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 Words Of Truth And Wisdom: You're Welcome!
Written by Alethea and Athena Nibley
I think we've finally gotten over our columnist's block, especially thanks to some suggestions from a faithful reader. But as I said last time, I still have some ritual expressions to talk about this week, so I think I will follow up on that. We just know you've been dying to read about “dou itashimashite.”
I think that as foreigners trying to remember everything there is to learn about Japanese, it's pretty common to read more into the kanji than the average Japanese person would. We didn't do it very much ourselves because of our boring, mathematical brain workings, but some of our classmates in our college Japanese classes pointed out some interesting things (I think it helped them remember the kanji). For example, there's a word in Japanese: “komaru.” It means “to be worried or bothered,” like when you can't get to work because you just found out you have a flat tire, you would komaru. The kanji for that is 困, which is the character for tree (on the inside) surrounded by the character for mouth. One of our classmates pointed out that you would definitely komaru if you had a tree in your mouth, and we had to agree.
Another example is the word “sensei.” I'm sure most of our readers know that “sensei” is the title attached to the names of teachers, doctors, politicians, writers, etc. Another of our classmates pointed out that the kanji for it, 先生, is “ahead” and “life,” which makes sense, because most senseis have “lived ahead” of the average person, knowing more in their chosen field. So one time, we were talking about who all gets referred to as “Sensei” with our Japanese penpal, and I said, “I can understand that teachers and doctors are kind of ahead of the rest, but why would manga artists be referred to as sensei?” And he said, “It's just a title; it doesn't really mean anything.” And thus I learned that mnemonic devices are not to be taken too seriously. Although I do wonder if maybe the etymology is close to that reasoning, and the words lost those nuances throughout the ages. Like how “smart” used to be an insult referring to a cunning, tricky person--or so our father has told us.
Anyway, the reason I bring that all up is that I thought it might lead well into an experience I had with “arigatou,” but thinking about it now, maybe I was wrong. But I'm going to talk about it anyway. “Arigatou” is not something you see kanji for very often, so when I came across the kanji for it once, I thought it was pretty fascinating. “Arigatou,” of course, means “thank you,” and it it comes from “arigatai.” When I saw the kanji for “arigatai” (有り難い) it looked like they formed the verb construction combining “aru (to be)” and “katai(difficult),” making the word's literal meaning “it's difficult to be.” It made me think of those times when someone does you a huge favor, and all you can do is say thank you over and over and over, and you feel kind of awkward because you can't express your gratitude enough--it's difficult to be.
Come to think of it, that goes along with another Japanese term of gratitude, “sumimasen.” When you learn “sumimasen” in Japanese class, you usually learn that it means “I'm sorry” or “excuse me,” which is basically what it means. Not literally, but the literal version doesn't make a whole lot of sense--something like “it will not end.” I think we discussed it in a few of our Japanese classes, but I can't remember what we learned about why that's what they would say. At any rate, for the casual learner “I'm sorry” or “excuse me” is all you need to know. But “sumimasen” is used in a lot of cases where normally here in America, we would say “thank you.” If someone held a door open for you, for example. Our Japanese linguistic professor's theory is that in America, the language focuses more on the speaker: “I thank you.” But in Japan, the language focuses more on the addressee, and thus they would apologize for troubling the addressee, with an “excuse me.” If you ask me, either one could be focusing on the speaker or the addressee--it just depends on the speaker's attitude. I wonder if that makes any sense.
So after all that talk about “thank you,” I finally get to “you're welcome.” We were talking with Ysa (a reviewer here at Manga Life, and an adapter of manga), and for some reason, “dou itashimashite” came up (Athena reminds me that it was because we were talking about “arigatou” versus “sumimasen”). “Dou itashimashite” is one of the first phrases you learn as a way to say “you're welcome.” It was then that we realized that none of us knew why on earth it would mean that. And so we decided it was time for another Native Speaker Check!
We asked our penpal about it, and his reasoning followed about the exact same lines as ours. “Dou” means “in what manner” or “how,” and “itashimashite” is the humble polite form of “shite,” which is from “suru (to do).” So it becomes “in what manner I humbly do” (itasu, being humble, usually means it's the speaker doing the... um... doing), which doesn't make a whole lot of sense. So he did a little bit of research on it, and ultimately found out that if anybody knows what exactly it means or why it means that, it would be an expert on Japanese etymology. Athena's new theory is that it's short for something that means, “Whatever it is I humbly do, it is no concern of yours, so do not bother yourself with the minor troubles of someone such as my humble, unworthy self.” But then again, “doushite,” which comes from pretty much the same words as “dou itashimashite” means “why” or “how.” So maybe it means, “Whatever did I do to deserve your thanks?”
But anyway, the general consensus was that you can use it without knowing exactly what it means, or that you could also use one of the several other Japanese expressions meaning “you're welcome,” “no problem,” “don't worry about it,” etc.
This has been another installment of The Twins' Languistic Geekery. We hope you enjoyed it! (Or at least didn't fall asleep *grin*)
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