２月１５日のしゅくだい
カワイイ - Kawaii (cute) This popular term was first found The origins of this word comes form the kanji 可 (ka) for acceptable and 愛 (ai) for love.
The first appearance of this was in Lady Murasaki's Tale of Genji. This word is often written in katakana in order to draw attention to the word and distinguishes it from the normal text. Also, this word was a created word formed by the combination of two original kanji, and was modified from its original root word by transforming it into katakana.
バイキング - Baikingu (All you can eat buffet). This loan word was actually a mistake, as the original creators of the all you can buffet were intending to model it after a swedish smorgasbord, but the word was too long to use. The movie theater next to the Imperial Hotel was showing "The Vikings", and the owners of the restaurant decided to adopt this loanword because of a feast scene in the movie, and used it as the name of the restaurant. The name stuck, and it became famous across all of Japan.
Katakana is primarily used in order to differentiate certain words from the rest of the normal text of kanji and hiragana. In the case of kawaii, katakana can be used for made-up words that are meant to be juxtapositions of older kanji used in a much more modern fashion, and to make it a distinction and possible cultural identity that kawaii has become now. Baikingu was adopted for the reason of it's associativity with the western world, and with it's status as a loanword, it has the foreign element that is very attractive to a lot of Japanese consumers. Each textbook is different in explaining katakana because of the truly nuanced nature of it's usage. There are even native speakers who are sometimes confused by katakana's usage in some situations. However, textbooks try to explain away the main usages of katakana - to distinguish from the normal text, whether in the form of onomatopoeia, loanwords, or made up words - in as simple terms as possible to make it easier for learners to get a general sense of katakana's usage.
hahaha, I think the バイキングexample is really interesting. It is one of the things about katakana that I have always had trouble with. Sometimes, they just don't make any sense. Other times, you have a hard time pinpointing what their English equivalent might be until you are told, and then have an "oooohhhhhhhh" moment.
ReplyDeleteThis is true. Sometimes, I think it helps to just look up online the origin story of particular words, just because they stick out in your mind. It definitely helps remembering them if they're interesting. I also find that sometimes when I'm trying to identify a particular katakana phrase, there are a lot of times when there are just syllables missing that make it really difficult to find out exactly what word is being said...
ReplyDeleteバイキング方で食べることがありますか？ 「バイキングはsloppyですから」と思いました。
ReplyDeleteはい、私はバイキングでよく食べます。中かりょうりのバイキングがとても好きです。ああ、そうですか。おもしろいですね。
ReplyDeleteInteresting! Actually a lot of vocabs which were originally in kanji appear more often as katakana now because young people prefer katakana to kanji in most of the regions. This is also because sometimes people believe that Kanji makes a word sound more distant (カワイイ as opposed to 可愛い).
ReplyDeleteInteresting choice of words. It is interesting that words which were originally written as kanji back then are now being written as katakana. Going off what Susan said about Kanji making a word sound more distant, does the same apply to katakana, since now katakana is usually reserved for foreign words?
ReplyDeleteI think that the simplification of katakana is near impossible, considering that in some cases we can refer to the usage of katakana for shortening certain words as a form of slang already, no? Do you think there is an element of nationalism to the usage of katakana preferentially over kanji in the newer generation, or could it simply be because it's much easier to use katakana, as it is phonetic, as opposed to kanji, which is oftentimes much more difficult to recall?
ReplyDeleteI don't think there is much of an issue of nationalism because katakana words reflect Japanese thoughts and culture. Your word バイキング is a good example: it would be nearly impossible for a non-Japanese person to figure out what that word means without looking it up since it came from a uniquely Japanese thought process. Another example of a Japanese-made English word I found interesting was プレイガイド (play + guide), which means "ticket agency." Even when words have a strictly non-Japanese origin, they can be hard to decipher once converted to katakana because the pronunciation has to fit the characters.
ReplyDeleteI had fun reading your analysis on カワイイ and バイキング. The background story of them helped me understand the word better. Especially, バイキング was something that I couldn't get it memorized. I've seen that word, and heard that word many times when I visit Japan. Still, I couldn't memorize the meaning of it but finally I got it in my head.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with your statement that Katakana is to distinguish the word from the text. It is almost like a highlighter and I believe it does its job.