Katakana Analysis

In きょうのJapanese lab, Actually it should be きのう since it's alreadyごぜんさんじ, we discussed about the different purposes of katakana words. I have posted the 5 words I found yesterday and now I'd like to talk about the different kinds of effects/purpose of those words.

There are lots of borrowed words in Japanese. The word ビタミン is borrowed from English----Vitamin. The second word I found----ラーメン is also a loan word which is, according to かくさん, from Chinese. Well it does make sense to me. Because in China there is a kind of noodle which has exactly the same pronunciation as ramen. But I was wondering why is でんわ written in hiragana even it's pronounced exactly the same in Chinese.The last of the 5 word I found---- リヒテンシュタイン, is also a loan word. It's from the German pronunciation of the small country Liechtenstein. People use loan words because they are tired of creating new words for their language. :P

I also found words from the Bleach manga. On the bottom of the picture I posted, there's a word　ガラガラ which I guess is the sound of wind blowing through the boy's costume. There are tons of onomatopoeia words in the Japanese language, and they are mostly written in katakana. I think writing sound word in hiragana makes them easy to recognize.

The most interesting word I found is ピカチュウ.
The person who named it said that this name is a portmanteau of the Japanese words pikapika, an onomatopoeia for electric sparkling, and chū, which is the Japanese onomatopoeia for a mouse's squeak.


Different textbook introduce katakana in different ways, probably because they are designed for different level of learners. Also, a language is not just about language, it's also about the culture behind it which is something very difficult to explain. The various manners the authors introduce katakana also show us the different perspectives of the interpretion of their own culture.

(One thing I'm really curious about is whether katakana and hiragana are developed at the same time in the history...I'm going to google it. But I have to sleep now.)

かたかな プロジェクト

I didn't realize how easy it is to find katakana until I started finding them. I opened a japanese fashion magazine and there're just tons of katakanas. There are even more in comic books. Here are the 5 words I found.

1.

ビタミン Vitamin



2.Neko Rahmen (猫ラーメン) also known as Neko Ramen, is a Japanese flash anime series based on Kenji Sonishi's yonkoma. The comedy centers around a cat (Taishou) and his encounters running a ramen shop. (info from Wikipedia)



3.Okay I believe everyone knows him. Yes, ピカチュウ！
The name is a portmanteau of the Japanese words pikapika, an onomatopoeia for electric sparkling, and chū, which is the Japanese onomatopoeia for a mouse's squeak.


4.This pic is from one of the comic books I'm reading now. It's called Bleach. It's very popular in China. But I don't know if it's popular here. Look at this picture. There's katakana ガとボとオthere.
Click HERE to see the picture clearly.


5.ふしぎ(mysterious)のくに----> リヒテンシュタイン
Liechtenstein is a very small country between switzerland and Austria as shown on the map. When I try to find picture of リヒテンシュタイン in google, it bumped up with the word 不思議 （ふしぎ）. Google translate says this word means mysterious. Well, Liechtenstein is really mysterious to me. I'd never heard of it until 10th grade.

じゃあ、また〜

ねません

　ぴかちゅうさん：チンランさんはきのうなんじからなんじまでねましたか。
　チンラン：ねませんでした。
：ねませんでしたね？？なにをしましたか。
：べんきょうしました。えいごクラスのpaperをかきました。
：たいへんですね。どこへべんきょしましたか。
：ドーミトリーへべんきょします。
：そうですか。チンランさんのルームメイトはなにおしましたか？
：ルームメイトもべんきょしました。ケミストリをべんきょしました。
：ルームメイトはだれですか。
キーリーさんです。いま　わたしとキーリーさんは　soooo tired です。





　
　

青藍(Qinglan)は なんですか？

みなさん、こんばんは！

きょう、I would like to talk something about my name. I was always asked about the meaning of my name, and this has been one of the questions I was really afraid of. Because it's so hard for me to explain it in English. じゃあ、青藍(Qinglan)は　なんですか？

It's a long story.

A famous confucian philosopher Xun Zi (313 B.C.-238 B.C.) once wrote an essay named 勧学(The Exhortation of Learning). Of course it's in ancient Chinese language. I LOVE ancient Chinese language! It's harder to understand but much more beautiful than the language we speak today. But I will not post the original essay here, because apparently it makes no sense to you. I did find the Japanese translation of that essay and I'd like to show you the first paragraph.(Some day we will be able to read that. )

君子はいう、「学問は止めてはならない」と。青色は藍草から取るが藍草より青く、氷は水からできるが水より冷たい。墨縄にぴったりするまっすぐな木でも、 たわめて輪にすればコンパスにぴったりの湾曲になり、日にさらして乾かしてももはやもとにもどらないのは、たわめるというと外力によってそうなったのであ る。だから、木が墨縄をあてられてまっすぐになり、刃物が砥石で磨かれると鋭くなるように、君子も学んで日ごとに何度も反省すれば、知識は確かになり行動にも過ちがなくなるのである。

This paragraph basically says that one should never stop learning, for learning improves one's character. A gentleman should pursue a wide range of knowledge and often engage in introspection, so that his mind gets clearer and he will do less inappropriate things.The sentence in bold is right where my name's from. In Chinese ,“青取之于藍而青于藍。” In modern Chinese language, 青(qing) simply means the color green and 藍(lan) is blue, while in ancient Chinese 青(qing) means the color indigo/dark blue or the indigo dye and 藍(lan) means a certain kind of green blue plants (eg. woad) from which the indigo dye is produced. (Oh my gosh it's tooooo hard to explain...I wish you are more patient than me.) Let me show you the pictures I found.

So the first picture is the one kind of plant Lan. And the second picture is when the plant is made to the dye Qing.

The whole sentence literally means that the dye Qing comes from the plant Lan but is darker/more concentrated than the color of the plant Lan. Then put it back to the context. It indicates that the students who acquire knowledge from their teacher may finally surpass the teacher. Those who learn from the books may finally attain higher wisdom beyond the books. Nowadays, it's also interpreted as that children who are brought up by their parents (will) make greater achievement than their parents. People say so to express a good wish or compliment. So my name Qinglan is not simply two similar colors, but is a heartwarming wish from my parents.



やだああああああ！　This is the first time I explained the whole origin and meaning of my name in a relatively clear way (in English). I'm so exited!

じゃあ　また〜