The Honorific reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Honorific

An honorific is a term used to convey honor, usually towards a social superior. They have been compared to the titles used in English, like “Mister” and “Sir.”

Some languages use honorifics much more frequently than English. Japanese, for instance, has many honorifics, and their use is all but mandatory. Some have noted, however, that while English titles are used to keep people at a distance, Japanese honorifics draw people together, emphasizing that everyone is related (by virtue of the fact that they speak Japanese).

Examples of Japanese honorifics

Like most grammatical constructions in Japanese, honorifics are placed after the name.

• -sama: Used for people much higher up than you—from dieties (kami-sama, god) down to even your boss, if he is far enough up the social ladder. Usage: infrequent
• -dono: This is perhaps the closest honorific to “Mister”. Usage: archaic
• -san: Used for someone you might meet during the course of your day. Usage: extremely common
• -kun: Used for family and close friends, and people below you on the social ladder. Usage: common
• -chan: Generally applied only to children. Of course, since children hear this applied to them all the time, they turn around and apply it to everyone in turn. This is culturally accepted. Usage: limited
• -ko: Sometimes used for pets. (A great Japanese pun is to name a cat Cally, which becomes cally-ko, that is, calico). Usage: ???

When each of these used depends somewhat on context. At company A, the boss might call people using the -kun title, while they would refer to each other with -san. But if they were to meet with representatives from company B, for instance, it is likely that the As would call B's people -san, and call themselves with -kun. The reason is that using -kun on themselves emphasizes that they are all one group, a group which company B is not a part of. The Japanese uchi-soto relationship revolves around this kind of peculiarity.

Another common usage in Japanese is to use -san to refer to a generic title. For instance, a group leader (hanchō) might be referred to as hanchō-san; the manager of an inn (kanrinin) might be called kanrinin-san.

There are two other important honorifics in Japanese. These are the prefixes o- and go-, which are applied to nouns (and sometimes to verbs, particularly when using keigo). There is a set of words which commonly take these prefixes, and sometimes they are so connected that you will never hear the word without the prefix. Examples of this are go-han (rice, which by extension means a meal), go-chūmon (order at a restaurant), go-kazoku ([someone else's] family—when referring to your own you would not use go-), o-sushi and o-sashimi (sushi and sashimi, of course), o-cha (tea). Go- is used only for words which have a Chinese-derived pronounciation, and o- is used only for words with a Japanese-derived pronounciation.

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