I was thinking about how, in Marathi, you don’t really need to say please and thank you constantly. You can walk into a shop, ask for something, pay, and leave without even a “bye” or “have a good day,” and it isn’t rude. If you do use those phrases, people may look at you funny. The same interaction with a grocery-store employee in the US, however, produces a tumble of thanks and pleases.

My guess was that English was lacking something, and it turns out there is actually some linguistics behind this. Marathi has no single equivalent of the English please. Politeness can instead be carried by respectful forms of address and imperatives, or by particles like जरा (jara) and ना (na). Similarly, there is traditionally no obligatory thank you at the end of an ordinary transaction.

The sociolinguist M. L. Apte observed something particularly interesting: in Marathi and Hindi, thanking was traditionally unusual both among intimates and in commercial exchanges. A transaction already contains its own reciprocity—you receive the goods; the shopkeeper receives payment. What exactly requires the additional verbal acknowledgment?

Perhaps please and thank you become especially important when relationships themselves carry less information. American English is very good at interactions between autonomous strangers: the words explicitly signal I recognize that I am asking something of you and I recognize what you did for me. Marathi can often leave more of that work to context.

I get a tiny bit baffled by “have a good day” when exiting an interaction. Internally, I’m thinking, “My day will go as it will; your statement does nothing—but okay, I guess.” Of course, I reply, “You too!” with a big smile, but I would much rather have walked out without having to do that.

References #

• M. L. Apte, “‘Thank You’ and South Asian Languages: A Comparative Sociolinguistic Study” (1974). PDF via ERIC
• University of Minnesota CARLA, “Marathi and Hindi Thanks”, summarizing Apte’s findings on gratitude in commercial exchanges, families, and friendships. CARLA archive
• University of Chicago, “Marathi in Context”, especially the section The Use of Polite Formulas, on please, thank you, jara, na, and respectful imperatives. Marathi in Context