兄上, 姉上, 父上, 母上, Aniue, Aneue, Chichiue, Hahaue - Meaning in Japanese

In Japanese, the words aniue, aneue, chichiue, and hahaue mean "older brother," "older sister," "father," and "mother," respectively, the same thing as ani 兄, ane 姉, chichi 父 and haha 母. However, the words with the __ue pattern have a different nuance.

• Kanji
• Usage

Kanji

The words aniue, aneue, chichiue, and hahaue are written with kanji the same way as their non-ue counterparts, except with an ue 上 suffix, of course. This ue 上 means "above," "up," the direction, by the way.

• aniue 兄上
• aneue 姉上
• chichiue 父上
• hahaue 母上

Usage

The difference between ani and aniue, ane and aneue, chichi and chichiue, and haha and hahaue, is that the ue words refers to one's relatives with more respect, however, they're all rather old words which aren't really used anymore. You may still find them in writing, but not in modern spoken Japanese.

The reason they're seen in manga and anime sometimes despite not being used in Real Life™ is because some characters are from exaggeratedly traditional families, full of ceremonies, rules, etc. Sometimes these families are anachronistic. Sometimes the character is a time-traveler, or the story is about a certain period. Sometimes the character simply likes speaking in this old-fashioned way. Etc.

Specifically, the words were particularly popular within samurai families, and were more common before the end of the Meiji era (before 1912).

By the way, you may have noticed that there's no ue counterpart for "younger brother", otouto 弟, or "younger sister," imouto 妹. No otoutoue or imoutoue. This isn't by coincidence. Since ue means above, we can guess the ue words imply esteem, infer respect. And as such it only applies to seniors, and only parents and older siblings are seniors. Younger siblings, children, aren't seniors, so they don't get ue words.