子輩 - Polite first person pronoun?

[subishii]

Hey guys and girls,

Is anyone familiar with the phrase 子輩? It's occurring quite a lot in the text I'm working on at the moment.

I'm thinking it is perhaps a polite first person pronoun? Something like "Honorable sir,".

But it could also mean "You act upon", "You criticize", "You rank", etc.

[skylee]

Could you provide context (e.g. the text you are working on)?

[Jane_PA]

It could be humble way to call a person himself. But please give the context, otherwise, it will be difficult to interpret it.

[Hofmann]

At first glance it looks like "you (plural)."

[subishii]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the replies, here are a couple of examples from the text:

子輩各宜勉力行去

如子輩尚是目光

子輩不明一節中具有節

I also found this:

吾輩可以悟矣

[Hofmann]

Looks like plural "you." What is the text called?

[Jane_PA]

Yes, Hofmann said right, 子辈 here means you.

http://tieba.baidu.com/f?kz=115299546

The above link gives the 白话 of 太乙金华宗旨. This is like a Tao's bible book? That is really a difficult reading...

[affix]

子辈, in vernacular Chinese literally means 子孙这一辈, depending on the context may mean either "(my) future generations" if the person is referring to their descendants, or "our generation(s)" if the person is referring to themselves.

Compare with 祖辈 and 父辈.

I suspect it would mean anything different in Classical Chinese.

[subishii]

Hmmm, both "You" and "Your generation/our children's generation" could make sense.

I guess I'll just have to go with context, and when all else fails, gut feeling

Thanks for the help guys and girls.

[Hofmann]

I thought by now someone would have told you that 輩 is a common pronoun pluralizer. From your context, 子輩 simply means plural "you" just as 我門 (no typo) means "we" and not "my family" in Mandarin and 我等 means "we" and not "my peers" in Cantonese.