Re: Calling people...

[Youcef Rabah Rahal <y dot rahal at gmail dot com>]

Hi,

I'll add a smallish contribution ;-)

1- In the free software communities, people call each-other by their
first name. Arabeyes is a (the?) good example. Probably because the
majority of people are (relatively) young, and maybe because of the
influence of the english-speaking communities ?

2- The use of the 2nd person in plural form (french 'vous') is never
used in Arabic to talk to a single person, even if he/she is old or
have a 'respectable' position. Historical records show that clearly:
'simple' people used to talk with political and/or religious figures
in the 2nd person of the singular form (french 'tu'). Even if the
'content' of their talk would not be the same as if they were talking
to a friend :-) I think there is also a polite form using the 3rd
person in singular (french 'il'), the same way the spanish use it
(usted). Not sure which language influenced the other, maybe there was
not even an influence. I don't know, but maybe more informed people
can answer that. However, lately, (I'm speaking about Algeria), there
is a 'new' way of polite form using the 2nd person in plural form. You
can hear that when watching the president being interviewed by a
journalist... Talk about cultural influence ;-)

3- In Algeria, the concept of family name is recent (1882, under the
french occupation). So the people used the first name (the only one
actually) to call each other, usually prefixed to denote the 'rank'.
The usual prefix was/is: 'Si' (probably a contraction of sidi/sayyidi,
which means Sir in english). Sometimes it was 'Hadj' to denote a
person who made a pilgrimage to Mecca, generally old, etc. For women,
the prefix was 'Lalla' (have no idea where that one comes from,
probably a tamazight origin), or 'Hadja' etc etc. Nowadays, you can
hear 'Si Firstname', 'Si LastName', or even ... 'Monsieur Lastname'
;-).. Talk about cultural influence ;-)

4- About the use of 'Tu' by Maghrebi people in France, on the phone:
Usually the converstation starts with 'vous' and as soon as the two
persons understand they are from Maghreb, the converstation
instantaneously (often) switches to 'Tu'... (the conversation usually
continues in French in order to avoid accent issues etc, unless they
understand they are from the same country/city/building... ;-)

Regards,

-- 
Youcef R. Rahal