The origins and changes over time of the features and characteristics of Japanese in its spoken and written forms.
35
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1answer
853 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 ...
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?
21
votes
1answer
521 views
Origin of the circle in ぬ, ね, and る
When looking at the hiragana ぬ (nu), ね (ne), and る (ru) one notices a small circle in the symbols. In fact that circle is the only difference when comparing them with the hiragana め (me), れ (re) and ろ ...
21
votes
2answers
861 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 ...
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 ...
17
votes
2answers
466 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?
16
votes
2answers
403 views
When and how did USA and UK come to be written as [米]{べい}[国]{こく} and [英]{えい}[国]{こく}?
I know of four countries with a specific kanji besides Japan: China, the Netherlands, the USA and UK. The last two must be quite recent (I presume 19th century) but I wonder on the details and context ...
15
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4answers
2k views
Why was both katakana and hiragana created?
Nowadays, katakana tends to be used for gairaigo and onomatopoeia, while hiragana tends to be used for native Japanese words. This is a slight simplification - more information is available here.
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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: ...
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 ...
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
867 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 ...
11
votes
4answers
556 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 ...
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
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 ...
10
votes
2answers
355 views
Recent creation or adoption of hanzi characters into Japanese kanji
According to Wikipedia, kanji was introduced and imported from chinese hanzi long time ago before Japanese language even had a writing system. From there, Japanese kanji has transformed and evolved ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
9
votes
1answer
175 views
Was there a single word/concept もの which was later split into two (now distinct) kanji 者 and 物?
Given that もの has a rather similar usage as a generic modifier for turning a property into a thing with that property (as 物) or turning a property into a person with that property (as 者) -- it seems ...
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 ...
9
votes
1answer
108 views
「はは」(母) and ハ行転呼
It occurred to me the other day that if ハ行転呼 had affected all applicable environments without exception, 母 /haha/ (or I guess properly it was /ɸaɸa/, right?)should have become /hawa/.
The Japanese ...
9
votes
1answer
279 views
Reading fractions
In Japanese (and other East Asian languages), the denominator of a fraction is read as a part of the modifier to the numerator:
3分の5
'five that was divided by three'
'five thirds'
This ...
9
votes
1answer
250 views
Japanese/Chinese numbers usage timeline
Around what time did the Japanese start using Chinese numbers?
For example, 八百長 pronounced やおちょう rather than using the modern はっぴゃく.
8
votes
3answers
1k views
“to make a telephone call”
In some older learning material I came across, they use 「電話をかける」 for "to make a telephone call". When/why did this come to be replaced by 「電話する」 in popular usage?
8
votes
3answers
184 views
Was the name for the Shōwa era a voluntary pun?
According to dictionaries, the WA 和 in 昭和 has both the meaning of peace, harmonious and Japan, japanese (although mostly as the first kanji of a compound, such as in 和語). So I wonder how Japanese of ...
8
votes
1answer
476 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 ...
8
votes
1answer
367 views
Why has を been spared but ゐ and ゑ been deemed obsolete?
According to When is the katakana form of wo (ヲ) used?-ヲ-used, を is almost always used only for the particle, and is usually pronounced o (お).
There are some dialects where を is pronounced with a ...
7
votes
2answers
404 views
Can kanji-heavy Japanese be easily translated into Chinese?
How much is changed or lost in translating (say) an old Japanese text that's mainly written in kanji into hanzi? How does it compare to translating into a completely foreign language like English? I'm ...
7
votes
5answers
561 views
If I wanted to sound more like a Samurai, what words and phrases should I learn?
Having watched jidai-geki for a long time, I have come across many Samurai-isms, but I can recall only a few. I would like to be able to do this more believably the next time I'm at the Izakaya.
What ...
7
votes
2answers
525 views
Why is the Japanese currency pronounced “yen” in English?
I'm wondering what the reason for the mispronunciation of 円 in English came to be "yen". I can understand how some words like 東京 became "Tokyo", but "en" to "yen" seems strange. On a side note, why is ...
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).
...
7
votes
1answer
371 views
Did any writing systems exist before kanji was imported?
Did any writing systems, or even failed attempts at them, exist for Japanese before kanji was imported from China?
6
votes
1answer
416 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 ...
6
votes
1answer
331 views
Was desu and masu originally geisha-speak?
Nihonjin no Shiranai Nihongo (The Japanese language the Japanese people don't know) seems to be claiming, at around 6:20 of this YouTube clip of language-specific portions of episode 4 of the show, ...
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 ...
6
votes
1answer
160 views
What's the grammar of 持ちつ持たれつ?
持ちつ持たれつ (meaning approximately "supporting eachother") is commonly heard, but seems to be formed from some archaic grammar.
I'm assuming it's an archaic form of 持って持たれて or something like that, but ...
6
votes
2answers
229 views
“Sunday this week” or “Sunday next week”
I am wondering about the history about the beginning of the week. Although some recent calendars start their week on Monday, "traditionally", the Japanese start their week on Sunday (so that 今週の日曜日 ...
5
votes
1answer
89 views
Help for this expression: 猿は人間に毛が三筋足らぬ
I read this expression in a text. It seems to be an old proverb about monkeys. But I am not sure about its meaning. Why 筋, for instance? Does it means muscle? reasoning faculty? Why would they be ...
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 ...
5
votes
2answers
1k views
バカヤロウ to バゲロ [mature content]
Note: This question may contain wordings that may be considered rude to some, so proceed with open mind and caution.
One of the legacies of Japanese colonization in my country during WW2 is a rude ...
5
votes
2answers
401 views
Can anyone explain the obsolete, non-phonetic use of hiragana from pre war times?
At university our most learned lecturer in Japanese once mentioned there were non-phonetic usages of hiragana at the end of kanji verbs and adjectives pre WWII. Apparently books printed prewar used ...
4
votes
2answers
321 views
For how long has Japanese been the official language of Japan?
That is to say, in Japan, at which point in time, was it declared that official documents had to be written in the Japanese language?
I am also looking for any additional information like where it ...
4
votes
2answers
369 views
Plural in ancient Japanese?
It is known to Japanese learners that the Japanese verb isn't affected by the subject (number or gender). Today, a linguistics professor of my university told me he heard from his teacher that ancient ...
4
votes
1answer
160 views
Was the の particle sometimes written in katakana?
In "Maiko Haaaan!!!", a bridge going over Yumekawa (a fictional river in Kyoto) apparently has "夢ノ橋" written on it, rather than "夢の橋". I had two theories about why that may be the case. One was that ...
3
votes
2answers
220 views
Is ruby text essential?
I am trying to understand whether the ruby text in ancient scripture is essential to the meaning of a verse, or if the scripture can be understood without it. For instance, can this verse:
be ...
3
votes
1answer
114 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 ...
3
votes
1answer
146 views
What was the base for Japanese numbers?
I'm curious what the numerical base the Japanese used before their introduction to the wider western world.
I've been taught in my Japanese language classes that they move the comma to a different ...
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 ...
