¹ For example, in the street one generally asks, "Where are you going?" (Dao nar qu?); in a shop, "What are you buying?" (Mai sherume?); around mealtime the most usual question, no matter where, is "Have you eaten?" (Chi fan le mei you?). The greater the familiarity between the speakers, the shorter the statement is: ni mai shenme? (you-buy-what) is less familiar than mai shenme? (buy-what). The subject pronoun is never obligatory when there is no ambiguity. For the second person, it is also a mark of courtesy. The unmarked form is ni. In Peking there is also a respectful form, nin.

² Some authors prefer to call the words that are used to designate those being spoken of "terms of reference".

³ Only within the family and in certain milieus.

⁴ Cf. Han-yi Feng, The Chinese Kinship System, Harvard Univ. Press, 1948.

⁵ Cf. Yuen Ren Chao, "Chinese Terms of Address", Language 32 (1956), pp. 217-241, re-edited in Aspects of Chinese Sociolinguistics, Stanford, 1976 (Ch. 23). This article refers to usages in the Republic of China (1911-1949), which are still essentially those of Taiwan. In this work, Y.R. Chao describes many real daily practices, but they are not exactly those that may be observed today in the People's Republic of China. We can also mention articles by Beverly Hong-Fincher, for example, "Language Use in Chinese Society", in Chinese Language Use, Canberra, 1978, where there are important observations on usages derived from kinship.

⁶ Cf. Wolfgang Bauer, Der chinesische Personenname, Wiesbaden, 1959, ed. Harrassowitz, 406 pages.

⁷ The manual "One Hundred Family Names" gives 438 properly Chinese family names (Han). If we take into account the characters used to transcribe the family names of foreigners (Mongols, Arabs and others) we arrive at a total of nearly 800.

⁸ The family name is written in capitals, the given name capitalized. In this study, they will be represented by X for the family name (xing) and M for the given name (ming).

⁹ Y.R. Chao (op. cit.) is of the opposite opinion: according to him, Chinese given names are simple designations. In fact, the significative value of proper names is bound to Chinese writing: each graphic character has a meaning.

¹⁰ The system of jiapu, which seems on the way to disappearing in the People's Republic of China, still exists in Taiwan and in the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia.

¹¹ The current expression according to which formerly in China the common people "had no name" does not mean that they had no family name. For the most part, they also had a given name (ming) for private use. What they lacked, it seems, was the zi, social name, for which one made up the deficiency by the combination of family name and indication of seniority of age (paihang system).

¹² The social name, whose use was formerly a rule for public and literary men, was a designation acquired around the 20th year. It sometimes happened that the person concerned gave this name to himself, with the idea of charac terizing his personality—something like a motto. We have examples of this kind of auto-designation, especially after the end of the last century. Most often, however, and it was the rule in ancient times, the choice was made by a professor or a friend. Today, many elderly intellectuals have a zi, but it is only known to their very close friends, and these rarely use it in address.

¹³ See below, Section III.

¹⁴ When one designates a professor of whom one has not been a student (term of reference) one calls him jiaoshou, teacher. For example, Wang jiaoshou, Professor Wang.

¹⁵ Shimu is more common in the south, bomu in the north.

¹⁶ The Er Ya, a dictionary compiled in several stages throughout the last millennium B.C. has a section on terms of kinship (shi qin) that probably dates from around 200 B.C. The first great rituals treating in detail the pro blems of kinship also date from after 500 B.C.

¹⁷ The attention given to the system of kinship seems to be greater in the country. In most villages, the inhabitants share a very small number of family names. The exact knowledge of family ties is as useful for marriages as it is for the choice of daily appellations.

¹⁸ It is according to the same principles that modern terminologies have been established, particularly chemical nomenclature.

¹⁹ Cf. Jacques Lemoine, "Asie Orientale", in Ethnologie régionale 2, Encyclo pédie de la Pléiade. The author has tabulated indications furnished by various sources.

²⁰ However, when one writes to one's parents, after the age of childhood, it is not suitable to call them mama or baba: one uses the terms muqin or fuqin and when one addresses them both together, fumu.

²¹ This seems to be the most frequently used by those under twenty in the cities; the traditional system survives in the country, obviously, but also in some urban families.

²² The terms in parentheses are designations of the formal system. It must be kept in mind that these terms are analyzed in monosyllables.

²³ One still sees much of one's parents, grandparents, parents-in-law, brothers and sisters, some cousins and close uncles and aunts—certainly more than in some other countries—but not to the same degree as when the "great family" was grouped in the same buildings and included parents, children, uncles, close or distant cousins, often several dozen people.

²⁴ In the Xiandai hanyu cidian, "Dictionary of Contemporary Chinese", Ed. 1979, the definition of all these derived uses begins with the term xuncheng, respectful appellation.

²⁵ There are few formal terms used in the derived way. Bofu and bomu are exceptions.

²⁶ The derived use of jiujiu and gugu outside actual kinship is rather limited. In fact, jiujiu is used rather for male friends or relations of the mother and gugu for female friends or relations of the father, but within the actual gene ration of the parents it is permitted that a man has few women friends outside those of his wife and a wife has few men friends outside those of her husband. As the reality no longer corresponds so much to this schema (school friends, colleagues at work, and so on) in those cases, children tend to use the term corresponding to the "normal" situation: they call their mother's male friends shushu, as if they were those of the father, and the female friends of the father ayi, as if they were those of the mother. On the other hand, a middle-aged, unmarried woman may be called X-gugu, affectionately, by her young colleagues (she is a teacher of medium rank).

²⁷ The forms in -ma, rather familiar, are only used to address married women and have an affectionate connotation.

²⁸ Monosyllabic terms show great intimacy and are often preceded by the given name.

²⁹ Saosao is the unmarked form. Saozi, more familiar, is especially used in the north. Dasao is used to address the oldest when there are several women of the same generation in a group. There may even be a series according to age: dasao, ersao (er two), sansao (three), ending with xiaosao (xiao, small).

³⁰ In familiar language, shushu designates the younger brothers of the father and ayi the mother's sisters. While shushu seems to have been for a long time the dominant form as a term of address, ayi is only a variant among others (yima is also common in everyday speech). Ayi is also the appellation for a nursemaid. See above, note 26.

³¹ This is the usual oral form in intellectual circles, cadres or workers. The terms zhangfu, husband, and fufu, wife, are literary and are rarely heard.

³² The exceptions are some "modern" intellectual households, people who have had extended contact with foreigners, and of course mixed marriages.

³³ Laotouzi is neutral or pejorative, whereas laotour has a more affectionate nuance.