As we have seen from the previous group postings regarding カタカナ, they are categorized depending on the use of them.
1) カタカナ is used for foreign names, foreign countries, and foreign loanwords. For example トマト (tomato) or アメリカ (America).
2) カタカナ is often used in science. Names of minerals, animals, plants, and various diseases are written in カタカナ. For example カエル (frog) or キャンサー (cancer).
3) Nowadays it's very common to spell out names of different companies in カタカナ such as スズキ (Suzuki) or ホンダ (Honda).
What I would like to research more for this project is the use of カタカナ for foreign countries. Why is it that some countries are written in カタカナ and others are not. Countries like スペイン (Spain) and イタリア (Italy) are written in カタカナ while countries such as ちゅうごく (China) and かんこく (Korea) are written in Hiragana (in our case) or Kanji. My first thought was: Well, countries such as China and Korea have had relations with Japan since ancient times, so the names for the surrounding countries in East Asia have had their names for quite some time, way before カタカナ was even invented. Western countries came into the picture much later from a Japanese perspective and therefore the names of those countries were made as we went. The general pattern that one can spot is that the names of the countries in Western Europe and North America usually are written and pronounced in similar to the English pronunciation or similar to the pronunciation of the native language of that specific country. However there are a couple of cases that breaks away from the general pattern. Countries like イギリス (England) and ブラジロ (Brazil) do not follow this pattern. Why is Brazil written as "Burajiro" and England as "Igirisu"? How did these names come into place?
This is something that I will try to do some more research on within the next few weeks. I will try to reach out to the few Japanese friends that I have and see what they have to say. There must be some explanation behind the creation of these names that don't follow the general pattern.
ほんとうに？Katakana in science! そして、「バイオジオケミストリをべんきょうします」といえます！It's much easier to just write it in カタカナ than trying to figure out how to translate it. どうもありがとう！Good luck with your project!
ReplyDeleteヤコブさん、こんにちは！
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting to see how foreign words and sounds including country names are transcribed in Katakana.
However, I think it'd be more interesting to analyze why Katakana is used to express Japanese items such as スズキ or ホンダ even though they can be written in hiragana or kanji.
Animals and disease names are also written in hiragana and kanji. For example, カエル is often written in kanji '蛙', and キャンサー has a Japanese equivalent 'ガン' (also written in kanji '癌').
In what context do you think these words are expressed in Katakana, and why?
Are there any other words that do not match with the traditional explanations about the Katakana usage?
If you find it difficult to analyze your words any deeper, try to find examples that you can do more research and go beyond the explanations given in the textbook:)
Good luck!
TA Miyamoto
Very interesting analysis!
ReplyDeleteI think you explained very well about the use of katakana in regards to the names of foreign countries. What do you think about other usage, i.e., why do some companies spell out their name in katakana?
Also, don't forget to compare and analyze how different textbooks explain katakana.