ight, however, such a lack of specification appears
wofully incompatible with any intelligible transmission of ideas. So
communistic a want of discrimination between the meum and the tuum--to
say nothing of the claims of a possible third party--would seem to be
as fatal to the interchange of thoughts as it proves destructive to the
trafficking in commodities. Such, nevertheless, is not the result. On
the contrary, Japanese is as easy and as certain of comprehension as is
English. On ninety occasions out of a hundred, the context at once makes
clear the person meant.

In the very few really ambiguous cases, or those in which, for the sake
of emphasis, a pronoun is wanted, certain consecrated expressions are
introduced for the purpose. For eventually the more complex social
relations of increasing civilization compelled some sort of distant
recognition. Accordingly, compromises with objectionable personality
were effected by circumlocutions promoted to a pronoun's office,
becoming thus pro-pronouns, as it were. Very noncommittal expressions
they are, most of them, such as: "the augustness," meaning you; "that
honorable side," or "that corner," denoting some third person, the exact
term employed in any given instance scrupulously betokening the relative
respect in which the individual spoken of is held; while with a candor,
an indefiniteness, or a humility worthy so polite a people, the I is
known as "selfishness," or "a certain person," or "the clumsy one."

Pronominal adjectives are manufactured in the same way. "The stupid
father," "the awkward son," "the broken-down firm," are "mine." Were
they "yours," they would instantly become "the august, venerable
father," "the honorable son," "the exalted firm." [1]

Even these lame substitutes for pronouns are paraded as sparingly as
possible. To the Western student, who brings to the subject a brain
throbbing with personality, hunting in a Japanese sentence for personal
references is dishearteningly like "searching in the dark for a black
hat which is n't there;" for the brevet pronouns are commonly not on
duty. To employ them with the reckless prodigality that characterizes
our conversation would strike the Tartar mind like interspersing his
talk with unmeaning italics. He would regard such discourse much as we
do those effusive epistles of a certain type of young woman to her
most intimate girl friends, in which every other word is emphatically
underlined.

For the most