The ladder of 'is': だ, です, である, でございます, じゃ and っす

You know だ and です. Japanese has several more, and each one tells you something about the speaker or the setting. Learn them as a ladder, from rough to ceremonial.

Dropping だ entirely is common in casual speech: 彼は先生。 In some patterns だ must go: it disappears before ので, のに, and before nouns (replaced by な or の), and before んだ (replaced by な). It also changes to で in the て-form (学生で).

である is the formal, firm "is" of essays, textbooks and editorials. Its negative is ではない and its past is であった.

It is also the basis of the written forms であり (is, and), であろう (probably is) and であるが (is, but). You will see them throughout non-fiction and in the narration of older novels.

A lecturer or a blogger using である keeps a firm, impersonal voice. A fiction narrator may use だ or である for flavour.

であります is the polite form of である. Today you mostly meet it in fiction. A character who says 「であります！」 is usually a soldier, an official, or someone doing an impression of one.

でございます is the humble-polite form of です. It is the voice of department stores, hotels, airlines and station announcements.

The verb ある has the same polite shape, ございます: 駐車場がございます (we have a car park). The negative is ございません.

じゃ stands for だ in several dialects, and became the way fiction writes an elderly or wise speaker (a "role language", 役割語). In fantasy, a sage says:

It has no place in your own speech outside a joke. In Kansai, the equivalent is や:

っす is a shortened です used by young people, sports club members, and juniors speaking to seniors. It sounds friendly and slightly deferential:

Do not use っす with someone you want to be properly polite to. In anime it is the sound of a keen junior or a street-smart character.

When you meet a new character or text, the copula is a quick profile:

• だ in a narrator's voice: plain, close, narrative.
• です throughout: a careful, polite narrator or a speaker to strangers.
• である: a formal essay, an old-fashioned narrator, a lecturer.
• でございます: a shop or a service.
• じゃ: an old or fantastical character.
• っす: a junior, a sports kid.
• や: a friendly Kansai character.

The copula changes with the setting. Read the three snippets as the same fact in three voices.

• だ (plain), です (polite), である (written), でございます (ceremonial).
• じゃ, や, であります and っす are character or regional flavours.
• Negatives: じゃない / じゃありません / ではない / ではございません.
• The copula tells you about the speaker, the setting and the distance.