That means, just life in Sinhalese, it is correct to address the individual in the third person with the most appropriate title (and falling back on Sir/Madam when the title isn't known). E.g. "Could Sir help me find the nearest bus stop", etc. (The Polish for Sir/Madam here is the same as Lord/Lady).
In other circumstances things tend not to be as strict. For example among equals of lower social rank (e.g. younger people), often singular grammatically implicit "you" can suffice. Or, when addressing one's closer superior kin, you would be only partially formal, for example: "Could [you] o mother, pass the salt". This example does not translate very well into English. It helps that Polish verbs carry the information about the pronoun of the person being addressed as part of their grammar (e.g. "I eat" = "jem", "you [singular] eat" = "jesz", "we eat" = "jemy", "they eat" = "jedzą", etc). The personal pronoun can be used explicitly for additional emphasis, but in some circumstances using an explicit singular "you" can be considered less polite (like pointing you finger).
There are other quirks when some level of familiarity is attained (and thus the formality can be reduced). In such a circumstance for example, to say "Could you pass the book?", one could say "Let it be that Sir passes the book", or even less formally, "Sir will pass the book." It sounds impolite when translated into English because in Polish, familiarity/closeness is expressed by an assumption of the other party's willingness to help.
Hey maybe English speakers still use the archaic 'ye' - in phrases like 'didya' and 'doya'?
Japanese is also often used without pronouns (in general it can be a surprisingly terse language for having rather few grammatical markers).
I have no knowledge of Sinhalese -- but from the description above it sound surprisingly similar to Japanese. Incidentally, Japanese is so different (grammatically) from many other languages that it is allowed as a "other" language when studying linguistics -- along with Maori and certain tribal languages. I wonder if Sinhalese wouldn't qualify as well.
I have always found this really annoying.
Male friends of roughly equal age tend to call each other "machang"
It's interesting how the subsequent 'you' turn 'umba'.
Dude, you didn't tell me about the class.
The 'you' there is usually turned in to umba.
No need to deprecate your mother-tongue. I bet there's plenty of grammar, it's just different from the written form.
(I see a similar inferiority complex with speakers of Singlish here in Singapore. It's a great language, if you ask me.)
It's also a great language to tell jokes in. We have a lot of delivery-based humor that gets completely lost if only the meaning is translated (which is often the case when the destination language is English).
Some of our original deficiencies: we didn't have punctuation or even spaces before they were introduced by European colonists (Portuguese, Dutch and British, in that order). So our ancient writings LOOKEDKINDOFLIKETHISANDWENTONFORPARAGRAPHS.
My native language -- Sinhalese -- has two forms: written and spoken. The written form, which has a grammar very similar to Latin, does have a universal "you", but the spoken form, which is largely grammer-less except for tense, does not. You literally cannot address someone without knowing their status/relationship to you. This leads to some difficult and sometimes hilarious situations:
- Children, family members and lovers are often addressed "oya". Using this on your boss or teacher could lead to problems. More acceptable when used by women and girls than by men.
- There's no way to informally address a superior without a salutation or a name. This leads to people repeatedly using a person's name or salutation in the same sentence. E.g. "Sir, should I have that report sir asked for on sir's desk before sir leaves for sir's doctor's appointment?"
- Some old fashioned couples have entire conversations (and sometimes marriages) without using second person pronouns because they don't have a single version they feel comfortable with.
- Male friends of roughly equal age tend to call each other "machang" -- a term that is well known to those who have known Sri Lankans, and roughly translates to "dude".
- There's no safe version of "you" that a young man can use on another that he has just met. Most risk using "machang", but could result in offense if addressing someone of higher social standing. This is solved by constructing sentences that avoid the word entirely.
- Most children, especially from my generation, do not feel comfortable using second person pronouns on their parents. They just repeat "mother/father" wherever the word "you" is supposed to appear.
- Sometimes the sentences are spoken with the word entirely omitted (like in Latin) -- "Can come over here?", "Did lock the door?"