Abstract
Haberi, a verb which originally meant "to be a servant" or "(humbly) being" as a referent honorific (RH), subsequently became a form of addressee honorific (AH, i.e. a form of politeness towards the listeners). This change was said to have occurred in about 900 A.D. A previous study claimed that the examples of haberi in the Kokinshu (905 A.D.) were representative of their new use as AH. However, after reexamining all variant texts of the Kokinshu, I found that haberi was still being used in its original RH meaning of "humbly being", not AH. My investigation of the use of haberi in this period showed that haberi was not an actual AH as used in the 11^<th> century, but either still used as during the Nara-period to mean "to be a servant", or used as a transition stage form which was a precursor to the later addressee honorific. A single example quoted from a letter of about 900 A.D. in the Kokinshu is the first genuine usage as an AH (as with the other example in Isemonogatari). This establishes the origin of the AH term as it changed from referent honorifics.
