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Honorifics and such
Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2005 5:21 -0700
by cynlee
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?
Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2005 6:38 -0700
by ziritrion
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.
Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2005 6:46 -0700
by Stan Sakai
"-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".
Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2005 7:19 -0700
by cynlee
Thank-you! You will never know just how happy you have made me with that reply!
Posted: Wed Sep 07, 2005 21:52 -0700
by Anjin-san
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)