While talking to Gökhan the other day, I realized that there are some interesting honorific differences in Turkish in comparison to English. In English (or at least in my English speaking community), I believe that the main honorifics are “Sir, Mr., Mrs., Ms., and Ma’am” and most people use these honorifics to show respect and distance from their interlocutor. While Turkish has similar honorifics, such as Beyefandi (Mr.) and Hanimefendi (Mrs.), it also has other honorifics that we lack in English. For example, abi is used to address a male that is slightly older. It literally means “older brother” and is used as a sign of respect. Abla, which means “older sister” also serves a similar purpose. In addition to these two, amca and teyze are commonly used to address older men and women. Although we have words like “dude” and “bro” in English, Gökhan mentioned that the use of these words are at times mandatory to show respect. Also, I was really intrigued by these words because I don’t really pay attention to my use of honorifics and it made me question myself.
Below is a list of these words mentioned and more!
Comments
Yes! I believe that they use the plural 'you' form in French too! I think it'd be interesting to see where it comes from and how other languages adopted these same patterns.
I agree that there are some interesting honorific differences in Turkish and English. Besides the word abi and abla, Turkish uses plural case of a word to shows respect. Which is really interesting. At first I think it is a unique characteristic in Turkish, but then I found out in Germany they do the same!