Honorific speech in Japanese

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The Japanese language has a system of honorific speech, referred to as keigo (Japanese: 敬（けい）語（ご）, literally "respectful language"), parts of speech one function of which is to show that the speaker wants to convey respect for either the listener or someone mentioned in the utterance. Their use is widely seen in a variety of business or formal social situations. Honorifics in Japanese can also be used to show unfamiliarity (social distance), or they can be used to show that the speaker is cultured and sophisticated enough to have mastered the ins and outs of the system.^[1] Japanese honorific titles, often simply called honorifics, consist of suffixes and prefixes when referring to others in a conversation.

The system is very extensive, having its own special vocabulary and grammatical forms to express various levels of respectful, humble, and polite speech. It closely resembles other honorifics systems found in the East Asian cultural sphere, such as honorifics in Korean.