[Linganth] First person pronouns

Liz Coville ecoville at gmail.com
Fri Aug 25 21:16:45 UTC 2017


Hi Cyndi,

To follow up on the Malay example, Pete Becker alluded to Maly first person
singular pronouns in his short essay "Silence across languages" in *Beyond
Translation*: *Essays toward a Modern Philology* (1995) (and probably
elsewhere as well):

"When we confront a distant language, we are compelled to give full
attention to the fact that saying, for instance, "I am" is something we do
with words in English, for in that distant language there is no *I* like
our *I*, and no *am* at all.  To put one's speaking self into words in
Burmese, Javanese or Malay is to make claims of status (high or low) that
alienate our very selves... (284)."

Best,

Liz

On Fri, Aug 25, 2017 at 11:35 AM So Miyagawa <runa.uei at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Cyndi,
>
> Malay has *aku *(informal) and* saya *(formal) as the first-person
> singular pronouns.
>
> Reference:
> Current Trends in Pronoun Usage Among Malay Speakers
> by Normala Othman
>
> http://www.philippines-languages.sil.org/ical/papers/othman-Current%20Trends%20in%20Pronoun%20Usage.pdf
> (see p.5)
>
> I'm a native Japanese speaker, so I wanted to tell you Japanese examples,
> but you've already mentioned that.
>
> Best wishes,
> So
>
>
> --
> So Miyagawa [soː mijɑˈgɑwɑ]
> CRC1136 "Education and Religion in Cultures of the Mediterranean
> and Its Environment from Ancient to Medieval Times and to the Classical
> Islam",
> Project Area B 05 "Scriptural Interpretation and Educational Tradition
> in Coptic-speaking Egyptian Christianity of the Late Antiquity: Shenoute,
> Canon 6"
> The University of Goettingen,
> Nikolausberger Weg 23
> D-37073 Göttingen, Germany
>
> Other affiliations:
> 1. KELLIA: Koptische/Coptic Electronic Language and Literature
> International Alliance,
> National Endowment for the Humanities and German Research Foundation
> 2. Coptic SCRIPTORIUM (Sahidic Corpus Research: Internet Platform for
> Interdisciplinary multilayer Methods)
> 3. Department of Linguistics, Kyoto University
> 4. *Unicode Consortium* (Student Member)
>
> eMail : so.miyagawa at mail.uni-goettingen.de / runa.uei at gmail.com (general)
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> CV    :
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>
> On Thu, Aug 24, 2017 at 5:44 PM, Cynthia Dunn <cyndi.dunn at uni.edu> wrote:
>
>> Hello all.  I am writing a piece talking about the use of pronouns in
>> self-representation and I wanted to ask if people are aware of languages
>> besides Japanese which offer speakers a choice of more than one option for
>> singular, first-person pronouns (based on things like gender, situational
>> formality etc).  If you are, I would appreciate a brief grammatical outline
>> of the system and/or direction to an appropriate reference work.  You can
>> contact me directly off the list at: Cyndi.Dunn at uni.edu
>>
>>
>> Cyndi Dunn
>> Professor of Anthropology
>> Dept. of Sociology, Anthropology & Criminology
>> University of Northern Iowa
>> Cedar Falls IA 50614-0513 U.S.A.
>>
>> (319) 273-6251
>> Cyndi.Dunn at uni.edu
>>
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>>
>>
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-- 
Liz Coville
cell: 651-442-8657
ecoville at gmail.com
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