Posts

Kunoichi - The Tale of the Woman Ninja

Image
Kunoichi - Woman Ninja   くノ一 Kunoichi = Woman Ninja  く　ku  ノ　no 一　ichi  If you know anything about the Japanese writing system you might notice that this word uses not only Hiragana (the native Japanese writing system), Katakana (used primarily for foreign words) AND Kanji (used for Japanese/Chinese words). This is not by accident, this is by design. The word originated not from any particular verbal linguistic routes but rather from a kanji itself. The word is for women ninjas and as such the word is taken from a deconstructed 女 kanji, it itself the word for " woman ." Yes, that means to say that the word for "woman ninja" is ... " woman " (deconstructed). Kanji for woman  The first stoke く is in blue, the second ノ is in green, and the third 一 is in pink.  The word for woman is written using 3 strokes. The first resembling the Hiragana ku く, the next one resembles the Katakana no ノ (For reference the Hiragana no is の), and fin...
Post a Comment
Read more

Japanese vs English: An Introduction

Japanese vs English: How they differ and how they relate Before you read:  In grammar, sentences are broken down into some basic sections. I will focus on only three of them for this post.  Words to know Subject : The topic of a sentence that one is speaking about. Example: David drives a car. David = subject Object : Something involved in an action, in relation to a verb, in a sentence. For simplicity, it can be thought of as the noun (or noun phrase) in a sentence. Example: David drives a car .  A car = object Verb : The action that happens in a sentence. Example: David drives a car. Drives = verb  The Grammar of the English Language Compared to Japanese English is a West Germanic language. The grammatical structure is (very) basically: Subject / Verb / Object Example:       I       /         go       /    ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Linguistics: An Introduction

Image
Linguistics: The study of language A special note about this blog. This blog assumes you are able to read Japanese at at least a college level. Rarely, if ever, will a transcription (Romaji) be provided. If you are having trouble reading the characters please feel free to download a wonderful Firefox extension called Rikai-chan . For Chrome please search for Rikai-kun  What are Linguistics? Or should I say, what is Linguistics? Simply put it is the study of language . Within the incredibly broad category of linguistics there are many subfields of study. Including, but not limited to: (All definitions listed below unless otherwise stated are derived from Linguistics An Introduction to Language and Communication Fourth Edition / Akmajin, Adrian 1995) Pragmatics: The study of language use and its relation to language structure and context of utterance. In other words:  How language is used . Phonology: The subfield of linguistics that studies the structure ...
Post a Comment
Read more