August 2005

WIN Staff--Translated by Julian Richards
The hardest thing about speaking Japanese is the use of keigo (honorific Japanese). You have to choose your words based on an instantaneous judgment of both your position and that of the person you are talking to. In other words, are they older or younger than you? If you work at the same company, is their position in the company above or below yours? If it is the same, who joined the company first? If you are speaking to a client, are they buying from you or selling to you? What is the extent of their authority? You have to consider all these things when speaking. If you are too formal you give the listener a strange impression. If you make a mistake in your usage they lose confidence in you. You may not have been aware of these expressions in school, but once you enter working society you have no choice but to become aware and learn to use them. The first thing new employees learn when they join a company is how to answer the phone properly. Seniors listen closely to the telephone conversations of new employees. When meeting someone new, it’s always safest to use keigo. Keigo doesn’t so much convey respect as indicate the distance between speakers. It is very difficult to use.
Luckily, unbelievably, there is one place in Japan where awareness of keigo is utterly unnecessary. It’s Kishu (Wakayama Prefecture).
Ryotaro Shiba, one of the most popular writers in Japan, wrote the following in an essay: “Interestingly, there is no keigo in the dialect of Kishu. It is the only dialect in Japan in which keigo is not used. Dialects always have honorific language. We can tell the momentousness of a country or region’s history from its honorific language. There is one place, Tosa (Kochi Prefecture), where the elements of keigo are weak. There is another, Kishu (Wakayama Prefecture), where there are no elements of keigo at all. Here they only ever speak with [non-honorific] “You” and “I”. This seems to be true even of people who look up to others. In 1956 I stayed in an inn tucked away in the mountains of Koya. The maid didn’t use keigo so I got angry inside.”
There are various theories as to why keigo didn’t develop in the Kishu dialect. Here are two representative ones: Kishu is an area with few fields. People either work in the mountains or on the ocean. In the mountains people are generally far away from one another, so essential things are communicated in loud, brief yells. Keigo is not used lest the message be incorrectly understood. Similarly, working on the ocean is often a matter of life and death. When orders and warnings are given, there is no time to use cumbersome keigo. The second theory is that, in the early 17th century before the start of the Edo era, no one with absolute power emerged in Kishu. A system resembling a federation of clans continued in the area. The atmosphere was very democratic. It was a society of equality with few vertical relations. According to both of these theories, keigo didn’t develop because it wasn’t necessary.
The wedding of the crown prince (now current emperor) in 1959 and the Tokyo Olympics in 1964 caused the rapid spread of television among Japanese homes. When Japanese people, who until then had been using time-honored regional dialects, began to increasingly listen to NHK announcers speaking standard Japanese, the children of the era began to lose their dialects. Now, it is rare to hear pure Wakayama-ben. However, when people from Osaka, Kyoto, or other parts of Kansai come to Wakayama they are surprised at how different Wakayama-ben is than other Kansai dialects. So Wakayama-ben still lives.
The other day, I went to see the carrying of portable shrines to Toshogu Shrine for the Waka Festival. The people carrying the shrines were mostly young fisherman from Wakaura. As I listened to their conversations I, a writer born in Wakayama, was deeply impressed. This was because they were speaking strong Wakayama-ben (Kishu dialect). In order to stay in sync with their colleagues as they carried the shrines, there was no time for honorific language. They spoke only in brief, concise orders. “President” or “Director” didn’t exist there. That was the world of “You” and “I”.

Posted on August 2005 in the following categories: Opinions, Stories and Information