The research aimed to find the imperative of request in the old manuscripts, analyze its use based on the social status between the speaker and the audience, and analyze the request strategy by analyzing the sentence’s structure. The data were taken from narratives and dialogues of Banten Sultanate archives dated in 1600s to 1800s and the Sulalatus Salatin in 1800s. Therefore, the research design applied a descriptive qualitative method. The use of minta (ask), minta tolong (asking for help), mohon and pohon (beg/pray), and tolong (help) as request markers were described in graphs. The results show that minta is universal, which can be used from a speaker to an audience with lower-higher, equal, and higher-lower statuses. Minta tolong is uttered by a speaker to an audience with lower-higher and equal statuses. In the Sulalatus Salatin, mohon and pohon request markers are the most spoken to a king. Minta is universal, and tolong is uttered by a speaker with higher status to an audience with a lower status. Explanation of the situation, apologies, subject, demand, receiver, verb, reason, hope towards the audience, and attention-getter are components to construct an imperative request in the manuscripts.

The research aimed to find the imperative of requests and their politeness in the Indonesian and Japanese languages. It also aimed to analyze the similarities and dissimilarities between both languages. The method applied in the research was comparative studies. The data on both languages were collected from novels, movie dialogue, email, questionnaires, SNS (LINE, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook), and daily conversation corpus. As a result, the request markers "tolong" and "mohon" change an imperative into requesting expression. "Boleh" and "bisa" are necessary to construct an interrogative imperative of request. On the other hand, in the Japanese language, there are onkei hyōgen (~te kureru/~te kudasaru/~te morau/~te itadakeru) and ganbō hyōgen (~tai, ~te hoshii). It also has positive (masu), negative (nai/masen), assertive (masuka/desuka), and tentative (deshōka) forms. In the Indonesian and Japanese languages, commanding has the lowest politeness, followed by requesting expression. The permission request is the politest. Also, the imperative of request shows modesty and does not strongly force the audience. The imperative of request in the Indonesian language is a command that got request markers "tolong" and "mohon" to soften the command intention. On the contrary, the Japanese separate the imperative of command and request forms.