Use of 俺 in Chinese dialects and its transmission to Japanese?

Use of 俺 in Chinese dialects and its transmission to Japanese?
Apr 11, 2011 05:27
12CATHYYY Points: Join Date: Apr 11, 2011 Status: offline	This has been bothering me for a long time. I've only seen 俺 (pronoun "I") used in Chinese by speakers of Northeastern Mandarin, but in Japanese it's widespread and used by males throughout most of the country on a daily basis, yet it seems that it wasn't used in pre-modern Japanese. The most common personal pronoun in pre-modern Japanese was 我. Can anyone shed some light on the history of this word's usage in Chinese and why it would have been transmitted to Japan at such a late time? (if in fact it wasn't borrowed much earlier)

Apr 11, 2011 05:27

12CATHYYY
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Join Date: Apr 11, 2011
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This has been bothering me for a long time. I've only seen 俺 (pronoun "I") used in Chinese by speakers of Northeastern Mandarin, but in Japanese it's widespread and used by males throughout most of the country on a daily basis, yet it seems that it wasn't used in pre-modern Japanese. The most common personal pronoun in pre-modern Japanese was 我. Can anyone shed some light on the history of this word's usage in Chinese and why it would have been transmitted to Japan at such a late time? (if in fact it wasn't borrowed much earlier)

Apr 27, 2011 03:59

GO_FISH_WXY
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Ok, I'd like to give my views on your question.
I am Chinese, and can also speak Japanese very fluently as my main work language.
Basically, almost all Kanji-characters(Chinese characters) in Japanese Language origined from China over centuries.
俺 is very local dialect characters mainly used in North China, not limited to North eastern part of China.
And people who often use 俺 are currently considered as humble villager, especially in South and Central China. The extent of usage of 俺 are much wider in ancient China than modern China.
In Japan, 俺 are also widely used in casual or unofficial occasions, such as speaking with your junior or fellow family members. As unwritten rule, 俺 can only be used by male in Japan.
But you should keep it in mind that Kanji-characters has gradually lost to other forms of Characters in Japanese(e.g syllabic scripts and Latin alphabet). Some Japanese people even don't know how to write 俺 when they speak this word. Instead, they prefer to write this word in other form of syllabic script(KATAKANA)：オレ。
俺's mainly used in casual and unoffical occasion in Both China and Japan.
In some Japanese's view,俺 can even be classified into unpolite language.

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