Ingroup versus outgroup pronouns

[So Haleza Grise]

Plenty of languages have ways of marking ingroup versus outgroup social distinctions. Are there any that mark it in what could be considered the most straightforward way, through use of pronouns or specialised verbal inflections? I know that "inclusive" versus "exclusive" we is supposedly correlated with cultures that have a strong ingroup/outgroup distinction, although the connection doesn't seem obvious to me.

I imagine this kind of marking would have a large overlap with grammaticalised politeness, but are there languages where it is marked distinctly?

[sirdanilot]

Plenty of languages have ways of marking ingroup versus outgroup social distinctions. Are there any that mark it in what could be considered the most straightforward way, through use of pronouns or specialised verbal inflections? I know that "inclusive" versus "exclusive" we is supposedly correlated with cultures that have a strong ingroup/outgroup distinction, although the connection doesn't seem obvious to me.

I imagine this kind of marking would have a large overlap with grammaticalised politeness, but are there languages where it is marked distinctly?

When you ask questions like these you need to be more clear.

So you mean a system maximally such as:

1s
2s ingroup
3s ingroup
1pl exclusive
2pl ingroup
3 pl ingroup

versus:
(no 1s because outgroup)
2s outgroup
3s outgroup
1pl inclusive (also including an outgroup person)
2pl outgroup
3pl outgroup

?

No, as far as my knowledge goes this does not exist at all. It would be a very fun idea for a conlang but I do not think it exists.

[sirdanilot]

The ways to mark ingroup versus outgroup are usually not grammatical in a way you are getting at. Inclusive versus exlusive 1pl has little to do with this; if you are talking about you and the person you are adressing, and this person is ingroup then you still use the inclusive pronoun.

Ways of marking ingroupand outgroup are more discours and lexically related than gramattically. But hey I might be wrong here and some south-asian language might mark this or something. I would love to see examples.

[Cedh]

My work-in-progress conlang Proto-Mbingmik does something like this ("familiar" vs. "non-familiar" distinction for all human non-speakers), but I'm not aware of any specific natlang precedent. When I came up with this system, I was simply thinking along the lines of "how could I replace a basic T-V politeness distinction with something similar but more interesting?"

[----]

Not entirely the same thing but my conlang Fiz has a noun class for all foreign things, including foreign peoples.

[Hydroeccentricity]

I can't believe I got here fast enough to be the first to mention these! You're getting rusty, Weeaboos!

Languages like Korean and Japanese that have pronouns of varying levels of politeness or familiarity can use these pronouns to show affinity to the speaker. Korean pop songs often use 당신 (tangsin) to mean "you," and in lyrics it usually sounds very intimate, but in real life it's pretty harsh. Similarly, using 너 (neo) to mean "you" in a song would sound stilted and overly formal, as if you're addressing a love poem to your accountant, but this is about the only second person pronoun you could get away with in speech, and even then it's situational.

[zompist]

You sometimes get this with vos in Latin America. E.g. in Cajamarca, Peru, the 2s pronoun is vos, and people use that among themselves, but they're likely to switch to Usted with outsiders or educated people. (In Argentina, however, vos is part of the standard and you wouldn't get the switch.)

It's not uncommon to have an entire language switch for foreigners. E.g. in Paraguay you might use Guaraní with friends and family, Spanish with outsiders. I met a guy in Brazil who insisted on speaking Portunhol with me, despite the fact that I didn't at the time know Spanish.

FWIW my Mandarin textbook has a nice marker of in-group-ness in the PRC: you would call someone Wáng tóngzhì "comrade Wang" if he's a citizen, Wáng xiānsheng "Mr. Wang" if he's a foreigner. I don't know if people still do this.

[sirdanilot]

The vos/usted thing does still sound like a kind of code-switching according to different social situations, really (more 'dialect' for locals, more 'standard' for outsiders), and of course this happens all over the place. Both in multilingual situations and in dialect vs. standard language situations. Where I am from in the Netherlands of course it is more appropriate to speak the dialect (Zeeuws) to people from the region and the standard language to outsiders, also simply because outsiders might not understand Zeeuws (but even if they do you do this).

The Korean examples are nice, but Korean has such a complicated politeness system it is to be expected of course. Do they also use polite forms for the 3rd person when referring to outsiders?

[linguoboy]

Do they also use polite forms for the 3rd person when referring to outsiders?

IME, they use "polite" forms for third-person referents almost always. (And by that I mean third-persons are usually referred to by name/title/relationship and only rarely with a pronoun of any sort, polite or otherwise.)

[Hydroeccentricity]

...unless they're famous. You'd never refer to a pop star as "Hyoju-si" or something. I guess you mean "Hyoju" is still more polite than "ku yeoja" or something, but honestly there are so few situations where third party pronouns even sound right in Korean it's hardly an issue.

Also! Honorific forms in -si (this is verbs we're talking about now, as in "haseyo") are often used based on the level of politeness toward the subject of the sentence, not just the listener, so it could be "3rd person politeness" or whatever you want to call it.

As for Korean having too much politeness to really count in this survey, I figure any language that has separate in-group and out-group pronouns is bound to be like that. What else do you expect? A language that *only* encodes in-groups and out-groups?

[clawgrip]

I assume that Korean is similar to Japanese in how you decide the level of politeness for 3rd person. The number one deciding factor is your relationship with that person, and the listener's relationship with that person. If there is a closer connection to the listener than to the speaker (speaker outgroup - listener ingroup), then you will need to use at least the same level of politeness referring to the 3rd person as you would the listener. If the connection is closer to you than the listener (speaker ingroup - listener outgroup), then how you refer to the 3rd person depends on your relationship with the listener and how you would refer to yourself.

In a formal context in Japanese, for example, in the second situation (speaker ingroup - listener outgroup), you can't append the honorific -san to the person's name (pronouns are typically avoided in favour of surnames or titles as much as possible in polite language).

[hwhatting]

FWIW my Mandarin textbook has a nice marker of in-group-ness in the PRC: you would call someone Wáng tóngzhì "comrade Wang" if he's a citizen, Wáng xiānsheng "Mr. Wang" if he's a foreigner. I don't know if people still do this.

That reminds me of the situation in Russian, where you'd normally use господин / госпожа "Mr. / Ms." almost exclusively when designating foreigners (using them for locals is so hyper-formal that it sounds either servile or sarcastic).

[Civil War Bugle]

What is the literal translation of господин? Google's translator also tells me it is Mr, but I remember in college, a Russian professor told us it meant gentleman or some such thing. I don't remember exactly how she translated it, but it was something like that, some formal-sounding term which wasn't 'Mr.' and was used with foreigners in contexts where English would say Mr. This was in the context of a literature class rather than a language class, and also it was several years ago, so it's possible she was either simplifying it or something, or that I am not remembering correctly.

[linguoboy]

Also! Honorific forms in -si (this is verbs we're talking about now, as in "haseyo") are often used based on the level of politeness toward the subject of the sentence, not just the listener, so it could be "3rd person politeness" or whatever you want to call it.

"Often"? I was told always. I remember a cautionary tale from someone in the market trying to politely ask someone if they had any cucumbers, but because possession is expressed indirectly in Korean, this came out as "Is Mr Cucumber present?" and he was laughed out of the place.

In a formal context in Japanese, for example, in the second situation (speaker ingroup - listener outgroup), you can't append the honorific -san to the person's name (pronouns are typically avoided in favour of surnames or titles as much as possible in polite language).

Yes, very much the same. If you use an honorific term when speaking to your father (which is usual), you use the same term when speaking to members of your family (ingroup). But you would use a humble term when speaking to an outgroup member. Meanwhile, you would use the honorific term for their father.

[احمکي ارش-ھجن]

Does this somehow overlap with my conlang Vrkhazhian's familiaritive, which marks whether the referent is known (as a friend, family, or foe) to the speaker?

[clawgrip]

I don't know if it does or not. In Korean and Japanese, it's all about explicitly indicating that you recognize and are conforming to preestablished social hierarchy. What is the purpose of Vrkhazhian's familiaritive?

[احمکي ارش-ھجن]

I don't know if it does or not. In Korean and Japanese, it's all about explicitly indicating that you recognize and are conforming to preestablished social hierarchy. What is the purpose of Vrkhazhian's familiaritive?

As I said, it solely marks that the referent is familiar to the speaker, as opposed to a stranger.
The referent could be a friend, lover, family member, or even an enemy or rival. It can be used in some contexts to reduce ambiguity about who you are speaking about.
But the Familiaritive can extend to conveying a sense of openness and friendliness, as opposed to not using it, in order to convey a sense of distance and hostility (which defies the point about marking enemies, since they are, by definition, hostile)

[clawgrip]

With a binary system like you describe, I see two potential strategies for social interaction: friendly/inclusive levelling, and deferential/exclusive ranking.

The first strategy, normal in English-speaking cultures, seeks to eliminate or minimize social hierarchy whenever possible, by including as many people in your in group, and adding them as quickly as possible. This is characterized by friendly language that emphasizes solidarity.

The second strategy, common in Asian cultures, seeks to uphold and emphasize social hierarchy by drawing attention to the differing group memberships. This is characterized by deferential language that emphasizes respectfulness.

Not to say that languages rely on one or the other exclusively; both are important parts of all languages, but one or the other I imagine will tend to be more dominant or overt.

Based on your description showing that known has neutral or positive connotations, while unknown has neutral or negative connotations, it seems clear that these classes operate on thefirst strategy.

[احمکي ارش-ھجن]

With a binary system like you describe, I see two potential strategies for social interaction: friendly/inclusive levelling, and deferential/exclusive ranking.

The first strategy, normal in English-speaking cultures, seeks to eliminate or minimize social hierarchy whenever possible, by including as many people in your in group, and adding them as quickly as possible. This is characterized by friendly language that emphasizes solidarity.

The second strategy, common in Asian cultures, seeks to uphold and emphasize social hierarchy by drawing attention to the differing group memberships. This is characterized by deferential language that emphasizes respectfulness.

Not to say that languages rely on one or the other exclusively; both are important parts of all languages, but one or the other I imagine will tend to be more dominant or overt.

Based on your description showing that known has neutral or positive connotations, while unknown has neutral or negative connotations, it seems clear that these classes operate on thefirst strategy.

Well, that's certaintly an interesting description of the system... When you say it operates on the first strategy, you mean only primarily, not *only*?

[Imralu]

Wow, stuff like this is coming up a lot suddenly.

I just posted a thread over on the CBB about a new thing I'm putting into my conlang Ngolu. It's an inflectional dimension called accessibility. It's not quite in-group/out-group, but it's a similar kind of thing. I was inspired by a known-unknown distinction in a conlang by Ahzoh on the CBB, which I happened to see on FB. In Ngolu, accessibility boils down to whether physical touch would be considered acceptible or inappropriate. It's not a relatively static and symmetrical system like a T-V distinction but a dynamically shifting thing that can be used to indicate a change in mood and also indicates dominance and subordination. All animate nominals (pronouns/articles) in first, second and third persons have an accessible and an inaccessible form. The first person forms convey the speaker's accessibility to the listener. The second and third person forms convey the referent's accessibility to the speaker.

My work-in-progress conlang Proto-Mbingmik does something like this ("familiar" vs. "non-familiar" distinction for all human non-speakers), but I'm not aware of any specific natlang precedent. When I came up with this system, I was simply thinking along the lines of "how could I replace a basic T-V politeness distinction with something similar but more interesting?"

Ha, didn't know you had something like this too. Cool!

[احمکي ارش-ھجن]

It seems Proto-Mbingmik and (my conlang) Vrkhazhian have a pronoun system of similar vein to each other...

[Zaarin]

Wow, stuff like this is coming up a lot suddenly.

I just posted a thread over on the CBB about a new thing I'm putting into my conlang Ngolu. It's an inflectional dimension called accessibility. It's not quite in-group/out-group, but it's a similar kind of thing. I was inspired by a known-unknown distinction in a conlang by Ahzoh on the CBB, which I happened to see on FB. In Ngolu, accessibility boils down to whether physical touch would be considered acceptible or inappropriate. It's not a relatively static and symmetrical system like a T-V distinction but a dynamically shifting thing that can be used to indicate a change in mood and also indicates dominance and subordination. All animate nominals (pronouns/articles) in first, second and third persons have an accessible and an inaccessible form. The first person forms convey the speaker's accessibility to the listener. The second and third person forms convey the referent's accessibility to the speaker.

My work-in-progress conlang Proto-Mbingmik does something like this ("familiar" vs. "non-familiar" distinction for all human non-speakers), but I'm not aware of any specific natlang precedent. When I came up with this system, I was simply thinking along the lines of "how could I replace a basic T-V politeness distinction with something similar but more interesting?"

Ha, didn't know you had something like this too. Cool!

I probably wouldn't even know how to use the form that designates that physical touch is acceptable. Keelah selai, do not touch me!!!

[Zhen Lin]

Also! Honorific forms in -si (this is verbs we're talking about now, as in "haseyo") are often used based on the level of politeness toward the subject of the sentence, not just the listener, so it could be "3rd person politeness" or whatever you want to call it.

"Often"? I was told always. I remember a cautionary tale from someone in the market trying to politely ask someone if they had any cucumbers, but because possession is expressed indirectly in Korean, this came out as "Is Mr Cucumber present?" and he was laughed out of the place.

That reminds of this Language Log post.

[Imralu]

I probably wouldn't even know how to use the form that designates that physical touch is acceptable. Keelah selai, do not touch me!!!

Yep, there are people for whom it is the norm to use inaccessible forms all the time. (Personally, I'm a bit more like "Please touch me. Ah, no, not like that. Now don't touch me at all!") In Qu, however, if you have any dealings with balu (≈ soldiers/police), taza (dignitaries) or the taqu (the king), then you will unfortunately have no choice as you must use the submissive speech mode. You can just hope that they don't choose to touch you. Making it clear that you have an issue with this, if you're dealing with a douchebag, will probably make them more likely to touch you, and if they're not a douchebag, less likely, so you may find yourself needing to assess their douchebagishness, which may be tricky.

So, there's a lot of talk of conlangs in this L&L thread. (I'm not complaining ... just looking over my shoulder a bit. And also, I have a question.) Can anyone point to any clear natlang examples of pronominal systems like this?

[sirdanilot]

To my knowledge, no natlang has pronominal systems like this. Familiarity is related to politeness. Politeness forms are, in many languages, restricted to a second person polite form (like Sie in german as opposed to du). Referring to third-person polite people/entities is done in Korean and Japanese, but then with suffixes like -san and with different verb forms (other people in the thread can explain this better). In fact, the use of a pronoun is often avoided in polite contexts.

In Dutch, the polite 2nd person pronoun u (as opposed to je) is increasingly used as a non-familiarity pronoun rather than a politeness pronoun. In the past, it was common for people to address their parents with u rather than je. Nowadays this is much less common (at least for people of my generation). In contrast, the use of 'u' towards unknown people still exists. If people get into an argument on the internet, they might switch to 'u' to express non-familiarity with the adressee. In contrast, commercials always use 'je/jij' nowadays as this expresses a familiarity with the customer they are addressing.

However to say that 'je' versus 'u' is a fullfledged ingroup/outgroup distinction is of course incorrect. Most young people hardly ever say 'u' anyway, except in formal settings or towards older people. It might be possible that 'u' will eventually die out.