6.4. ACKNOWLEDGING SOCIAL STATUS THROUGH SPEECH 307While typically associated with liĴle girls, - is actually an
affectionate suffix. It can be used for boys, girls, men and women alike,
but only when there is a relation between the speaker and person whose
name is suffixed with that is close and/or amiable. While it can be
used for anyone, it does deserve mention that it is indeed used for women
more than for men.
This suffix is an amicable suffix, similar to , but has a slightly
different connotation. While finds it origin in young children who
cannot say yet, and thus is readily associated with liĴle kids and other
cute things, doesn’t actually come ”from” anything, but is a word on its
own, also used to mean ”junior”, both in the naming sense as well as the
social hierarchy system. While still being used for this, it’s also picked up
the added meaning of being a suffix used amongst equals who have an
amicable relationship.This is not so much a suffix as the complete opposite: the prac-
tice of refers to calling someone by just their name, without any
suffix, and the word refers to discarding (
) formalities when calling(
) each other.Nicknames A final, drastically different, approach is to come up with a
nickname for someone based on their name, a habit, some personal feature,
or whatever random thing you can think of that might make good material
for a nickname. This practice is fairly obviously reserved for close relation-
ships.6.4 Acknowledging social status through speech
The most important way in which to acknowledge social status, and differ-
ences in status, is through your choice of phrasing when it comes to asking
for things, or doing things for people. These are not trivial subjects, and
the next two sections will explain this in, perhaps excruciating, detail.6.4.1 Giving and receiving
Giving, or doing something for someone, and receiving, or taking a lib-
erty (ie, helping oneself to something) are concepts that seem simple if