I have always being curious about the meaning of the polite auxiliary.
I have managed to find out that after many changes of form, ます originated from まらする. Problem is that this verb is no longer on dictionaries. The only one that was giving a translation of まらする was Yahoo Japan dictionary.
There it says まらする means やる・差し上げる.
Now it might sound a stupid question. Was ます originally used "outwards" to make it polite? I mean, both やる・差し上げる have a movement away from the speaker, so I was wondering if the original meaning of ます was to make humble and then enlarged to a more general politeness (inward and outward).
I hope I made clear what I meant, I re-read it and it sounds kinda messy...sorry
