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Last Word is Â鶹´«Ã½â€™s long-running series in which readers give scientific answers to each other’s questions, ranging from the minutiae of everyday life to absurd astronomical hypotheticals. To answer a question or ask a new one, email lastword@newscientist.com
Do all languages have the equivalent of “please” and “thank you”? Why are these words so important to us?
Chris Daniel
Colwyn Bay, Conwy, UK
In many cultures, “please” and “thank you” are essential expressions of politeness that lubricate social interactions and promote cooperation and reciprocation.
“Please” is a shortened form of the original “if it pleases you”, and softens a demand into a request, as it relies on the goodwill of the person being asked. On the other hand, in theory, it also gives that person the option to refuse. A “thank you” acknowledges a debt of gratitude and validates a person’s good deed. In English-speaking countries, these words tend to be used frequently and transactionally for requests made and answered. However, “please” and “thank you” don’t appear to be universal.
In some societies, verbal thanks may be accompanied or replaced by nonverbal behaviours, such as giving gifts, bowing or folding hands in a namaste gesture. In fact, the use of “please” or “thank you” can be seen to insert a degree of unwanted formality between people when used in the wrong context.
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Verbal thanks may be accompanied or replaced by nonverbal behaviours such as giving gifts or bowing
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The importance of thankfulness is in its benefit to both individuals and society. It is thought that an “attitude of gratitude” improves a person’s physical and mental health by helping them to focus on positive emotions of the present moment. Grateful people can be seen as good social partners who build and nurture relationships.
Mike Kelly
Southminster, Essex, UK
In Danish, there is no literal way to say “please”, and some Danes struggle with this linguistic quirk. In a Danish art college, I saw that one student, in a written plea to others, had resorted to including the German for please (bitte) – which earned them a critical graffito from a language-purist colleague. Danes do have their equivalent for “thank you”, which is tak. Elegant variations exist, my favourite being tusind tak (a thousand thanks).
But why are “please” and “thank you” so important to us? Conversation in Danish can initially present to Britons as a tad brusque, with “thank you” used less frequently than is usual in British speech and no word for “please”. However, Danes have a word for comfort, cosiness and contentment: hygge. Phrases like vi hygge os (we hygge each other) describe a deep feeling of connection with others. The word hygge loses much in the translation if any English equivalent is attempted. Danes always score highly on any list of the happiest people in the world, suggesting they are managing just fine. Perhaps Anglophones worry too much about those three words.
Bernd-Juerden Fischer
Berlin, Germany
When travelling in central Africa, I used to invite bystanders to sit down and share our meal, which they did – and then left without saying a word. My wife was aghast that they didn’t say thank you. To which I said, “But they did! They touched their right elbow with their left hand. Keep an eye out!” This raises the question of what your reader intends by asking whether “all languages have an equivalent of ‘please’ and ‘thank you'”? I’ve never come upon any culture that didn’t have expressions of gratitude, either verbal or gestural.
As to the question of why these “thanks and pleases” are so important to us, I think that politeness in general is a universal feature that has developed to ease the stress that crowded living and mutual dependency in human societies bring with them.
Bob Ladd
Edinburgh, UK
All languages probably have ways of expressing gratitude, making polite requests, offering minor apologies and performing the dozens of other everyday “speech acts” that help keep social interaction running smoothly. But the details vary so enormously from language to language and from culture to culture that it isn’t really accurate to say that all languages have “equivalent” words.
To take a trivial example just from within western Europe, Google Ngrams show that in English, “please” occurs four or five times as often as “thank you”. In French, Spanish and Italian, it is the other way round: merci/gracias/grazie is at least 10 times more common than s’il vous plaît/por favor/per favore. That is to say, from the point of view of a French speaker, English speakers go around saying “please” all the time. So in this sense, the words aren’t really equivalent, and an important part of the answer to the question of why these words are so important to us is simply that “we” are well-socialised speakers of English.
Matt Kavanagh
Cork, Ireland
My friend from Finland told me there is no direct word for “please” in Finnish. Her English is perfect, but she says everyone thought she was a bit rude and blunt when she moved to Ireland until she reminded herself to add the word “please” to the end of relevant sentences.
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