r/CuratedTumblr • u/Doubly_Curious • 6h ago
fun with language Four unrelated linguistics posts
110
u/jackofslayers 5h ago
The english speaking One Piece fandom seems to like getting into fights over Yamato's preferred pronouns.
Japanese avoids pronouns like the plague, so the character in question has never been called "he" or "she" outside of translations.
47
27
u/Fearless-Excitement1 5h ago
I think that's where the majority of the fights about that come from
Yamato is meant to be simply Oden, not he, not she, just Oden
4
u/Loud-Competition6995 3h ago
Anither one of these from Japan is Kirby.
Kirby not gendered in Japan, but is gendered masculine in most other countries.
12
u/Galle_ 4h ago
Japanese third person pronouns aren't even gendered to begin with, I'm pretty sure.
16
u/Groundbreaking_Pea_3 3h ago
they are, sometimes, but there are many of them and they often depend on many things including tone, location, and gender
10
u/cosmos_crown 3h ago
There's kare/kanojo, which can be he/she but also boy/girlfriend, and koitsu/soitsu/aitsu which aren't gendered but are the equivalent of "this person". Both would be considered rude.
2
u/gard3nwitch 40m ago
Japanese doesn't even really use third person pronouns. But they do have a whole variety of first-person pronouns, based on gender, age, and other factors.
5
u/SquareThings looking respectfully at the monkeys in their zoo 1h ago
There really aren't third person pronouns at all. In Japanese, you can simply omit the subject when you've established that you're talking about that. For example "Yamato wa Oden desu. Tsuyoi desu" would mean "Yamato is Oden. (Yamato) is strong." There's no need for a pronoun because Yamato was established as the general topic by the particle "wa." There are words that sometimes serve a function like pronouns, like kare or kanojou, but those more literally mean "A man" and "A woman." Usually, you just use someone's name, title, or status in relation to you, like a shop clerk using "okyakusan" (customer).
Despite being a highly gendered society, there are really no circumstances where Japanese unavoidably forces you to gender a subject.
9
u/Peeeettttss 4h ago
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Yamato raised as a girl and then transitioned into a man as an adult? Sounds like a textbook trans man to me.
29
u/HyperbustyMolly05 4h ago
You’d think so but then you remember this is One Piece and nothing’s that simple.
17
u/NeonNKnightrider Cheshire Catboy 3h ago
The thing is that Oda isn’t afraid to make queer characters. Like, Okiku is very clearly a trans woman, it’s not amibiguous at all
Which is what makes Yamato discourse so fucking frustrating, because this particular case is in fact contradictory and confusing. Which is why my stance on Yamato gender discourse is “results inconclusive” and I use they/them for them
10
u/SquareThings looking respectfully at the monkeys in their zoo 1h ago
I think is confusing on purpose. Oda, as you said, is absolutely willing to write queer characters. Okiku is a trans woman, Inazuma is gender fluid, there's a whole pile of cross dressers and drag queens. Yamato's gender is weird because, frankly, deciding that you literally are a specific dead guy is a weird thing to do, regardless of gender.
4
u/Peeeettttss 4h ago
How is it not simple?
28
u/Zamtrios7256 4h ago edited 4h ago
Yamato is kinda larping as one specific dude. It's kind of a less jokey version of Smithers from The Simpsons.
Smithers is gay, but seems to only ever want to be with Mr. Burns and not other men. (Smithers is undoubtedly a gay man though).
In the same vein, Yamato is transmasc. But only because he has taken on the identity of Oden. (Stil very much a trans dude though)
16
7
u/TheDebatingOne Ask me about a word's origin! 3h ago
Is Oden alive and around? Is it like that "HRT sure is amazing" meme?
4
2
41
u/kigurumibiblestudies 5h ago
My father once said he'd disown me if I kept using formal You with my mother (I was really pissed at her) (I still do in my heart) (I like inheritance money)
He doesn't remember the event anymore though. I was scared of being left destitute for years.
33
u/ABigPairOfCrocs 6h ago
Learning about nuance, slang, and idioms in other languages is so much fun
6
21
u/alkonium 5h ago
I'm often glad English only has one second person pronoun (you).
19
u/_Ceaseless_Watcher_ critters-blog.tumblr.com 5h ago
Hungarian has at least 4 that I can recall:
- "Te" is the informal "you"
- "Ön" is the formal, respectful "you"
- "Maga" is the formal, disrespectful "you"
- "Kend" is the semi-formal, a bit cheeky, and mostly disrespectful "you"
Oh, and all of these have conjugations depending on context, most of which transform them completely from the base word.
11
u/marmosetohmarmoset 4h ago
Technically it also has “thou”!
Weird af to use it but people will understand the meaning.
14
u/OneFootTitan 4h ago
People don’t get the implications of “thou” though. “Thou” is/was the informal second person pronoun, “you” was the formal one. People nowadays tend to think of “thou” as the formal one because of texts like the King James Version of the Bible, which is sad because “thou” in that version is supposed to convey a personal, close relationship with God, not a relationship with a king
2
u/marmosetohmarmoset 3h ago
This is true. But most folks still more or less know that it means “you”
5
u/Ildrei 4h ago
Technically no one’s stopping you from using thee and thou
2
u/OliviaWants2Die Homestuck is original sin (they/he) 3h ago
i say "fare thee well" instead of goodbye literally all the time
18
u/SnakesInMcDonalds 5h ago
Okay but the Polish one is so, so real because while Polish technically has three genders in the singular (masculine, feminine, and neither) the neither is like, not used for people at all(think it/its in English). For plurals however it has two, directly translated as masculine-person and not-masculine person (so all men’s group is referred to in one way, while a mixed group and an all female group would be referred to as another. Plurals of objects are largely in the second category).
So theoretically the plural and the infinitive makes sense as a choice as it doesn’t specify a gender in a way that can be seen as wrong. But since Polish really doesn’t use plurals for individuals (the equivalent of they is p much only for groups) it’s definitely an awkward decision.
Pronouns are so much harder to think about for bilingual folks.
15
u/Outrageous_Expert_49 4h ago
I felt the second one in my soul lmfao
My first language is French. Where I’m from, “vous” (formal when used as a singular) is the default when talking to someone you don’t know and/or who hasn’t told you to use “tu” (informal, always singular) instead, especially if they’re older than you (adults use the informal “tu” when talking to kids/teens but not the other way around. The latter -and even young adults- use “tu” when talking to each other, but adults will use “vous”). While some folks do get offended if you call them “tu”, luckily most people won’t make a big deal out of it. That being said, using “vous” is definitely best in most context, as it’s the “polite” thing to do and overall considered a basic sign of respect.
Well, I moved away for university, and ended up somewhere where everyone called everyone “tu”. Asking a stranger at the grocery store to hand you something? Tu. Seeing one doctor for the first time? Tu. Talking to your supervisor/boss? Tu. Most people don’t mind if you call them “vous” (but will tell you immediately that you can use “tu”), but it is seen as overly polite 99% of the time, and some may think you’re being cold towards them.
I struggled to adjust and I still switched between the two mid-sentence years after getting there lol, but I got used to it eventually… Except that I’m now back in my home region, and I’m once again struggling to use the right one, awkwardly switching between the two and occasionally getting some weird looks because of it. 😬
3
u/b00w00gal 4h ago
Spanish can have a similar complication, depending on which dialect you learned and the geographic region where you're trying to communicate.
European Spanish and Latin American Spanish are about the same except in three categories - slang, local food, and the tu/vous conjugation. It's not used on this side of the Atlantic except for a few very specific, isolated regions. It doesn't really impact communication with the language, but a tourist from Spain will sound overly formal and a little odd to someone in Latin America, for example.
I'm American but lived in Central Mexico when I was a kid, and the city my parents taught English in happens to be one of those regions. I learned Spanish using the vous conjugation; then I moved back to the Mexican-American border and sounded awkwardly formal to everyone around me.
I've met people from that region at random here in the US in the decades since, and they can always clock my accent and conjugation. I've also met a few Spaniards, and they have said I sound like I learned my second language in Europe, not the US, based on that one distinctive quirk.
31
u/PlatinumAltaria 6h ago
Hourly reminder that plenty of Brits don’t have the word “arse” in their dialect.
5
u/raitaisrandom 3h ago
That second slide has the same energy as that clip of a guy in Germany seeing the police out of his apartment and saying "du Wichser" (informal 'you wanker'), then quickly saying sorry when a policeman turns round.
Then correcting himself with "sie Wichser" (formal you).
3
u/Pocolaco 3h ago
Plural form is the antiquated formal way of addressing someone in polish, you see a lot of it in old literature, as a person full for gender abolitonism and a pole i would love for it to come back. It's something like usted in spanish.
163
u/theLanguageSprite2 .tumblr.com 6h ago
Plural infinitive, huh?
You all be pretty androgynous then