Survey finds loanwords getting more use than okaa-san and otou-san.

As we’ve touched on before, there are several different ways to say “mom” and “dad” in Japanese. The ones that are generally considered the standard versions, though, as well as the ones you’re most likely to first encounter in a learning-Japanese textbook, are okaa-san for mom and otou-san for dad.

However, in a recent survey of Japanese teenagers, okaa-san and otou-san weren’t the words they most commonly used in talking to their parents, and in fact their top responses aren’t even originally Japanese words at all.

The survey, conducted by Tokyo-based youth research organization Wakamono Research, collected responses from 862 current Japanese high school students through an online questionnaire. Starting with the fourth-most common replies, 0.9 percent of the high schoolers said they call their dad oyaji, a somewhat rough and masculine phrase that’s similar in tone to “pops” in English. The same number, 0.9 percent, said they call their mom ofukuro, which is essentially the female version of oyaji when used in a familial context.

▼ SoraNews24 ace reporter Mr. Sato’s dad, who he calls oyaji, showing off big oyaji energy

The number three answers were also the same for moms and dads, with 2.6 percent of the respondents saying they call their mom by her name, and 4.1 percent saying they do so when talking to their dad. This is pretty surprising, as such familiarity towards older generations in the family is pretty uncommon in Japan, but among those who gave this answer were teens who were part of blended families who call their step-parent by their name.

Second place is where we see okaa-san and otou-san for mom and dad, chosen by 33.4 and 28.1 percent of the teens, respectively. But if the standard, baseline Japanese terms only finished in second, what was at the top of the list?

Mama and papa.

Not only were they the most common responses, they made up the majority, with 50.2 percent of the participants using papa and even more, 56.3 percent, using mama.

When asked why mama and papa were their terms of choice, many of the respondents replied that that’s simply what they’ve called their parents since early childhood, and haven’t had any specific event or occasion that’s given them an impetus to switch to something else.

▼  “Hmm…when to stop calling mom “mama”…

Another factor that’s probably in play is that while mama and papa aren’t extremely recent additions to colloquial speech in Japan, they’ve become increasingly more commonly used for the past few generations. With increased affinity for and familiarity with mama and papa, it’s likely that newer Japanese parents are less likely to encourage or instruct their children to start calling them something else as they get older, despite mama and papa still having a relatively cute and juvenile ring to them, in comparison to okaa-san and otou-san.

However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that mama and papa are set to be permanent modes of address. Among the respondents who go with okaa-san and otou-san, a common reason for their choice is that as they hit their teenage years, they started to feel embarrassed calling their parents mama and papa, and were now ready to move on to more mature-sounding alternatives. It’s also worth noting that Wakamono Research hasn’t broken down the responses by gender, and it’s almost certain that mama, and especially papa, are less popular choices for teen boys to use than they are for teen girls. Similarly, the low number of responses for oyaji and ofukuro are partially a reflection of how the terms are almost exclusively used by men when talking about their parents.

Nevertheless, the survey shows that while okaa-san and otou-san are often the first terms listed in Japanese textbooks for mom and dad, they’re far from the final word in how Japanese families communicate.

Source: Maido na News via Livedoor News via Jin
Top image: Pakutaso
Insert images: SoraNews24, Pakutaso
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