Katakana Analysis Draft

I am constantly struck by the beauty and utility of the Japanese writing systems. For today's class we compiled several interesting cases of Katakana and brought them here. The first is アイヌ, the name of the ethnic group located in Hokkaido. Their name and language is written in Katakana. Yet, groups such as Korean-Japanese peoples are written in Hiragana or Kanji (ちょうせんじ 朝鮮人). Is this an historical accident or a reflection on conceptions of self and other within Japanese society? The Ryukyuan people's name is also written in Kanji and Hiragana (琉球民族). It might be possible that the Ainu were ethnically classified later than the other groups and hence had their name written in Katakana. Another important note is that the Ainu have greatly mixed with Japanese peoples and the number of native Ainu speakers is today very low (less than 1,000) - therefore "Ainu" has a somewhat abstract, academic connotation similar to "Iroquois" in English.


The second interesting set of Katakana is でんわ vs. テレビ, スパー vs. 図書館, 電報 (telegram) - they are interesting because they reflect the experience of modernization and the Industrial Revolution in Japan. These are examples of an interesting historical-linguistic phenomenon. Why did Japan adopt some western words and why did they invent some Japanese words. Our group thesis is that 19th century Post-Meiji Restoration Japan sought actively to "indigenize" new technological and "modernizing" terms. Post World War Two Japan appears to have been more inclined to absorb words directly from the West. This is very significant because the process of making words "indigenous" to a culture directly relates to how that culture relates to foreign ideas. For instance, the word "Zen" in English is originally a Japanese word deriving from the Chinese word "Chan" to denote a type of Buddhist practice. While English has "indigenized" the word (eg. She's really zen today"), it remains to a certain extent consciously a non-English word. The word "messiah," referring to the Jewish figure appearing at the end of Apocalyptic Age according to the Bible derives from the Hebrew word מָשִׁיחַ, meaning "Anointed one" or "king." Yet unlike "Zen," few English speakers would be able to identify "messiah" as originally a foreign word. Since all language is fundamental a social construct which culturally conditions us with ideas of "gender" "normality" and the "profane," it would be interesting to study whether Japanese people also had a different relationship to words which entered the language in the Post-Meiji period and were thus written in Hiragana versus words that were adopted later, with Katakana. 


As to why textbooks explain katakana in different ways, I think it is simply because the concept is so abstract and ambiguous and the kana has so many different utilities. I conceive of it like this, how could you explain to a person who never learned how to read and write any letters or numbers why we have different systems of writing to express the same thing: "one, two, three" "1,2,3" "I,II,III". All three of those systems are used in the English language. Why? Historical accident and culturally "irrationality" - English speakers and westerners in general tend to believe that Roman numerals "I,II,III" are more civilized and professional than the Arabic numerals. Hence, on monuments we use Roman Numerals "Built in XDCIII" even though it would be much easier to write "Built in 18..." The answers as to "why" is kind of like "why do we still tie our shoes with laces even though we now have velcro, zippers, and various other improved technologies?" The bottom line is that human beings have emotional relationships with the languages they speak and the languages they write. Conservatives who seek to avoid change or reform of any writing system act as such because they are in touch with the human emotional need and desire for meaning in life. Language gives people meaning and is one of the greatest sources of meaning in our life - languages are conscious of this : the Christian conception of the deity proclaims him to be "the logos" - the word (Greek: logos λόγος). The Chinese word for culture is "wenhua" 文化, "wen" meaning "writing" and "hua" meaning transformation or change - "culture" is fundamentally defined as being "transformed through the human activity of writing." The Arabic word for "literature" adab (أدب) is the same word for "politeness." When you say in Arabic, "that person has adab", you're saying that person is polite, refined but also literally, that person is "literature." Once you get into the psychology, the emotion, the "religion" that is human language, understanding what "Katakana" is - with all of its ambiguities and shades of meaning - becomes possible. The Japanese today use katakana to express cases of onomatopoeia, emphasis, loanwords, among others things because of a combination of historical accidents and trends, culturally elite tastes, culturally conservative forces, and to differentiate"self" and "other" on the linguistic level. Why does it exist? The same reason Roman Numerals are imprinted on the Supreme Court building - this is, after all a very human language. 


Citations:
Japanese Wikipedia was used for the "Ainu" and "television" examples.
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A2%E3%82%A4%E3%83%8C
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%86%E3%83%AC%E3%83%93


Information for terms such as "Library" was found on the website of the National Diet Library:
http://www.ndl.go.jp/
国立国会図書館