Tagged Questions
3
votes
1answer
112 views
Origin of ~なければ ならない
The expression ~なければ ならない if I learned correctly means "must not not do ..." as in:
日本語を勉強しなければなりません。
You must not not learn Japanese. (i.e. you need to learn Japanese)
However, taken on face value ...
1
vote
1answer
149 views
What is the etymology of 〜ません（でした）?
I have always been interested in the negative polite (〜ません) and negative past-polite (〜ませんでした) inflections of verbs.
My understanding is that ます is an inflectable function word (助動詞), so I'm ...
1
vote
1answer
111 views
Why do days of the week use on-yomi kanji readings?
I would like to know if there is detailed information as to why days of the week use on-yomi readings, for example
月 in 月曜日 【げつようび】
Were these readings (as spoken) imported from the ...
6
votes
1answer
88 views
Was “乎” the manyogana spelling of the accusative/object particle “を”?
In the English Wiktionary entry for "を" there is a quote or example sentence using the character "乎" with no explanation seemingly where the particle "を" would normally occur.
Now I couldn't find ...
9
votes
2answers
272 views
What is the breakdown of countries where loan words originate?
Is there any general idea of what percentage of loan words come from which languages? I always thought the majority of them came from English, but I keep seeing more and more that originated in ...
13
votes
3answers
376 views
Kanji for native Japanese concepts: Kun'yomi spanning multiple morphemes
There are a few words, which are written with Kanji imported from China, but where the intended native Japanese meaning would prefer a different choice of Kanji. My favourite examples are
雷 vs. 神鳴り ...
6
votes
1answer
414 views
Ancient practise of sneaking into women's bedrooms…?
I was looking up the meaning of スマ婚{こん}, when my mouse happened to roll over the kanji 婚{こん}, and this definition popped up in Rikaichan:
婚 よばい ancient practice of creeping at night into a woman's ...
10
votes
1answer
164 views
What is the significance of a large く character in literary texts?
I am currently reading an early story by Tanizaki Junichiro in Japanese. I have come across both the hiragana く and ぐ written twice the size they usually are, taking up the same amount of space on the ...
5
votes
1answer
173 views
Mukashi-banashi. Do they borrow from other current dialects in addition to older Japanese?
At my schools 日本語クラブ, we studied a 昔話 (舌切り雀）, which like most of the others I've read, had some nonstandard grammatical constructions. I've heard that many of these constructions are archaic forms ...
8
votes
1answer
474 views
Left (ひだり) and right (みぎ) as cardinal directions
In many Indo-European ancient languages, there used to be a strong connection between the words for right and left on one side and the words for south and north1 (respectively) on the other side.
This ...
14
votes
2answers
337 views
Exceptional compounding forms
There are a number of Japanese words which have distinct compounding forms:
-a/-e alternation: 天・雨、酒、上、風、目 — many examples.
-u/-i alternation: 神（[神]{かむ}[集]{つど}ふ）、月（[月]{つく}[読]{よみ}）
-o/-i alternation: ...
21
votes
2answers
853 views
Where does “もしもし” (moshimoshi) for answering the telephone come from?
Does the term "もしもし" (moshimoshi) predate the telephone? Does it have any use besides answering the phone? Where does it come from, is it just a reduplication of "もし" (moshi) "if", and if so how does ...
10
votes
1answer
179 views
How can [数]{す}[寄]{き}[者]{しゃ} both mean a tea ceremony master and a “lewd man, a lecher”?
I would like to understand better the etymology or the cultural context surrounding
数寄者
If I believe wwwjdic, this
compound is used to denote
a tea ceremony master (with a reference to a ...
11
votes
4answers
203 views
History of 十干（じっかん）and modern uses
As I was studying vocabulary today, I happened to come across the titular 十干 which are as follows:
甲（こう）• 乙（おつ）• 丙（へい）• 丁（てい） •戊（ぼ）• 己（き）• 庚（こう）• 辛（しん）• 壬（じん）• 癸（き）
There's a somewhat lengthy ...
10
votes
5answers
602 views
Is there an objective source of the origins of kanji?
Is there an authoritative source that explains where the different kanji come from and what the radicals mean? I think it's hard to tell from most of the textbooks/other sources whether a shown ...
2
votes
2answers
181 views
What was the origin for the term 水色 to be associated with youth, adolescence and puberty?
I am particularly interested in the phrase 「水色時代」. Did it come from the old manga that used the phrase as its title, or has the phrase been carrying that particular cultural connotation long before ...
17
votes
4answers
378 views
What are the origins of ヶ?
The ヶ in e.g. 一ヶ月 is a bit of an odd character - it looks a lot like a small version of the katakana ケ, but is it derived from that katakana originally? Or is it a normal kanji? Or is it something ...
11
votes
4answers
553 views
Are there any old loanwords from Korean, especially any not written in katakana?
Given the close proximity and long history of interaction of various kinds within East Asia, the great influence of Chinese in both Japanese and Korean, and the similar structures of Japanese and ...
