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

Here's the link to the original video

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3754463487168189400#

An old song that I share with love :)

Over a decade ago, when I was in high school, my friend Daniel and I would sit in a coffeeshop in my hometown in Massachusetts and chat. We had some good times. I remembered that he was a very brilliant and creative soul and a admirer of Japan and wrote many songs. The following song, "Godzilla and King Kong" talks about two fictional characters destroyed (or attempting to destroy) New York and Tokyo. Here are the lyrics in Japanese- I hope they're correct.

The destruction of Tokyo has no "symbolic" meaning...it simply is what Godzilla does haha...
Here is the link to the recording of the song:
http://www.myspace.com/music/13349797/songs/24336164

Well Godzilla Said to King Kong,
I think that you and I will,
get along

そう、ゴジラがキングコングに言った
君と僕は仲良くなれると思うんだけど

But Kong replied, with a sarcastic remark:
I don't think that w'ell be friends
because I'm afraid of the dark

でもキングコングは嫌みったらしくこう答えた。
僕たちが友達になれるとは思えないんだけど
だって僕は暗いところが怖いんだ。

And last time I checked they said

Tokyo was gone
But New York City still stands
I'm sorry about your home but you'r more than welcome
to stay in the city with me

それで最後に確かめた時には
東京は消えちゃってた。
でもニューヨークはまだ残ってる。
君のふるさとには申し訳ないけど、いつでも大歓迎さ
君がニューヨークに残ってくれるなら

and Kong said why don't you and I can go and climb
a great big tower?
there's something I must tell you about having too much power...
a necessary truth that extends from Manhattan to the East
The Lesson you must learn is beauty killed the beast...

そしてキングコングが言ったんだ
一緒に摩天楼に上ろうよ！
力が大きすぎるとだめなんだってことを
それはマンハッタンから東京まで行き渡っている真実。
君が学ばなければならないのは、美しさが獣を殺すってことだ

And last time I checked they said

Tokyo was gone
But New York City still stands
I'm sorry about your home but you'r more than welcome
to stay in the city with me

それで最後に確かめた時には
東京は消えちゃってた。
でもニューヨークはまだ残ってる。
君のふるさとには申し訳ないけど、いつでも大歓迎さ
君がニューヨークに残ってくれるなら

The lesson you must learn t'was beauty killed the beast
The lesson you must learn t'was beauty killed the beast
The lesson you must learn t'was beauty killed the beast
The lesson you must learn....

君が学ばなければならないのは、美しさが獣を殺すってことだ
君が学ばなければならないのは、美しさが獣を殺すってことだ
君が学ばなければならないのは、美しさが獣を殺すってことだ
君が学ばなければならないのは・・・・

大阪で迷子になった

Could the greatest tragedy of our human experience in these coming decades be that young people know nothing of the rural life of the country, or life outside of these sprawling metropolises that humans are racing to create for themselves in every corner of the world. When did we come to believe that living in an anonymous apartment building with 200 other people made one a sophisticated cosmopolitan worthy of bestowing advice upon the modern day emperors of the world...and that living in the countryside with birds chirping and trees growing and fruits waiting to be picked  made one an uncivilized hick? Is the greatest trick of the 21st century a joke we're playing on ourselves: that we've led ourselves to believe that we have created a better nature out of concrete and steel? That we've created a better human by replacing the neighbor with the stranger, the life-long friend for the subway-ride morning acquaintance? That we've created powerful nations by trading black soot dug up from under the ground and exchanged it for cheap sneakers made in factories across the world by human slave laborers? Where is this progress we've been told all about? Or will the progress simply be that, when we realize that we have nothing left of our humanity after we have destroyed everything we've ever had, we've finally achieved a sort of warped "equality" in the oncoming incoherent void of meaninglessness and banality?

I read the news today

I found this article both sad and it made me think all afternoon about Japan's future. Please find my thoughts below.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/world/asia/17japan.html?src=me&ref=homepage

私はすべての日本人のために祈ります。日本がもっとよくなってさらに発展することを期待しています。私は日本の文化と歴史が好きです。

皆さんがこの困難な時を乗り越えられることを期待しています。日本語を勉強することで日米友好と両国の相互理解に貢献したいと思います

私たちの心には常に希望があります。だから日本の若者たちには希望を失わないでほしいです.

How bout a poem? 

If tonight, you find yourself lonely in the city of Osaka,

with no job to find and no hope to seek.

Please know that I am also here, standing in Manhattan.

Looking east or looking west, 

you will find me. 

Though my body's limits limit possibility,

I am now not interested in anything rational:

Thank goodness strangers never are. 

十月十一日の投稿

日本語のべんきょうは楽しいです、でもせんしゅうまつわたしはべんきょうしませんでした。私は叔母とげきをみました。それからお酒を飲みました。いいですね！！！セーターがかいたかったからお店に行きました。さくや私はスペインのぶんがくをよみました。