On Monday, March 25, 2002, at 08:59 , Anton Tagunov wrote:
Hello, Dan!
Thank you for your warm and detailed answer, I love to learn
things like this. Your bit about the government that shouldn't
append -dono to people's names is just fascinating!
Even more interesting thing is that '-dono' used to be one of the most
regarded honorific; It literally means 'my lord'. The same thing is
true for '-kun', which literally means 'your honor'.
I wonder how this kind of reversal happens but it may be due to the
abuse. Sometimes the abuses even turns the position upside down. The
word "kisama", literally means 'the noble one', is one of many Japanese
words for second party (Poor English, you only have 'you'). In modern
Japanese, however, this is the worst insult, even worse than calling
names (its English equivalent must be 'You S-O-B'). In this case, that
was Imperial Army that abused this word.
I have recently read several historical detective stories
by B. Akunin, a Russian specialist on Japan, translator who has
also started writing cozy nostalgical detective stories.
And there was a Japanese man there who used -san
even when speaking Russian, but only about people he respected.
That sounded so unusual :-)
Thanks to Hollywood, '-san' is very-well known these day. "Karate
Kid", "Back to the Future"... So much so Larry the Anime-otaku
addressed me as "Kogai-san" when we met Perl/Ruby conference at Kyoto :)
Despite the honor of being addressed with a correct honorific by the
Father of Perl, I feel the most confortable being addressed nothing but
'Dan'. Maybe I have been in San Francisco Bay Area for too long....
Hmm.. Did I get it right that you write it Kogai-dan?
BTW, what is your full name? Is Dan an abbreviation?
Dan Kogai. First one given, second one family. I know many Japanese
people prefer to spell their names like "FAMILY Given" but I love 'Dan'
so much I spell that out first and foremost. And it is even cooler in
Kanji (U+5F3E), literally meaning "ammunition".
Both Dan and Kogai are very rare in Japan. There must be less than a
dozen Kogai families and I know only one more 'Dan' spelled the same way
(He told me his parents love strings (music, that is). 'Dan' also means
'to pluck'). I must be the only Dan Kogai in this planet....
Dan the Unique Man
