Page:A handbook of modern Japan (IA handbookofmodern01clem).pdf/258

196 personal and possessive pronouns are supplanted by honorific expressions; and the definite article, the relative pronoun, and the pure temporal conjunction are lacking. To illustrate the first point, it is enough to say that a teacher once asked a young Japanese pupil, "Have you any brothers?" and received this answer: "There are four men; but they are all women." In the question, the generic term kyōdai, which may be applied to both sexes, although strictly it should be limited to the male sex, was employed; in the reply, the generic term for "man" was used in the first clause, and the proper specification was added in the second clause. What he literally replied was this: "There are [=I have] four [such] persons; but they are all women." And, in Japanese, "man," whether singular, dual, or plural, whether single or married, may be simply hito; and yet the idea of "men" may also be expressed by doubling the word into hito-bito; while that of "women" is expressed by suffixing domo or tachi to onna and making onna-tachi, onna-domo.

With reference to language in general, a most patriotic Japanese once proved, to his own satisfaction, "the wickedness of foreign nations, not only in act but in speech," and illustrated by the fact that the Europeans, for instance, put the verb before the noun, and said, "see the moon." But the Japanese said "moon see," because, "if the moon was not there first, you could not see it afterwards"!