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Approved Submission Honorifics

Ametheliana

Ametheliana

Head in the Stars
Staff Member
🌸 FM of Yamatai
🎖️ Game Master
Submission Type: Honorifics (-chan, -san, senpai, etc...)
Submission URL: https://wiki.stararmy.com/doku.php?id=wip:honorifics

Faction:
FM Approved Yet? No
Faction requires art? No

For Reviewers:
Contains Unapproved Sub-Articles? No
Contains New art? No
Previously Submitted? No

@CadetNewb what do you think?
@Wes because this is semi-Yamatai related. I can also put it in the Yamatai namespace, instead of having it free-floating, too.
 
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I'd also suggest including a - in the front or back to suggest it's a prefix or suffix. Otherwise, some people might be left wondering how to use it at all.
 
I have updated the wiki entry without the consent of the submitter because it's about grammar and I'm still a professional editor and grammarian at heart.

Anything found in this update to be undesired is freely available to be repealed. No hard feelings here, and again I apologize.
 
I don't find it wrong that you did so. To be fair, I slacked on adding what was requested of me, so I understand fully.

I would like to know if officer ranks should be included, especially since you, Doshii, added a quote and commentary about officer ranks, but they are not listed, as of yet.
 
You would just link to the StarArmy:Ranks page. >,>
 
I don't think there should be any double-honorifics on that page.

Nobody calls a heisho "heisho-san." It's just "heisho."

And "Hime-sama" made me cringe when it happened in the RP!

Correct me if I'm wrong about the way these work in Japanese, but I think honorifics should go on the end of people's names only unless they're being used as a standalone word (hime can be for example). "Ketsurui-Taisho" (Admiral Ketsurui) or "Tanaka-san" (Mr. Tanaka) make sense, but no one would say Mister Sergeant (Heisho-san).
 
"Hime" itself isn't purely an honorific, as was already noted. "Hime-sama" is probably the most common way for subjects to address a princess in the Japanese language. In fact, it'd probably be a high offense to address a princess as "Hanako-hime" rather than "himesama" were they a commoner and the situation took place in feudal Japan. Someone familiar with a princess might say "Hanakohime-sama" when trying to be especially deferent. But addressing royalty is really, really complex; at its base level it's because the royal title is considered part of their formal name. I've used all of these stylings when addressing princesses with Saiga because he's supposed to be a Yamataian samurai aristocrat, so would definitely do that stuff.

Similarly, since "heisho" is not purely an honorific form of address, "heichou-san" wouldn't be particularly out of place within a military unit. Kinda like saying "Gunny" or referring to someone as "THE Sarge" instead of "Gunnery Sergeant Dudebro." It's important to remember that -san, -sama, etc don't translate directly to mr. or mrs. or ms. They're different levels of respect in the Japanese language. Those "translations" are just the closest approximation.

I agree on not doubling up honorifics, though. For example, SAINT director Nakaide Shida could be called "Shida-sama/san" or "Shida-bucho" (Director Shida) or "Shida-chujo," but wouldn't ever be called "Shida-bucho-sama" or "Shida-chujo-bucho." But he might be called "bucho-sama" (the director) or "chujo-san" by a fellow admiral that doesn't know his name but can see the rank (or someone familiar being patronizing).

You can basically add an honorific to any word except a word used as an honorific (i.e. Neko-chan is fine).

But, as people have said in the past, "Yamatai isn't Japan" so do whatever makes y'all comfortable.
 
Honorifics can go after profession names, but when an honorific doubles as a profession name, that does get messy. There's such a thing as 'shopkeeper-san', but you can't call someone 'sensei-sensei'... at least not without sounding about as silly as you do when talking to someone named 'Koya-Koya' or something.

I think I agree with just keeping the number of hyphens down to one.
 
I gotta back this up as my annie may supports what raz is saying and I know I had Akemi refer to Hanako as Shosho-sama or some other combination of terms in the past. It makes sense to me exactly for the reason raz used. At that point Akemi was super young, shy, respectful and reserved and figured a princess deserved to be called by her rank which was high and impressive and a title/complimentary honorific like sama or hime to acknowledge her royal status instead of saying her first name. Plus saying her last name feels kinda awkward at least OOC when it's a name many important people share.

I do like the thought of having made Wes cringe though.

I refuse to let someone casually negate what I learned from watching anime for more than half my life. I will contest this without Googling.

Wes confirmed for watching dubs instead of subs. Thank you for pointing this out with your razor sharp SAINT observational skills @raz.
 
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I tried to address that with the bit about how things sound in Trade, but I should probably explain how it sounds in English and Japanese first! Raz and Navian got to most of it.

The kind of honorifics we have in English, like mister, don't have translations into Japanese. "San" equally does not go into English as a word, but more like an inflection upon the word preceding it. Saying something like "Hei-san" would be like respectfully saying "Private" or "Corporal", instead of rudely snapping "Soldier!" at them.

"Sama" and "dono" go the same way with titles used as proper nouns. It just isn't done as often (except with Hime-sama).

I agree on double suffixes. We're writing in English.
 
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