In order to show respect for others, the ancients often used the form of respecting others and belittling themselves, which was called the first person.
1, claiming to be a title in front of others.
The emperor calls himself a villain, the old man calls himself an old man, the young man calls himself a younger brother in front of the old man, the monk calls himself a poor monk, and the average person calls himself me. Modesty is self-assertion.
2. Ancient officials.
Civil servant: I am a humble official, a junior official (to the emperor), a senior official (compared with his senior official) and an old official (someone older than myself)?
Military attache: the last general (to officials with higher rank than him)?
Corrupt officials, eunuchs: slaves, small?
Ancient people: Xiao Sheng, Ben Gongzi and Ben Young Master?
In order to show respect for others, the ancients often used the form of respecting others and belittling themselves.
This statement is the first person, but it does not use personal pronouns such as "I", "Yu" and "Yu", but has some idioms.
Extended data:
The Etymological Evolution of "I"
Figure (a) is the word "I" in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, like an ancient weapon with a handle and a hook-a big axe with a row of sharp teeth on its mouth. This is a weapon used by slave society to execute people and dismember animals. It is called wǒ. In ancient times, some people also called this kind of saw axe "Thumb".
This hieroglyph, in the bronze inscription at the beginning of the Zhou Dynasty (Figure B), still retains the image of a long-handled saw axe, except that there is a foot hook under the handle of the axe, and the sawtooth is reduced to only three teeth.
By the bronze inscription in the late Zhou Dynasty (Figure C), the configuration of the word "I" began to change: the top hook of the axe handle became a fork, the foot hook of the axe handle became a diagonal hook in the middle of the axe cart, there were only two Kouga, and the axe handle was bent to the right.
When it developed into the Qin seal script (Figure D), the mistakes changed greatly: the axe body and sawtooth became the form of Figure (D 1), and the axe handle and upper and lower hooks became the form of Figure (D2), and it was completely impossible to see that "I" was the original appearance of the saw axe.
Later, this hieroglyph developed into Wu Zi on the basis of Xiao Zhuan, which changed from lines of pre-Qin characters to strokes, and replaced circular and even lines with basic strokes such as point, horizontal, left, press, pick and hook. As for the regular script in Figure (f), it developed from Han Li's body.
"I", the killing weapon in slave society, was eliminated by later better weapons during the Warring States period; Therefore, the word "I" was widely borrowed as the first person after the Han and Tang Dynasties, and its pronunciation was wǒ, and the pronunciation of the word has not changed so far. (Before the pre-Qin Dynasty and even the Han and Tang Dynasties, the first person was expressed by words such as "I", "Yu" and "Yu")
But the part of speech has changed from a noun to a personal pronoun, and the original meaning of "I" as a murder weapon has long been unknown. ?
Baidu encyclopedia -I (Chinese characters)