Throughout my study of Kanji, it has become clear to me that the Katakana script has a myriad of uses. Indeed, contrary to my former misconception that Katakana was used only for foreign loan words, the script has many additional functions including emphasis, onomatopoeic words, and even to write Japanese words whose kanji is too difficult to write and/or too uncommon to remember.
I was initially surprised to find that the script I had always associated with “foreign words” was in fact used to write certain words of the native Japanese language. However, this usage is perhaps not surprising when one considers the history of Katakana. Katakana was originally developed by Japanese students of Buddhism who were having difficulty remembering the pronunciations and meanings of unfamiliar kanji. In order to keep pace with the teachings, a phonetic shorthand had to be developed. This was Katakana. “the method of deriving the characters was the use of only part of the Chinese character for simplification” (Matthew White), thus it seems fitting that today those words that are too difficult or abstract to remember the Kanji of should be written in Katakana. What is more, Kanji technically are Chinese, so the lens of Katakana for foreign loan words still technically could be applied to this usage.
In the book “Lets Learn Katakana” by Yasuko Kosaka Mitamura, I found several examples of this usage, all of which were derived from authentic Japanese print sources. One of the examples I found interesting was 餌 “esa” which is a word for food and in context was written as エサ. The more typical word for food is tabemono or 食べ物、thus it is not surprising that this less well known Kanji was written in Katakana, it merely aids in understanding. With so many Kanji to remember it is much simpler to write the less common characters in Katakana.
Of course, Katakana certainly is also used to transcribe foreign “loan” words. One of which that I found was “soda” or ソーダ. Reviewing the history of soda, it is clear this fizzy beverage is a Western phenomenon. The first soda to be invented was Ginger ale in Ireland circa 1851, followed by Root Beer in 1876, Dr. Pepper in Texas in 1885, and coca-cola in Georgia in 1886. It was the mass production of coco-cola and the subsequent formation of massive soda corporations that lead to the export of soda to the eastern world, including Japan. Today, Japan has many unique flavors of soda, but the word itself still remains in Katakana.
Sources: "Lets Learn Hiragana" Yasuko Kosaka Mitamura; "The Japanese Writing System" Matthew White; "The History of Soft Drinks" Mary Bellis; My bag of soda candy; Japanvisitor.com
Hi!
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if esa is that commonly written in katakana because I have seen many cases where it has been written in kanji.
In any case, I guess the interesting question is why certain Japanese words are written in kanji while others are written in katakana despite them having chinese character equivalents. Interestingly, it appears that in many instances, complicated kanji characters are not often written in katakana/hiragana, whereas relatively simple ones are often written in katakana/hiragana.
Also, in dictionaries, katakana is used to indicate the pronunciation for kanji characters that have chinese readings, whereas hiragana is used for kanji characters that have Japanese-origin readings.
- m
おもしろく書きましたね。Up to now, I did not realize who developed katakana as a writing system. (It seems the history of hiragana is more of a common knowledge than the one of katakana.)
ReplyDeleteA point to note, similarly to what m mentioned above, I have not observed a substitution of complicated kanji characters with katakana in readings very often. I suppose it's possible though, if the author desires to emphasize the word or phrase.
--風穴
こんにちは。I've learned Japanese for years but have never heard of the history of Katakana before. So,良い勉強になりました。Concerning 'esa', as m mentioned above, I think 'esa' is usually written in hiragana rather than in kanji or katakana. I'm not sure about this example. However, except this, your analysis is really brilliant. すごくすばらしいanalysisでした。
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned that katakana is often used for words whose kanji are too difficult to remember. I wonder what this says about the future use of kanji? I remember at the kanji lecture we attended, the speaker talked about how the Japanese government might phase out use of kanji completely. If it's the case that kanji words are being replaced by katakana - thus making the written language more accessible to less educated Japanese people as well as to foreigners - perhaps this is already a step in the retirement of kanji.
ReplyDeleteI have also wondered about the slow phase-out of Kanji as Japanese use Katakana more and more often and with the use of computers it may be that Japanese will still know how to read Kanjis but may use them less and less in actual hand written correspondence. This may be a general trend as even the Latin script is derived from characters through borrowings from the Greeks who modify Phoenician script (I believe)that were ultimately derived from Egyptian hieroglyphics.
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