Occasionally words such as 母, 父, and 教師 are described as humble words, used to describe yourself and your own in formal situations. That explanation never sat quite right with me – an academic paper referring to a mother would write 母 or 母親, and it would write 教師 referring to a teacher, and they don’t tend to use much in the way of these formalities.
That’s why I personally think of them as ‘objective’ words. The honorific お母さん, お父さん, and 先生 have become the default words because these people are customarily shown respect, which makes the objective words for them act like humble words in some ways, but they have not been completely ‘humilified’, as examples such as 母の日 will show.
(With 教師 there’s also probably the factor that 先生 can mean other things as well)
by TheCheeseOfYesterday
6 comments
I think that’s a good explanation.
Yes I teach them as “neutral” variants. Some textbooks don’t do a good job of explaining it properly unfortunately.
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Japanese feels quite weird in this regard especially since チチ ハハ アニ アネ etc. actually sound like something children would use to call their parents and siblings like papa and mama in English … But no… they are the actually the formal usage… I can understand Anya now 😂
*Are* they described as *humble* words? Humble language 謙譲語 pertains to oneself or ones own actions in a humble manner
I think it’s easier to understand the humility involved in words such as 母 and 父 when you think about the social rules about using them.
Normally, we think about honorifics as the correct way to communicate in formal situations. You would refer to people with さん added to their name, so you might be inclined to think that you should do the same for お母さん or お父さん.
But what happens when you use お母さん in a formal setting where you would normally show humility, is that you are referring to someone in your own circle in a respectful way. This creates an awkward tension since you’re trying to show humility, not brag about or praise your own mom. So as a convention, you don’t use honorifics on yourself or those in your inner circle during such interactions where you’re showing humility. Instead, you just say 母, even though you would normally refer to her as お母さん. So 母 is indeed a humble expression since it is a way to show humility.
It is of course also a normal noun on its own, so you’re not wrong that it is objectively true that she is your 母. But if you refer to it as just an objective expression, you are ignoring the social dynamic that motivates people to use the non-honorific version of the noun.
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Simply put, in the right context, it is definitely about humility. In other contexts, such as 母の日, it is simply used as the noun that it is. As with many things in Japanese, it’s all about context.