The origins and changes over time of the features and characteristics of Japanese in its spoken and written forms.
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: ...
25
votes
4answers
652 views
How did “little tsu” become a lengthener?
How did it come about historically that っ preceding a sound would geminate it? Is it really a little つ or are they just near homomorphs?
35
votes
1answer
852 views
Why were ゐ and ゑ eliminated?
Sometime in the early 20th century, usage of the now-historical kana ゐ and ゑ (and their katakana equivalents) dropped off, being replaced with い and え in modern Japanese. What exactly happened here ...
13
votes
3answers
377 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 ...
13
votes
2answers
1k views
When did the “wu” character drop out of use?
In the last century, the ゐ and ゑ characters were eliminated from common use. But it seems like there used to also be a "wu" character that has since been lost. Given that it's a lot harder to find ...
10
votes
5answers
603 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 ...
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
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 ...
17
votes
2answers
465 views
Why is は pronounced as わ when used as a topic particle?
The particle は is pronounced similarly to わ (unlike the rest of the ハ行 kana) when used as a particle; why is this? What historical shifts went on to cause this irregularity?
12
votes
2answers
545 views
How close was the Japanese writing system from becoming abolished after World War II?
I remember hearing that the Japanese government planned on abolishing the use of Chinese characters entirely after World War II. I also remember hearing that there was a movement by the American ...
11
votes
3answers
866 views
About writing numbers using Japanese numerals vs using Arabic numerals
I noticed that even though Japanese language has kanji characters for numbers (e.g. 十、百、千、万 etc), there are many places where Arabic numerals are used instead, for example, prices for shop items are ...
10
votes
2answers
153 views
How is Japanese regulated by the Japanese government and any other organizations?
Some languages, but not English, have regulators such as the Académie française (French Academy). Amongst other things, it decides whether or not English words such as email, software and ウォークマン ought ...
7
votes
2answers
249 views
Were women unable to learn kanji during the Heian era?
I've read that The Tale of Genji, and similar Heian-era novels such as The Pillow Book, and The Gossamer Years were predominantly or exclusively hiragana, which is also called "women's writing" (女手).
...
5
votes
1answer
174 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 ...
