#so the cultural tradition of addressing other people by honorific titles is something that I actually feel very comfortable with

[braceletofteeth]

I'm so thankful to Thailand for introducing gender neutral honorifics to my vocabulary.

It feels sooo nice to see nonbinary mutuals in my notes and go "Phiiiiiii~!!☺🥰" with the same respect and fondness I'd call others by korean honorifics (that are very gender specific).

[guzhuangheaven]

Hello! I've seen many posts here on traditional clothing, but also on other topics, so I hope this is an appropriate question to ask. Could you please explain about different diminutives and terms of endearment in Chinese, like Xiao- (小), A-/Ah- (阿), -Er (兒), Lao (老), Lang (郎), and -Ge/-Jie/-Di/-Mei (哥/姐/弟/妹) (between non-biological relatives)? When would you use these, what is the difference between them and why would you use one over another, and how do you know which part of the name to pair?

The easy bit to tackle is the ge/jie/di/mei which when used socially are just an indicator of your relative age to the person you are addressing. So you would call a social acquaintance/friend who is slightly older than you ge/xiong or jie, and someone slightly younger than you di or mei. Ge/xiong and jie can also be used for someone around the same age as you as a sign of respect. I would say these honorifics imply a more informal relationship, but it is not such a close relationship that allows a more intimate diminutive or nickname like Lao X. If on an English-speaking scale of formality between calling someone Mr/Miss X, their name, or calling them dude or bro or some other affectionate insulting nickname, you’re somewhere in the middle. It’s basically the equivalent to being on a first name basis with someone, it’s just that the cultural values requires an honorific like ge/jie/di/mei to clarify the social relationship.

Regarding other terms like xiao/ah/er/lao/lang, it’s important to be aware that there are no hard set rules about how to use any of them. Most of the time diminutives of names evolve organically through social interactions. There isn’t any rule that X name has to be paired with xiao or er, any more than there are rules that a person named Robert can only be nicknamed Rob instead of Bob or whatever. Whether you’re called Rob or Bob or Bobby, or whether only your mum calls you Bobby and everyone else calls you Rob, entirely depends on whatever arbitrary reason you chose that name as your preferred name or what those around you decided to call you.

That said, of course there are certain connotations to be read when certain diminutives are used in certain contexts.

Diminutives like xiao and er are often given to children by older generations of their family, and can stick around until adulthood. If you’re a man, and unless your name is actually Xiao X, if you are still called xiao and er into adulthood, this is likely because these diminutives were childhood nicknames that stuck around, and would only be used by those very close to you anyway. An example of this is in Nirvana in Fire, where you have people from Lin Shu’s childhood calling him Xiao Shu because that was his family nickname when he was young. It’s probably also meant to emphasise that Lin Shu as an identity is perpetually stuck at age 19. In any case, cute diminutives like xiao and er may be used for a grown man by members from older generations of his family such as parents or grandparents, but would unlikely be used between peers or those from the same generation. Between peers, grown men would be more likely to use each other’s courtesy names rather than diminutives.

Xiao and er can be more often used between those of the same generation/peers as diminutives for women but even then, it often also implies a close relationship. Of course, I would say the spectrum of formality for addressing women is a lot narrower than men, as historically women would have more limited avenues of social interaction. You’re probably working with two extremes of “very formal title” and “intimate nickname/diminutive” with very little in between. Between two women, it’s probably easier to move into using the intimate nickname. But for a man to address a woman he is unrelated to with a diminutive such as xiao and er would probably imply they have either known each other all their lives or otherwise have a very intimate relationship. The exception would only be if everyone called her by those diminutives and there’s no other more formal option.

Ah is usually used to tack on to the given name of people who have a one-character given name, and you don’t want to call them by their full surname + given name, because that would be too formal. It can be used as a diminutive for people who have two-character given names as well, but I think that’s less usual.

I would equate lao to something like the modern English dude or bro, in that it has that back-slapping male vibe to it. As a nickname, it certainly is more often used between men and paired with the surname or the numbering position you hold within your family.

(Not to be confused with lao when used as a term of respect for older people, which is another story.)

Lang is an interesting one, because it can be very social or very intimate depending on the context. I personally tend to associate lang with a certain period around the Tang and Song dynasties, though I’m sure it was used in other times as well. Lang can be paired with your surname and/or your numbering within the family and used by people when talking about you or to you, simply to denote that you are a male member of that family. So for example, in The Story of Ming Lan, Gu Ting Ye is often referred to socially as Gu Er Lang, which basically is just a way to indicate that the person is referring to the second son of the Gu family without saying his full name (which is rude) or calling him by some more formal title (which might sound stuffy in a close social context and/or not quite appropriate if the person talking is a social/generational superior). So there’s nothing special about someone like the emperor or Gu Ting Ye’s stepmother calling him Er Lang, because it’s just a mode of address.  But at the same time, there’s a whole plot point of Gu Ting Ye trying to get Ming Lan to call him Er Lang after they are married, because between a couple, lang is a much more intimate term of endearment.  

In terms which part of the name you would pair with any/all of these pre/suffixes, that also highly depends on your name. If you share a generational name with your brothers/sisters/cousins, usually your diminutive would most likely be paired with the other name that is unique to you. Alternatively, some people’s diminutive name might derive from the first character of their given name, others might be from the second character, simply because whichever character it is flows better with the diminutive term, or because it’s just randomly chosen. Since if you have a two-character name, both are your names it doesn’t really matter which you turn into a diminutive.

These are just some points that come to mind, but again, these terms can be extremely fluid, so there are no rules about how they must be used, which also means that their usage is often open to interpretation. A term of endearment might also become special because only X person uses it, not because the name per se is special. If everyone calls you Tonks and there’s that one person who’s allowed to call you Dora then obviously you have a different relationship with that person.  -H

[mostly-mundane-atla]

Hello! I love your blog! Thank you for sharing your culture & taking the time to write such thoughtful responses to people's questions!

I've read a lot of your posts about Inupiat language & names, and I wanted to ask if it's at all common to use honorifics/familial pronouns (like calling a sibling "brother/sister" instead of by their given name)? What would someone call their grandparents, for example?

Thank you again! 💜

^-^ you're very kind.

There weren't really honorifics in Inupiatun because language reflects the culture and social status/class wasn't nearly as rigid among the Inupiat as they were in other cultures. You could chalk this up to plenty of reasons, some not as respectful or politically correct as others, but from my understanding, it seems to result in some specific aspects. First, that the harsh environment fostered a culture of intense interdependency to where we didn't need executions because banishment meant basically the same thing. Second, we didn't have primogeniture (the firstborn son being favored in all cases of inheritance) or a cash economy as part of the culture. (Note: dentalium shells were valued enough by enough peoples in Alaska that they kind of acted as an informal currency in trading between nations, but that's a big conversation outside of my scope of knowledge and they don't feature much in Inupiat art or jewelry.)

You might notice that when there is a movement to destroy a corrupt class system, people of that movement adopt a new honorific to show respect without the suggestion of verbally bowing to one's betters. The French had citizen and the Soviets had comrade. In the U.S. it is expected and considered polite to address anyone you don't know as ma'am or sir (and there's some gender baggage to it that I won't go into for simplicity's sake). This is because otherwise it's assumed you don't believe that person deserves the respect of a term that historically was used for people above a certain rank. Honorifics are a signature of formality or the ghost of formality. They suggest how much you respect a person by using the appropriate honorific, or they can be hurtful by using a more formal honorific to suggest you no longer want your relationship to be as intimate or casual.

None of this was a part of traditional Inupiaq culture, which can contribute to something of a culture clash. People raised in the village will do things that people who weren't raised there find rude or disrespectful because those kinds of formalities just aren't a part of the culture. There were people who had more than others, but having more did not entitle one to more respect. We never got to a "refer to everyone as if they were your better" stage because historically, we didn't really have "betters" in that sense. I'm sure the importance of nonverbal communication (we're quiet and kind of shy, so a lot of communication is done without speaking) had something to do with it too. Respect is something you show with your whole body, not just your words. Why use a word to suggest "I respect and value you" when choosing not to corner them or stare them down means the same thing and shows it more effectively?

Also of note is that Inupiatun doesn't use articles, and this is something that shows up in village English or bush English as well. For people who grew up in the village or elders who didn't speak English as a first language, sticking "a/an" or "the" in front of a noun isn't always an automatic process, especially when it comes to people. Because possessives work differently in Inupiatun, sometimes those are dropped as well. One might refer to a teacher and rather than saying "my teacher" or "the teacher" they would just say "teacher". For example: "Teacher played a video in class today." Similarly, one might refer to their mom as just "mom" or "mother" without specifying that they mean their own mother. I see that one a lot in interviews with elders

It's also been my experience that you generally don't refer to someone by name or title or anything when you talk to them unless there are a lot of people around and you need to specify. You refer to people by their relationship to you when talking about them to others. I think you can refer to siblings by name if the other person knows them but I'm not sure if you would ever refer to your parents or grandparents by name unless the other person needed to know who they were.