They also denote etymology differently. I learned (3 years of high school japanese, got to like a 1st graders level if that but i did learn a lot) that hiragana is used for words that were originally Japanese, while katakana is used for words adopted from other languages. That’s why you see English translated into katakana, not hiragana. Iirc, kanji might’ve also come before wither hiragana or katakana, and unlike Chinese there is a way to understand kanji based off of its original components (there’s a name for them I can’t remember)
You’re correct! Katakana is indeed used to write loan words. There are of course other use cases like names of animal species (e.g. you
can write 狐 or キツネ for fox, and 兎 or ウサギ for rabbit) but generally that’s where you see them.
And yes, kanji was used prior to kana and the earlier versions of kana looked a lot more like kanji, but just got simplified as time went on.
Oh, and the word you were looking for is “radicals” for the components. c:
It makes more sense when you can read Japanese. It is far easier to read Japanese with their multiple writing systems mixed together than to read it all in just hiragana (their native phonetic writing system). Also much faster.
Specifically in the case of Japanese language, the current orthography highly depends on the use of kanji to remove ambiguities from a purely phonetic notation in either kana system.
As a side note, Korean language also used to be written with hanja (Chinese characters) mixed in with hangul (native phonetic alphabet). The shift from mixed hangul-hanja notation to pure hangul was gradual and the major contribution that made it possible was the modernized orthography rules that allows visual differentiation of homophones when written down while adding some complexity. It’s not perfect, but it works.
So, while many argue that kanji is essential to Japanese or hanja needs to be reintroduced in Korean for examples cited, I think the definitive reason is that the japanese speakers themselves doesn’t feel the overwhelming need to switch right now. If they chose to
introduce a purely kana orthography and had enough funding and political will, that’s how they will roll.
As a side note, Korean language also used to be written with hanja (Chinese characters) mixed in with hangul (native phonetic alphabet). The shift from mixed hangul-hanja notation to pure hangul was gradual
Oh good, someone already pointed this out!
I lived in Korea in the mid-aughts, and at that time hanja were pretty obviously on their last breath. The old man who ran the convenience store across from the school showed us how he was studying hanja, and in Korean class I learnt the hanja for Busan, the city I lived in. But that was it. I almost never saw anything about hanja otherwise, other than on old monuments and such. Hangul was pretty close to 100%.
hey just wanted to ask: what’s up with the circle-bits in korean characters? they’re really unique, I just have no idea what they indicate (if anything) and always wondered…
After that, 紙に神の髪を描く
(Kami ni kami no kami o kaku)
I wish Japanese had 1.5–2x the number of sounds it has presently… Without Kanji it’s unreadable, but since the advent of English gairaigo, it’s rapidly becoming a weird weird English language anyway…
Because there are a lot of words that sound nearly identical, way more than in English. For speech you have pitch accent, but you can’t achieve that with writing. I’m not saying it’s a good system, but at least it makes a bit of sense. But it is pretty stupid to have 2 literally identical alphabets which just look different
Considering conlangs exist where they show pitch by having a diacritic above/below the syllable, it is pretty possible. Just not likely to achieve wide spread adoption in an established language
You don’t need conlangs for that. Vietnamese does it. It’s another language that originally used Chinese writing system and then its own derivative thereof before the Romanisation came in that ks to Portuguese missionaries and then French colonialists starting in the 16th century.
Edit: although you could almost argue that romanised Vietnamese writing almost is a conlang, or at least a con-writing system, given how it was imposed on the language from the outside for the convenience of outsiders, and it has to really stretch to accommodate the Vietnamese language’s natural features.
Katakana (one of the two phonetic alphabets) is for foreign words and it’s not exactly the same - Katakana has more variations to represent different sounds basically unused in actual Japanese-origin words. For example there’s the ヴ character pronounced like “vu” but no such sound is used in Japanese words. It gives an immediate visual indicator that the word is taken from another language so it’s not like they made it just because.
I had to はし (hashi) over the はし because I forgot my はし at home.
Same word phonetically, three meanings. With Kanji it’s easy.
I never understand this example. Other languages have words with the same pronounciation and nobody has a problem with it.
In many other languages homophones are often spelled differently. Hiragana and katakana phonetic alphabets so homophones all have the same spelling.
German “umfahren” has entered the chat. Just with different stress it can either mean drive around someone/something or drive someone/something over.
They also denote etymology differently. I learned (3 years of high school japanese, got to like a 1st graders level if that but i did learn a lot) that hiragana is used for words that were originally Japanese, while katakana is used for words adopted from other languages. That’s why you see English translated into katakana, not hiragana. Iirc, kanji might’ve also come before wither hiragana or katakana, and unlike Chinese there is a way to understand kanji based off of its original components (there’s a name for them I can’t remember)
You’re correct! Katakana is indeed used to write loan words. There are of course other use cases like names of animal species (e.g. you can write 狐 or キツネ for fox, and 兎 or ウサギ for rabbit) but generally that’s where you see them.
And yes, kanji was used prior to kana and the earlier versions of kana looked a lot more like kanji, but just got simplified as time went on.
Oh, and the word you were looking for is “radicals” for the components. c:
Thanks, all of that was stuff I had learned years ago and forgot. Thanks for helping jog my memory!
It makes more sense when you can read Japanese. It is far easier to read Japanese with their multiple writing systems mixed together than to read it all in just hiragana (their native phonetic writing system). Also much faster.
Specifically in the case of Japanese language, the current orthography highly depends on the use of kanji to remove ambiguities from a purely phonetic notation in either kana system.
As a side note, Korean language also used to be written with hanja (Chinese characters) mixed in with hangul (native phonetic alphabet). The shift from mixed hangul-hanja notation to pure hangul was gradual and the major contribution that made it possible was the modernized orthography rules that allows visual differentiation of homophones when written down while adding some complexity. It’s not perfect, but it works.
So, while many argue that kanji is essential to Japanese or hanja needs to be reintroduced in Korean for examples cited, I think the definitive reason is that the japanese speakers themselves doesn’t feel the overwhelming need to switch right now. If they chose to introduce a purely kana orthography and had enough funding and political will, that’s how they will roll.
Oh good, someone already pointed this out!
I lived in Korea in the mid-aughts, and at that time hanja were pretty obviously on their last breath. The old man who ran the convenience store across from the school showed us how he was studying hanja, and in Korean class I learnt the hanja for Busan, the city I lived in. But that was it. I almost never saw anything about hanja otherwise, other than on old monuments and such. Hangul was pretty close to 100%.
hey just wanted to ask: what’s up with the circle-bits in korean characters? they’re really unique, I just have no idea what they indicate (if anything) and always wondered…
The circles? You mean
ㅇ? It’s a component (consonant ieung) letter and indicates either:[na]- 아[a][ŋ]at the end of a character block, placed at bottom: 앙[aŋ]yeah, thanks! TIL.
After that, 紙に神の髪を描く (Kami ni kami no kami o kaku)
I wish Japanese had 1.5–2x the number of sounds it has presently… Without Kanji it’s unreadable, but since the advent of English gairaigo, it’s rapidly becoming a weird weird English language anyway…
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So what? English has eye, I and aye. Same pronunciation, different writing. You don’t need three writing systems for that.
The Japanese alphabets are phonetic so all homophones have the same spelling. In your example all the words are spelled differently.
Fair enough.
Because there are a lot of words that sound nearly identical, way more than in English. For speech you have pitch accent, but you can’t achieve that with writing. I’m not saying it’s a good system, but at least it makes a bit of sense. But it is pretty stupid to have 2 literally identical alphabets which just look different
Considering conlangs exist where they show pitch by having a diacritic above/below the syllable, it is pretty possible. Just not likely to achieve wide spread adoption in an established language
You don’t need conlangs for that. Vietnamese does it. It’s another language that originally used Chinese writing system and then its own derivative thereof before the Romanisation came in that ks to Portuguese missionaries and then French colonialists starting in the 16th century.
Edit: although you could almost argue that romanised Vietnamese writing almost is a conlang, or at least a con-writing system, given how it was imposed on the language from the outside for the convenience of outsiders, and it has to really stretch to accommodate the Vietnamese language’s natural features.
Katakana (one of the two phonetic alphabets) is for foreign words and it’s not exactly the same - Katakana has more variations to represent different sounds basically unused in actual Japanese-origin words. For example there’s the ヴ character pronounced like “vu” but no such sound is used in Japanese words. It gives an immediate visual indicator that the word is taken from another language so it’s not like they made it just because.