Katakana analysis final

Instead of restating what I already put in my draft, I am just going to make some broader conclusions referring back to my original examples. I don't really have any corrections to make to my draft.

I think the most fascinating thing about katakana is that it shows language in motion. In western languages we have all sorts of loan words adopted over the years, many of which we have forgotten are loan words, maybe because we don't write them in a separate alphabet. For example, many English words are actually loan words from French dating back to the Norman conquest and the forced use of French in the court and in legal documents. That's why we have redundant phrases like "aiding and abetting": one is from the French and one is from the Anglo-Saxon tradition. Both were used to ensure everyone would understand. It's also why we say, for example, "Tort law." The examples are endless--I've readed that up to a third of English is actually derived from Norman/French loan words. 

 

And of course, French is derived from all sorts of borrowed words from Latin, Celtic, and Germanic languages, not to mention the more recent influx of English words. And yet, if we look at French now, there is an institutional obsession with the purity of the language and stemming the flow of English words like "E-mail" and "stereo" into modern French. The Académie française strictly defines what is considered a French word and what is not. And they are known to refuse loan words, like "E-mail" and replace them with artificially Frenchified words, in this case "courriel" taken from the Quebecois. They actually fine companies and institutions that use the word "e-mail" in official documents. Most people still say e-mail. http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2003/07/59674

 

 

The Académie Française. It's imposing.

 

Now, why do I make this long digression? Because I think the most fascinating thing about katakana is that it creates a unique liminal space where loan words are indicated as such, but allowed to enter the language and begin the long process of Japaneseification. We've already seen words that seem pretty close to their English equivalent, like "シナモン", as well as words that have been modified such that we don't recognize them at first, like ”パソコン.” When do they stop being loan words? When do they become Japanese words? Thanks to three writing systems, reading Japanese is watching linguistic history in the making.

My second and third examples, 皮フ科 and the postal 〒, also show linguistic history in the making, but in different ways. In the first case, you see the official standardization of kanji  in for example 1981 with joyo kanji, the official 1945 characters established by the Ministry of Education. In the second example, you see the shifting use of the katakana alphabet itself over history. The postal mark is not from a loan word; rather, it is a historical trace leading us back to a time when literacy was less common and katakana was more widespread. It also shows how characters can make the long trek from ideograms (kanji) to phonemes (or in hiragana and katakana's case, syllabaries--symbols representing syllables) to an ambiguous mark that could be syllabary or ideogram, but is probably closest to a brand, like the McDonalds "M" arch, but with more history and less cynical corporate machinations behind it.

At first when we started learning katakana, I was frustrated: why are there two alphabets? Why does it have to be so complicated? Why can't they just write everything in hiragana. Now I am beginning to appreciate how katakana opens the Japanese language to outside influences in a way that, for example, official French is incapable of doing. At the same time, it seems to protect a core of Japanese words with their origins in very old Chinese loan words and innovations particular to the Japanese archipelago. it will be really interesting to see what katakana words are eventually written in hiragana or even kanji and how this decision occurs.

こちらは私のねこ

みんなさん　私は　ねこが　いっびき　います。こちらは　私のねこ。

ねこのなまえは　オリベル (Oliver) です。オランジとしろい　ねこ　です。オリベルは　きれいなねこ　ですが、とても　わるい　ねこ　ですよ。とても　たけだけしい　(ferocious) ねこ　です。

オリベルは　ドアのうえに　です。

 オリベルは　きょねんのふゆ　氷田（field of eternal snow) に　います。とても　ちいさかったです。My dad found him out in the snow on the farm when he was just a kitten. He was about to die from the cold and lack of food.

オリベルは　あたたかい　きゅにゅをいっぽん　のみました。I rubbed him down with some towels and stuck him in a box near the heater. オリベルは　いっしゅかんぐらい　ねました。それから、オリベルは　おげんき　でした。オリベルは　いま　とても　にきやか　ですよ。

オリベルは　さかなが　すき　です。はなも　すき　です。 わたしたちは　ときどき　いっしょうに　ねます。いいですね。

(しゃしん　forthcoming.)

War Guilt

I really hope some of you EALAC students speak German. This is a really interesting article comparing the development of the German and Japanese nation states up until WWII and then how they've dealt with similar issues of guilt as well as modernization and dealing with their imperial legacies since WWII. I'd be really interested to know what some of you think.

http://www.zeit.de/2010/46/Kriegsschuld-Deutschland-Japan?page=1

Here's the first part of this translated (by me, which means it's not a great trans.):

Following the big delusion

Japan and Germany are both burdened with difficult war guilt. [This article is about] how they tried to come to terms with their own histories and with their neighbors.

I. Japan, Germany, and their neighbors: what is similar or the same in our two countries?

We are both nation states. Both were, compared to other nations in the world, misled by imperialism relatively late—beginning in the end of the 19^th century and then brutally and recklessly [sick auswirkend] in the first half of the 20^th century.  This was a tragic factor in the history of our two countries.

I want to give two examples of what I mean with historically late imerialism. If German military imperialism under Hitler took place a hundred years earlier, then comparisons with Napoleon or Caesar or Alexander the Great would have been at hand [nahegelegen, lit. lying nearby].

Of course, all wars, everywhere in the world, and especially wars of conquest, go hand in hand with an increase in brutalities. Comparison is of course impossible, in the case of Germany, with the industrial extermination of millions of European Jews. Germany is, with regards to this point, dissimilarly more heavily burdened than Japan—or the Soviet Union or England, France, or the USA. If the Japanese aggressions, against Korea, Manchuria—and later all of China—and many southeast Asian countries, had taken place 100 or 130 years earlier, the rest of the world would have compared them to the imperialism of the big European nations, with Napoleons conquest of almost all Europe or with the colonial conquests of most European nations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. If the slavery of Korean workers and comfort women had taken place 100 years earlier, then it might have been compared with slavery in the USA, which could only be suppressed through the bloody civil war of the 1860s. And the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, if it had taken place 130 years earlier, might have been compared to the bombardment of the Danish capital of Copenhagen by the British navy.

Obviously, the aforementioned significant historical comparisons can never erase the underlying fact: each crime remains a crime. In the process, however, one should put forth an import observation: there is no collective guilt of an entire nation for the crimes of its political and military leaders. Guilt only affects [betrifft] the criminals, not the entire nation. It does not affect [betrifft] therefore the entirety of all Japanese or all German soldiers. There is no collective guilt, but no doubt many personal guilts—especially in the political and military leadership.

Contemporary Japanese and Germans are in no way complicit to the crimes that took place in the Second World War. They are, however, no doubt on both sides responsible for insuring that similar crimes cannot occur again in the future. And it remains our task, in this sense, to appeal to the next generations.

With regard to the economic development of our two countries, we can put forth with satisfaction that both have, since the 1860s achieved enormous technological, industrial, and civilizational development, which at the same time imply opening [morally and politically] and modernization. The catalysts were the so-called Meiji Restoration (which is by the way a misleading word: 1868 was not so much a restoration as a modernization, really a revolution), and on the German side the Fin de siècle particularity of Bismark’s founding of the empire.

We can say today with great satisfaction: Japan and Germany belong to the technological, economic, and intellectual world elite [Weltspitze—apex of the world]. We have both globalized our economies far and wide. In the process, we have become strikingly dependent on imports of oil and other raw material and on maritime traffic [Verkehrswegen]. We are as a result affected in similar ways by the current world recession. Despite that, both nations continuously and structurally achieve trade surpluses, which the nations with trade deficits are not exactly ecstatic about.

To the similarities between the two nations also belongs the important hint of the fact that the populations of both Japan and Germany have been declining for several years as a result of low birthrates. This presents significant consequences. The current debate in Germany over Hartz IV or over Rente mit 67 is only a forerunner of future developments, which are going to play out fully in both nations.

Katakana²

Robots' speech is written with katakana in mangas. But what happens when a robot tries to use a loan word? How can it demonstrate that a given word, like リプトン or マリア, is not a native Japanese word? Find out in this tragic tale of robotic love and conflicting uses of katakana...

You probably need to blow it up a little to read the captions, but in case you can't, of if you can't read my handwriting, here is what is written (it goes right to left, Japanese style of course : ))

1. みて　ください。わたしは　ロボットをかきました。みなさん　こちらは　わたしのロボット！

2. オハヨウ　ゴザイマス。

3.　わたしのロボットのなまえは　リプトン　です。わるい　おちゃをつくります (to make)　から。

オチャ　モウ　イッパイ　イカガデスカ。

ありがとう　ございます。

４．いい　ロボット　ですが、。。。

ワタシハ　リプ。。。　りぷ。。。

--ERROR--

カーブーン！

。。。

５．ダンスおしゃましょう！ パーテイをしゃましょう！

モウ　イッパイ　イカガデスカ。

６．リプトンは　ひとり　です。たいへんですね！

パーテイは　たのしくないですが。。。

ワタシハ　トモダチガ　イマセン。

７．こんばんは。わたしは　マリアさんです。はじめ　まして。　いっしょうに　ダンスをしゃませんか。

8．それから　えいがをまます。

9。そして　レストランで　ラーメンをたばます。

シュリプ

10。それから。。。

わたしは　リプトンさんが　とてもすきです。

ワタシハ　マリ。。。　まり。。。　スキ。。。　サンガ。。。

—ERROR—

Writing Assignment 2: Letter

山田さん、

おはよう　ございます。　わたしは　マット　です。　すみません、わたしの日本語は　ちょっと。。。　日本語が　あまり　わかりませんから。

アメリカのヴィラギニアから　きましたが、わたしは　８月に　ニューヨークへいきました。コロンビアだいがくのがくせい　ですから。　わたしのクラスは　むずかしいですが、とても　たのしいです。おもしろい　せんせい　ですから。

ニューヨークのせいかつは　とても　にぎやかです。　そして　べんりですが、　しずかじゃ　ありません。山田さんの町（まち）は　どう　ですか。　しずかですか。

ちいさい　アパートが　あります。ふるいですが、きれいです。山田さんのうちは　どう　ですか。

どんな　スポーツが　すきですか。わたしは　サッカーが　すきです。そして　たっきゅが　すきです。　

あ！　もう　１２じです！　そろそろ　しつれい　します。　にほんごの　クラスへいきます。


じゃ　また　らいねん、
Matt
（マット）
１１月１日　ニューヨーク

Paris syndrome

I've mentioned this to several of my classmates. I thought I would post it.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15391010/

Apparently many Japanese tourists in Paris go into shock when they realize how different Paris is from what they've imagined. Many people criticize Paris and Parisians for being unfriendly and snooty. I am pretty sure this is because there are too many tourists in Paris. My brother lives near Montmartre and says he feels like he lives in an aquarium every time he steps out of his apartment ("Look! A REAL Parisian!!! Look at his elegant scarf! Take a picture, quick!!!") but apparently Japanese tourists find it particularly shocking, and there are enough incidences of psychological breakdown by Japanese tourists in Paris that it has it's own clinical name, "Paris Syndrome." I can understand, since the whole ちょっと。。。 thing and the many other ways of being polite really run against the grain of French culture. We are brought up to be fairly skeptical of others, ("L'enfer, c'est les autres." Hell is others). We use negaitve politeness (i.e. we do not identify with others; we leave formal distance between "us" and "them"), whereas the Japanese seem to use more inclusive politeness (being very friendly, trying to be of service, asking what the other person wants to do). We are also brought up to be very critical for the most part, whether of the government, our teachers, our friends, our parents, the food at a restaurant, a movie--critical of everyone and everything really. The idea that we should express criticism delicately or indirectly (or even, horror of horrors, keep it to ourselves!) is very very hard for me to handle.

Here is a scene from Proust's famous novel In Search of Lost Time. It is an exaggeration, but it is indicative of an ideal in France. The narrator and the person he is describing (M. de St-Loup) become inseparable friends after this! (This is my trans. sorry I'm not so good at this)

"This insolence that I suspected in M. de Saint-Loup, and all the natural severity that it implied, was verified by his attitude each time he passed by us, body inflexibly pushed forward, head held high with an impassive look (an understatement to say the least), barren of any of that vague respect for the rights of other creatures, even if they know your aunt, and which made it so that one did not act in exactly the same manner with an elderly woman as with a gas lamp [...] one day I met them [Saint-Loup and his aunt] in such a narrow passage that she [his aunt] could not avoid presenting us to one another. He did not seem to notice that she was presenting someone to him; no muscle on his face moved; his eyes, which did not shine with even the weakest warmth of human sympathy, only showed, in their insensitivity, in their futile gaze, an exageration of the defect from which nothing could differenciate them from lifeless mirrors. Then, he focused his hard eyes on me as if he wanted to investigate me before returning my salutation, which he did with a brusque release, seeming more like a muscular reflex than an act of the will, putting the greatest distance possible between he and I, and extending his arm to its fullest length in order to shake my hand. I expected no less than a duel when I received his visiting card the next day. But he only talked to me about literature, and after a long conversation, he declared that he wanted nothing more than to see me each day for several hours."

NOT gonna fly in Japan! But note that, once you pierce the implacable disdain, Saint-Loup becomes very very kind. And not everyone in France is like this! Skip Paris and go to the countryside if you ever go to France! My heartfelt sympathies to any Japanese people who have suffered from this condition... I will try to be friendlier next time I am in Paris visiting family.

日本のえいがをみました

わたしは　木よう日　と　登よう日に　日本のえいがをみました。　Kabei: our mother と　Tokyo Storyをみました。いい　えいがですよ！　There's a lot of people coming into houses or leaving houses, so I recognized many of the phrases we've been going over in class, such as, ごめん　ください、もう　いっぱい　いかがですか　and much more here and there. The highlight of watching these films was that in Kabei there is a scene where a professor is being interrogated by a former student of his (now a government prosecutor) and calls him X-くん (around 1 hour 09 minutes into the film)。 The prosecutor/former student gets very angry about the usage of -kun now that he is in an authority position over his sensei. The translation doesn't catch this at all. I was really glad that I was able to pick up that nuance!

Tokyo Story might be a little slow for most people, but it's a beautiful and touching movie which anyone from any modernized country can relate to (parents being ignored by their busy, now grown-up, children).

Kabei is a more dramatic film. It very subtly builds up your expectations that this will be a melodrama with a happy ending, then thwarts them with several scenes that look like typical happy ending moments at first, then turn out to be supremely devastating. Some people might criticize this film because it focuses on resistance to WWII in Japan and glides over some of the atrocities committed, similar to the way movies about the French resistance make it seem like everyone in France was cutting telephone lines and assassinating SS officers when in reality many were collaborating... Nonetheless, it is a touching film, especially for me, since it follows the plight of a radical scholar accused of being a communist/traitor and thrown into jail after he criticizes the war with China.

Katakana analysis draft

Example: シナモン　

Meaning: Cinnamon

Source: Incense packaging

There are two other words for cinnamon in Japanese: けいひ and にっけい　(http://www.online-dictionary.biz/english/japanese/meaning/cinnamon). So why use a loan word in katakana? I have several hypotheses. Cinnamon is a plant and plant names are often written in katakan, but that leaves us with the question: why a loan word? This could just be for effect (to sound modern, sophisticated as one of the textbooks explain, or it could be to avoid confusion, since かいひ and にっけい can be written with different kanji to mean other things.  For ex. けいひ can also mean expenses or cost outlay apparently (http://www.online-dictionary.biz/japanese/english/meaning/%E3%81%91%E3%81%84%E3%81%B2).

Example: 皮フ科 (hifuka)

Meaning: Dermatologist

Source: Dermatologist's website (www.m-nomura.com/der)

I actually found about this usage by reading about katakana in the first weeks of this course. This website (http://www.sljfaq.org/afaq/katakana-uses.html) has a very good explanation of many of the more obscure uses of katakana. According to it, the フ is a stand-in for an obscure kanji, 膚. I just found a dermatologist's website to verify that this was true.

Example: 〒

Meaning: This is the sign for post office in Japan. It is short for teishin (逓信 meaning communications)

Source: I saw this while looking at pictures of Japanese streets, then did some research: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_postal_mark, http://www.quirkyjapan.or.tv/saq.html.

This stylized テ came into use in the Meiji era, when literacy was less common. So, the symbol is used as a stand-in for an obscure kanji and to add emphasis, since they used the mark to make the postal mark more recognizable.