Fall 2011: Culture Post III, Manners!

[Kaitlin Markoja]

The other day, one of the students I tutor asked me to do something for him at school the next day.  I waited and waited for him to say “Please,” as many an adult did to me when I was his age.  In the world of manners I grew up in, “May I…Please…Thank you!” were all requisites of any polite request to be granted.  When I explained what I was waiting for, he was slightly exasperated and bemused.  He said that this had been an issue before, but that the habit of please and thank you was not one he had yet developed.  He went on to explain that this is because please and thank you are words so uncommonly used in Hindi and Nepali.  In these languages, the subject that one uses to address a person indicates respect and incorporates the please and thank you formalities all into one word.  I was taught to always use the respectful form of the you (aap, versus tum) in order to avoid being rude in Hindi.  I thought it was interesting to see how a person’s background in one language can seemingly affect their mannerisms in another…