I am not an expert on all Asian languages. But then, I have discerned the issue of there being a certain code of respect, disrespect, disregard, pejorative etc. that can be added, prefixed or suffixed to a persons name in these languages, that can define that person. This more or less gives others a lot of right over others.
Now, in Malayalam, a persons name, when being addressed usually has to be suffixed by such words of feudal respect as chettan (elder brother; actually no such blood relationship is imperative), Sar (word of feudal respect), Mash (short form of Master), Annan (elder; elder brother; actually Tamil), Teacher (female of Mash), Chechhi (female of Chettan) and such other words. In Hindi, the most common word used in such a manner is, I believe, Ji.
Friendship & companionship
However, between persons who get acquainted at some level of social, positional, family hierarchy or age-wise equality do use name without the suffixes mentioned above.
However in most social interactions, persons do get acquainted through some route. These routes are quite important. In that, the same person can arrive either above or below, depending on the route of introduction, acquaintanceship etc. People usually fear to go another person due to this reason, unless accompanied by some others who can introduce them properly. Without this appendage of proper introduction, they do face the danger of ending up at a lower position.
For every word, such as You, He, She, His, Her, Hers, Him etc. all come in a variety of forms, all connected to differing social levels. The person who usually comes to meet another person is always at a disadvantage, because the other person is usually in the midst of his or her own supporters, whose very existence there is to convey the divinity of their leader. The person who comes inside should and would be overwhelmed by the imbalance in the words.
Friendship cannot come into fruition, when people come to get meet each other in such situations. For, they end up with the barrier of words, that come to encase each other. However, a sort of friendship quite different from that which can be envisaged in English materializes. A sort of higher-lower friendship; at least in words.
Making children go under
Now, what happens when the same situation is repeated in English? Here again there is something to be explained. The English that is spoken in India is mainly the variety that comes from the Indian schools. Here, the children are trained into a sort of menial class of the (low-class) teachers, ministerial staffs, and even of the toilet cleaners therein. That is, in the word codes, the students are placed even below the toilet cleaner class in the schools. A few children do escape from this thralldom by means of money power, good jobs, going abroad, getting into English nations etc. However, the majority end up with a toilet cleaner class demeanour with regard to the teacher class, if they are financially not well off.
A tainted English
Now coming back to the subject matter: Even if people do get acquainted through English, the feudal, words of respect and pejoratives are brought into English and used, to maintain the same feudal relationship that has to be maintained in Malayalam.
However, there are persons who do try to maintain the original stance of pristine English and insist on the usage of correct English. They do try to introduce themselves with their own name, without the use of Mash, Sar, Chettan, Annan, Chechhi etc. in their names. However, the effect is quite different from what would happen in an English atmosphere.
My experience
To illustrate this effect, I will relate my own experience:
To almost everyone who can speak in English and comes to meet me, I tell them to talk in English and to address me with a Mr. prefixed to my name. They are also told to use this prefix when they are talking or referring about me, to others, even when I am not physically there. Usually, if they call me with a Mash, Sar or Chettan suffixed, that suffix, will move everywhere with my name, garnering respect and grandeur to my name, wherever it is mentioned.
A different coding
For, it is like this: He is a good man. He is a very sinister man.
There are two sentences here. In English, it is quite easy to see that it is the first sentence that is better. However, it is not the same in Malayalam.
No: 1 Avan oru nallavananu. Here the He is lower level.
No: 2 Adheham aaloru kuruttubhudhikkarananu. Here the He is a very high level.
It is the second sentence that lends grandeur to the person. For, in the second sentence, the person is a grand person.
These things are not understandable in English.
Now, again coming back to the subject.
Respect and formal association
Telling a newly introduced person to address me with a Mr. prefixed, is an experience that simply deletes the suffixes. In software codes of Asian languages (most of them), respect is in the suffixes. Prefixes are for lower persons.
For example, in Malayalam, Roy doctor is respect. Dr. Roy is seen as an affront.
At the same time, prefixes are kept for persons who the society sees as lower guys: example: Tailor Nanu.
At the same time, the same person can be viewed from different angles. For example, Ashari Rajan (Carpenter Rajan). This is in the pejorative.
However, his subordinates would see him as Rajan Ashari. The suffix lends the respect.
Now, when English systems are used, the person is literally asking the Malayalam/Indian/Asian society to denude him of all levels of respect, and subordinate him.
The vulnerability of the English standards
When I tell others to use the word Mr. instead of any suffixes, the easiest understanding that they get is that I am either their equal, subordinate, inferior, useless, effeminate or even worse, their friend. For, in one single shot, they had climbed through the innumerable steps of social climbing to reach my level or even beyond. Usually, these things are not possible. For, such things as age, financial position as shown as a façade to the world, size of house, position of acquaintances, social position of other family members etc. do bring innumerable barriers to climbing up the steps in the suffixes to be maintained. Most of these barriers to standard equality in the words, do remain lifelong, and quite un-erasable.
What I would be trying to do would be to straighten them up, from the crippling social contortion that all these words are bringing into their personality. However, from their contorted view, they use the easy outlet here to sort of bring me to their level. Now, there is no way out from these issues. I do not want to bring my levels of English to their levels. And they cannot be pulled out from the tangling strings of pulls and pushes that bear upon them.
Now, comes the next issue. When they go out and mention me in their talks, naturally the Mr. gets deleted in the very first mention. If I had maintained the Sar, Mash, Chettan, Ji or something else, that would have gone along with my name. But a Mr. wouldnt. So, all my so-called new acquaintances become the carriers of a virus program, which spreads despoilment on my name everywhere.
It is like this:
If the suffixes of Sar, Mash, Chettan etc. is there, then other words like He, His, Him etc. all go into the superlatives forms in Malayalam (in most Asian languages also). However a simple name, bereft of any suffix, usually end up in the lower brackets. In Malayalam, it can be Avan (very low He), or Ayaal (a slightly higher He). It is really a terrible thing to happen. Quality people would commit suicide on such an eventuality. For, it is these words that define everything about a person in Indian society. Who he should mingle with, what should be his social position, whether he should be shown obvious respect like getting up in his presence etc., whether his words/request should be heard/considered or discarded with contempt/simply ignored.
The hallowed personages, and the not-so-hallowed
A very famous example can be mentioned. It is about M K Gandhi. His followers very staunchly demanded everywhere that his name should be used only as Gandhiji or Mahatma Gandhi. {Now, here it may be mentioned that the word Mahatma is not a word like tailor. It means great personage. So, its position as a prefix does not matter}.
A simple Gandhi, or M K Gandhi, or even Mr. Gandhi would be disaster for Gandhi on the Indian feudal language social world. It is the words Gandhiji or Mahatma Gandhi that lends this aura of limitless respect. It so happened that once Jinnah, who was a great admirer of the English, used the words Mr. Gandhi in a speech. Gandhis supporters simply got up, shouted him down and literally made him to run down the dais. Jinnah had to be below Gandhi, or else not be in Congress. For, in Indian social communication, each persons position has to be clearly demarcated. Jinnah closed his Congress membership and went on to form the Muslim League, which went on create Pakistan.
Where idiots don divinity
As an experimenter in language codes, I did try this experiment. There is a Communist Party leader in the local village. He was a First standard teacher in a government-aided school. Now, when one hears the words teacher, there are certain things it conveys. This man (and all other local teachers) has not heard of Enid Blyton, not heard an English rhyme, wouldnt know what a British Classic is. But he would be able to say some nonsense about Marx and Marxism, which he would have heard in other peoples speeches. As to what is the Dialectical Materialism etc. also, which are part of his religion, he wouldnt know. {However, as a leader of the Communist party, he is rich, naturally. For, most communist leaders in the local state are immensely rich. So are other politicians.}
This mans name is Balan. However, a simple Balan has no value. He is addressed as Balan Mash (Master). He uses the words Nee, Avan, Aval etc. to and about 99.9% of the local population in this locality. The words mentioned are of the lower level, pejoratives, and feudally suppressive. Balan Master is the local unit leader of the Marxist Party. {The fact is Marxist Party is a very feudal, suppressive party. This fact is not understandable in English, where all discusses is done without any inkling of the ideas mentioned here}.
Once, to this persons followers, I did mention about him, using the words: Mr. Balan. One should have seen the dangerous change in their demeanour. A Mr. Balan is nowhere near a Balan Master. Actually, using the words Mr. Balan, is like pouring abominable matter on a great personage. A great personage simply becomes a non-great entity.
I have done an innumerable number of experiments and observations about the effects and power of words and verbal codes.
The security in the codes
Now, there is one thing great about being on the higher side of word respect. Persons who are treated on the higher levels of words, with respectful suffixes, and get the higher words for He, His, Him, She, Her, Hers etc. do get a lot of social security. For example, even if this person does anything immoral or of sexual depravity, no one would take it up. For, it is not easy to talk such things in Indian languages. For the words wont fit in.
For example: He is taking young girls to his bed and making them sleep with him naked. This sentence can be said in English. But then, how would one say the same thing in Malayalam or other Indian/Asian languages?
For an inferior, the word Avan can be used for He. Well, the next natural sentence would be: That bloody dog has to be beaten to a pulp.
If he is a slightly higher person as in age, position, financial or social status, well, the word for He would Ayaal.
In which case, the refrain would be: Who knows what all nonsense he is doing?
However, if the person is a sainted guy, where the He is Adheham, Sar, Mahatama, Ji etc. it would be very difficult to mention that event, other than by adding some grand excuses like: He (adheham) is doing some great spiritual experiments!
The British officials verses the Indian saints
Now, it may be mentioned that the huge geographical area currently called India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, was uplifted from a terrible suppressive, feudal social set up by a few number of British officials. They brought in law and order, set up professional police system not under the control of feudal zamindars (professional to the limits that Indian feudal languages would allow), set up administrative systems including that of land registration, brought in English education, set up professional colleges like that of Medicine, Engineering, brought in the sciences and knowledge that was there in Great Britain, set up railways, roadways, waterways, built dams, agricultural systems, emancipated the lower classes with English education, gave the statutory right to the lower class females to wear blouse, told the people about the right to dignity and equality before law and many other things. Yet, they are all just names. However a cunning demagogue like Gandhi, who has nothing to show other than his political buffoonery, all supported by his corrupt to the core followers, is a Ji, a Mahatma, a Adheham, and such.
It is here the tragedy of India/Asia lie. But then, in these times, it is also the tragedy of the English nations also. For, they are allowing unfiltered access to people from these nations. Who will learn good English, yet maintain their own nefarious language codes and despoil the refinement of the English nations.
Formal links verses informal intimacy
For example, there was once the usage of the words: Mr. Mrs. etc. in English social communication. Many years, ago, actually some 25 years back, when I pondered on the effect of unfiltered immigration of Asians and others to England, I did feel that these words may very easily get erased from common usage. However, these words are powerful codes and should not be dismantled, just because other outsiders who do not know anything about the basics of British antiquity barge inside.
The non-usage of Mr. or Mrs. does exemplify an intimacy; or at best, a freedom of interaction. Asians who cannot even speak at a level of equality to the most inferior petty village officials, the moment they arrive in English strive to bring themselves to a level of equality with the best in the local society by simply performing a misdemeanour on the local citizen. Moreover, in their vernacular speech, they literally bring down all British citizens, and also their royalty including the Monarch, the princes and princesses to the level equivalent to the toilet cleaner class. Even though, the lower citizen cannot perfectly understand the words, the senses may sometimes get conveyed. For the codes do play into the codes of eyes, verbal and non-verbal gestures, and such things. A diabolical evilness of quite un-understandable magnitude would get conveyed. Some really refined native English citizens may react. If verbally, then they become racist. If they react physically, they can become murderers or homicidal maniacs, or even racist killers.
A diabolic incident that cannot be conveyed
I can give an illustration. Once I was in a Middle East nation. I was witness this scene. It was inside a sophisticated commercial office. The senior officials were all of the English speaking types. I heard a Malayalam speaking peon make this comment to another Malayalam speaking person: Olude kundi nooku! He was referring to a senior female. The meaning of the sentence is simple: Look at her ass/buttocks. However, the word he used for Her is olude, (avalude), which is a lower level word for Her.
The scene can be visualised from an Indian scene also: A government office peon pointing to the buttocks of a female IAS officer and saying the same words. However, it cannot be mentioned. For the words Avalude or olude cannot be used for a senior person. The very mention of that word more or less brings her to a level lower to that of the peon. Second, the word Kundi (ass/buttocks) is not used about that of senior or superior person. It is essentially used for lower, subordinate, inferior persons. For, the superior words give security to the higher class persons.
If peon is to say: Avarude kundi nooku {here he has used Avarude ie. higher word for Her}, it wouldnt fit in. For the Her is superior, while Kundi is inferior. Naturally, in India, the lower class cannot use such words about a superior, unless they are impertinent. Others wouldnt allow it, for it would be an outrageous action. Everyone would object. In the Middle East nation, there was no one to object, but only to enjoy the spectacle of the seniors being denigrated.
As an observer, I did notice that the female officer who was being thus despoiled did sense some level of disquiet, but there was no way for her to understand exactly what was going wrong. Actually, these types of things cannot even be discussed in English, for in the extremely refined codes of English, it is not possible to even define the issues.
The diabolic power in the subordinates
In Asian languages, it is a great power in the hands of the lower class, to spoil anyone, by just a simple change of words. Everyone knows about this terrible power in words, in the wrong hands. Yet, the current day English world lives in a totally ignorant world, cut off from information that should have been with them, before they opened the Pandoras box of unfiltered immigration and that of Multiculturalism! The danger is that the space reserved from social systems of quiet refinement such as that of English is slowly becoming lesser and lesser. Yet, the encroaching danger is still unfelt. The small number of so-called racially motivated attacks is just a sign of the decreasing space remaining for the English world.
Negative codes and how the Britons should deal with it
Words are codes that connect to so many other codes, both within the body, the brain and also with the codes of reality. The way the eyes looks also change with the quality of words. As the word levels (codes) change, the way the eyes look at a person also changes. English doesnt know this, but in Asian languages, the way the eyes looks at a person depends on the words is associated with that person. The very look of the eye can ennoble, or fritter a person. No other verbal or non-verbal code or signal is necessary. When native English persons of quite refinement get thus frittered, right inside their homeland, they may react, as they reacted when the German planes bombed London. Then it was seen as patriotism. Now, it may foolishly be seen as racism.
All it needs is an understanding of what is affecting the perfection of the English world.
