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Honorifics in Anime/Manga




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Key
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Joined: 03 Nov 2003
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Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley)
PostPosted: Mon Jul 04, 2005 8:29 pm Reply with quote
I thought I knew my Japanese honorifics pretty well, but I have run across a couple recently in anime and manga that I do not recognize and have had difficulty looking up.

Can someone well-versed in Japanese tell me what the following two mean:

-shama (used by a female character in reference to a female authority figure whom the speaker is in love with)

-rin (context on this one suggests it means "little sister" or something close to that)
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gnollman



Joined: 05 Oct 2003
Posts: 535
Location: Richmond, KY
PostPosted: Mon Jul 04, 2005 9:37 pm Reply with quote
Key wrote:
I thought I knew my Japanese honorifics pretty well, but I have run across a couple recently in anime and manga that I do not recognize and have had difficulty looking up.

Can someone well-versed in Japanese tell me what the following two mean:

-shama (used by a female character in reference to a female authority figure whom the speaker is in love with)

-rin (context on this one suggests it means "little sister" or something close to that)


-rin is a simple diminutive, similar to -chan, but is widely used by girls. It's also used by girls to irritate boys, as my officemate constantly uses it to irritate me when I'm feeling too full of myself.... It's a simple cute ending, very much like -pi, which is another suffix she uses to needle me....

-shama I've never heard, but I would guess that it would be the case that the speaker is simply trying to sound 'cute' when saying -sama. It's similar to baby talk.... in Japanese. Turning 's' sounds into 'sh' sounds is pretty common....
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dgreater1



Joined: 05 Apr 2005
Posts: 307
Location: in the Phillipine's AIR space with Misuzu
PostPosted: Mon Jul 04, 2005 9:43 pm Reply with quote
I think I heard the little (i mean really small, as small as a thumb) sidekick girl calling Shaolin, Shao-shama in Mamotte Shugogetten, so my guess is, it's just a cute way of saying -sama
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Key
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Joined: 03 Nov 2003
Posts: 18393
Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley)
PostPosted: Tue Jul 05, 2005 1:29 am Reply with quote
gnollman wrote:
-rin is a simple diminutive, similar to -chan, but is widely used by girls. It's also used by girls to irritate boys, as my officemate constantly uses it to irritate me when I'm feeling too full of myself.... It's a simple cute ending, very much like -pi, which is another suffix she uses to needle me....

-shama I've never heard, but I would guess that it would be the case that the speaker is simply trying to sound 'cute' when saying -sama. It's similar to baby talk.... in Japanese. Turning 's' sounds into 'sh' sounds is pretty common....


That certainly makes sense, given the context in which it appeared. Thanks for the help.
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Ohoni



Joined: 10 Jun 2003
Posts: 3421
PostPosted: Tue Jul 05, 2005 1:50 am Reply with quote
Quote:


-rin is a simple diminutive, similar to -chan, but is widely used by girls.


It's also used constantly by Fai in Tsubasa (ie "Kurorin"), yeah, as the liner notes in that series show, the -rin" part is used kind of as a jab against the overly macho character, kind of like calling Rambo "Rambi-bear" or something.

Quote:

-shama I've never heard, but I would guess that it would be the case that the speaker is simply trying to sound 'cute' when saying -sama. It's similar to baby talk.... in Japanese. Turning 's' sounds into 'sh' sounds is pretty common....


This was the case for Rishu in Shougo Getten. That's just how she talked.

Other notable "creative" honorifics,

Sanji from One Piece's "Robin-Chuwan!" and "Nami-Shuwan!" are both his exagerated French-esc variants on "chan".

Various characters notably Bason from Shaman King "Bo'chama!", a combination of the terms "Bo'chan" (kid) and "sama" (master), meaning "young master".

Japanese is a fun language.
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Zalis116
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Joined: 31 Mar 2005
Posts: 6897
Location: Kazune City
PostPosted: Tue Jul 05, 2005 11:44 pm Reply with quote
Tina in Ai yori aoshi calls Chika "Chika-rin"--Tina comes up with some other cute names, like Natsuki > Nakki (changing the tsu to a small tsu, I guess) and Chizuru > Chizuru-chin.
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