漢字 ‘您’字의 의미와 변천과정에 대한 小考

Abstract

Chinese is generally a language without honorifics, but it is often used to use formalities or honorifics by using ‘您’ instead of ‘你’ for second-person pronouns. The plural of the second person uses the plural suffix ‘你們’ in Modern Chinese, but ‘您們’ is not allowed. ‘你’, ‘們’ and ‘您(恁)’. This paper aims to examine the origin and shape of the characters and sound, and mean to find out the possibility of using ‘您們’. ‘你’ was used before ‘您’ and it was believed that it appeared during the “Tang Dynasty(唐代)” period, and ‘們’ was actively used in ‘Song Dynasty(宋代)’. ‘您’ can be seen as a combination of ‘你們’ in pronunciation, and ‘您’ can also be inferred as 《反切》, 《廣韻》 based on ‘你們’ reflecting the middle and high notes. ‘您’ was also used as an indicator pronoun, not a personal pronoun. It can be seen that the first ‘您’ was used in the sense of second-person revenge and did not have the meaning of honorifics. This paper aims to examine the period when the letter ‘您’ came to have the meaning of honorific name and its use cases. Another thesis explains that the second-person honorific revenge should be called ‘您二位’ rather than ‘您們’. Nevertheless, many scholars argue that the more plural expressions of second-person honorifics are used, the more convenient the use of ‘您們’ than ‘您二位’. Therefore, This paper intends to historically examine the transition process of meaning by examining the origin and shape and meaning of the second-person pronouns ‘你’ and ‘您’ and the plural suffix ‘們’.