The argument for the inherent impersonality of the Japanese mind because of the relative lack of personal pronouns is still further undermined by the discovery, not only of many substitutes, but also of several words bearing the strong impress of the conception of self.  There are said to be three hundred words which may be used as personal pronouns—­“Boku,” “servant,” is a common term for “I,” and “kimi,” “Lord,” for “you”; these words are freely used by the student class.  Officials often use “Konata,” “here,” and “Anata,” “there,” for the first and second persons.  “Omaye,” “honorably in front,” is used both condescendingly and honorifically; “you whom I condescend to allow in my presence,” and “you who confer on me the honor of entering your presence.”  The derivation of the most common word for I, “Watakushi,” is unknown, but, in addition to its pronominal use, it has the meaning of “private.”  It has become a true personal pronoun and is freely used by all classes.

In addition to the three hundred words which may be used as personal pronouns the Japanese language possesses an indefinite number of ways for delicately suggesting the personal element without its express utterance.  This is done either by subtle praise, which can then only refer to the person addressed or by more or less bald self-depreciation, which can then only refer to the first person.  “Go kanai,” “honorable within the house,” can only mean, according to Japanese etiquette, “your wife,” or “your family,” while “gu-sai,” “foolish wife,” can only mean “my wife.”  “Gufu,” “foolish father,” “tonji,” “swinish child,” and numberless other depreciatory terms such as “somatsu na mono,” “coarse thing,” and “tsumaranu mono,” “worthless thing,” according to the genius of the language can only refer to the first person, while all appreciative and polite terms can only refer to the person addressed.  The terms, “foolish,” “swinish,” etc., have lost their literal sense and mean now no more than “my,” while the polite forms mean “yours.”  To translate these terms, “my foolish wife,” “my swinish son,” is incorrect, because it twice translates the same word.  In such cases the Japanese thought is best expressed by using the possessive pronoun and omitting the derogative adjective altogether.  Japanese indirect methods for the expression of the personal relation are thus numberless and subtile.  May it not be plausibly argued since the European has only a few blunt pronouns wherewith to state this idea while the Japanese has both numberless pronouns and many other delicate ways of conveying the same idea, that the latter is far in advance of the European in the development of personality?  I do not use this argument, but as an argument it seems to me much more plausible than that which infers from the paucity of true pronouns the absence, or at least the deficiency, of personality.