5 February 2011
Posted by Jess
Today marks 6 months in Japan - half way through our one year adventure. I thought for this month I'd write a little bit about the language. Be warned I am not a linguistics expert and I barely speak any Japanese, so this should not be considered the best source of information! I have learned a few things though about Japan's three 'alphabets' or really, writing systems: Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana.
First up is Kanji. Kanji is the traditional written language of Japan and is based off of the Chinese characters. Much of what you think of as "Japanese" when you see it written is Kanji.
Here is an example:
東京 means Tokyo Japan
Japan had no written language of its own back in the day and the first record of Chinese printed material in Japan is from 57 A.D. It is thought that around the 400-500's, that there were scholars that started to get a handle on writing in Chinese and until that time, Chinese immigrants did all the writing. Once those Japanese people got going on it, they changed the Chinese version by adding small lines or other marks to make it fit with Japan's grammar (they had been speaking to each other, after all, long before the written word came around!). Also after those times, Japan started creating kanji of their own so of course there are now differences between the two written languages. Some Japanese friends here, however say that they can read enough to get around when they are in China though. After WWII, the Japanese kanji put a cap on the number of characters at 2,000. They said that those 2,000 would be the only ones allowed in printed text from that time after. Kids learn how to read and write over 1,000 of these by 6th grade and the full 2,000 by 9th grade. You can take tests to become proficient in different levels, the highest of which includes over 6,000 characters.
The second alphabet is Hiragana. As I read it somewhere, hiragana began because women were not taught the kanji characters and fed up with not being able to read or write, started to write a language of their own (ahh, Japanese feminism...where did you go?). So hiragana is not one character that represents an object, each character represents a sound, like the roman alphabet but of course it looks totally different and the sounds are different too! Today hiragana is used to write out words that do not have kanji or that would be written with kanji but isn't one of the 2,000 that are commonly known. It also is used to add structure to a sentence, like changing the tense of a kanji character. There are 48 hiragana characters.
Here are some examples of words written in hiragana:
とうきょう Tokyo
せんせい Sensei (Teacher)
The third alphabet is Katakana. Katakana is like hiragana, where the symbols each represent a sound or combination of sounds. Katakana is used to spell out words that are borrowed from other languages - words that other languages created and Japan adopted after the 1900's. For these things, there are no Japanese words, so sounding out the letters gets you to a word in another language. For example, katakana is used at Starbucks for "caffe latte" and at an Italian restaurant for "lasagna". It's also used for technical names, animal names, and companies. Oh, any our names (since there is no Japanese word for Jessica). Usually translating katakana symbols gets us to words that we are familiar with and it is common on menus and signs, so this is the one I'm trying to learn to read. Here again there are 49 characters.
I have a few workbooks and an iPhone app that has quizzes on it. I find that I can read a few symbols in a word and then use context clues to guess the rest. I'm doing ok, but probably should have started sooner! This of course does not help me actually talk to anyone, but I can try to read the advertisements on the train, which makes my ride home go faster. I have not been working on being able to write katakana though. It's tricky - the symbols are not all that different from each other in a lot of cases and how you write the symbol (which line comes first, the curvature of the line, the angle, etc) matters in if you've written it right or written something else all together! I'm ok with sloppy cursive western writing - this is a bit too exact for me!
So here are our names in katakana:
Jessica ジェシカ
Jason ジェイソン
Ella エラ
Abigail アビー
There is one more alphabet of sorts - romaji. This is where you take roman letters and use them to spell out words in Japanese; so writing fuji or sushi so that we can read them easily just by pronouncing the letters like we are used to doing. This is not so exciting and not how anything is actually written here (why would it be?) but it's what I use to address e-mails or letters because I cannot write the kanji for people's names.
Since I was talking about names, its interesting that here in Japan, people do not sign their names, they have Hanko Stamps, which is a stamp with the spelling of their family name on it. There are craftsmen that make these in each town or village and no two stamps are exactly alike. So even though Jason and I would both have stamps that say "Woehrle" there would be subtle differences between the two - Jason's would be larger than mine since he is the man and the kanji would have masculine characteristics if a distinction existed. After you buy your stamp, you register it at the local government office so that its know that this is your signature (like signing your drivers license in the U.S., I guess?!). Some people also have a hanko stamp that includes your first and last name and this is used for real estate deals or banking, but the basic one is used for everything from signing for deliveries to signing a letter. As you've probably already thought of - if your stamp is stolen, you're in trouble! I guess since identity theft or crime of any sort is not all the prevalent here, it's not too big of a concern yet.
Well, that's what I've learned so far about Japanese language. It's a long post so hopefully you found it interesting or learned something. I don't know that all of its 100% accurate, but its what I've read and been told by people! Hopefully no one uses this in a thesis paper somewhere!
乾杯!
Jess
Posted by Jess
Today marks 6 months in Japan - half way through our one year adventure. I thought for this month I'd write a little bit about the language. Be warned I am not a linguistics expert and I barely speak any Japanese, so this should not be considered the best source of information! I have learned a few things though about Japan's three 'alphabets' or really, writing systems: Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana.
First up is Kanji. Kanji is the traditional written language of Japan and is based off of the Chinese characters. Much of what you think of as "Japanese" when you see it written is Kanji.
Here is an example:
東京 means Tokyo Japan
Japan had no written language of its own back in the day and the first record of Chinese printed material in Japan is from 57 A.D. It is thought that around the 400-500's, that there were scholars that started to get a handle on writing in Chinese and until that time, Chinese immigrants did all the writing. Once those Japanese people got going on it, they changed the Chinese version by adding small lines or other marks to make it fit with Japan's grammar (they had been speaking to each other, after all, long before the written word came around!). Also after those times, Japan started creating kanji of their own so of course there are now differences between the two written languages. Some Japanese friends here, however say that they can read enough to get around when they are in China though. After WWII, the Japanese kanji put a cap on the number of characters at 2,000. They said that those 2,000 would be the only ones allowed in printed text from that time after. Kids learn how to read and write over 1,000 of these by 6th grade and the full 2,000 by 9th grade. You can take tests to become proficient in different levels, the highest of which includes over 6,000 characters.
The second alphabet is Hiragana. As I read it somewhere, hiragana began because women were not taught the kanji characters and fed up with not being able to read or write, started to write a language of their own (ahh, Japanese feminism...where did you go?). So hiragana is not one character that represents an object, each character represents a sound, like the roman alphabet but of course it looks totally different and the sounds are different too! Today hiragana is used to write out words that do not have kanji or that would be written with kanji but isn't one of the 2,000 that are commonly known. It also is used to add structure to a sentence, like changing the tense of a kanji character. There are 48 hiragana characters.
Here are some examples of words written in hiragana:
とうきょう Tokyo
せんせい Sensei (Teacher)
The third alphabet is Katakana. Katakana is like hiragana, where the symbols each represent a sound or combination of sounds. Katakana is used to spell out words that are borrowed from other languages - words that other languages created and Japan adopted after the 1900's. For these things, there are no Japanese words, so sounding out the letters gets you to a word in another language. For example, katakana is used at Starbucks for "caffe latte" and at an Italian restaurant for "lasagna". It's also used for technical names, animal names, and companies. Oh, any our names (since there is no Japanese word for Jessica). Usually translating katakana symbols gets us to words that we are familiar with and it is common on menus and signs, so this is the one I'm trying to learn to read. Here again there are 49 characters.
I have a few workbooks and an iPhone app that has quizzes on it. I find that I can read a few symbols in a word and then use context clues to guess the rest. I'm doing ok, but probably should have started sooner! This of course does not help me actually talk to anyone, but I can try to read the advertisements on the train, which makes my ride home go faster. I have not been working on being able to write katakana though. It's tricky - the symbols are not all that different from each other in a lot of cases and how you write the symbol (which line comes first, the curvature of the line, the angle, etc) matters in if you've written it right or written something else all together! I'm ok with sloppy cursive western writing - this is a bit too exact for me!
So here are our names in katakana:
Jessica ジェシカ
Jason ジェイソン
Ella エラ
Abigail アビー
There is one more alphabet of sorts - romaji. This is where you take roman letters and use them to spell out words in Japanese; so writing fuji or sushi so that we can read them easily just by pronouncing the letters like we are used to doing. This is not so exciting and not how anything is actually written here (why would it be?) but it's what I use to address e-mails or letters because I cannot write the kanji for people's names.
Since I was talking about names, its interesting that here in Japan, people do not sign their names, they have Hanko Stamps, which is a stamp with the spelling of their family name on it. There are craftsmen that make these in each town or village and no two stamps are exactly alike. So even though Jason and I would both have stamps that say "Woehrle" there would be subtle differences between the two - Jason's would be larger than mine since he is the man and the kanji would have masculine characteristics if a distinction existed. After you buy your stamp, you register it at the local government office so that its know that this is your signature (like signing your drivers license in the U.S., I guess?!). Some people also have a hanko stamp that includes your first and last name and this is used for real estate deals or banking, but the basic one is used for everything from signing for deliveries to signing a letter. As you've probably already thought of - if your stamp is stolen, you're in trouble! I guess since identity theft or crime of any sort is not all the prevalent here, it's not too big of a concern yet.
Well, that's what I've learned so far about Japanese language. It's a long post so hopefully you found it interesting or learned something. I don't know that all of its 100% accurate, but its what I've read and been told by people! Hopefully no one uses this in a thesis paper somewhere!
乾杯!
Jess
5:59 PM |
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