few that are, though they are archaic and seldom used today. "-sama" would be used to refer to someone of a much higher rank, though probably not a woman. A woman's equivalent might be "-gozen", which roughly translates as "lady". So "Tomoe Gozen" would be "Lady Gozen".

cynlee · Post by **cynlee** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 7:19 -0700

Thank-you! You will never know just how happy you have made me with that reply!

Anjin-san · Post by **Anjin-san** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 21:52 -0700

One thing I recently discovered which I thought was interesting was that the honorific "-san" (as well as the familiar diminutive "-chan") is actually a construction of the modern Japanese language and wouldn't be found in the Japanese language of Usagi's time. "Sama," on the other hand, was, of course, firmly entrenched in the Japanese language of the time. (Source: "Learning From Shogun" ed. by Henry D. Smith)