第７課 ： お化けと幽霊

今日はお化けと幽霊について話しました。本文はいかに書いてあります。

 お化けと幽霊

怪談というと夏の夜のもので、夏はお化けの季節だなどというが、これはほっとまずい。言うならば、夏は幽霊の季節である。

お化けと幽霊の違いについては、柳田国男氏の「妖怪談義」のなかの説が要を得ている。氏によると、第一にお化けは出没する場所が決まっていたが、幽霊のほうは足がないにもかかわらず風のようにどこへでも出張していくものであると言う。　第二にお化けはだれかれの見境なしに「バー！」とやって喜んでいるが、幽霊のほうは特定の人だけをつけねらって他には心を向けない。　第三には幽霊は丑三つの鐘が陰にこもってもの すごくというような刻限に限って戸をたたいたり、屏風の背後に潜んだりするが、お化けのほうは得意にそういう面倒な時間を定めることもないというのである。

要するに、お化けは大衆的でタクシーごとく、幽霊はエリート的ハイヤーのようなものである。

[DYK] Names for the Days of the Week

The Solar System and Names for Days

For some time following adoption of a lunar calendar, Japan used Chinese sexagenary cycles for naming days and years. However, there is evidence that from 807, a seven day week with names related to the “planets” had found its way to Japan.

The seven “sei” (solar system bodies including the Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn) were as important to early calendar scholars in Japan as they were anywhere else, regardless of the inadequacy of accurate methods for determining their motion.

The names come from the five visible planets, which in turn are named after the five Chinese elements (wood, fire, earth, metal, water), and from the moon and sun (yin and yang).

- Click on the image to view full version.

じゃ、またね

Source:
http://www2.gol.com/users/stever/calendar.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_months

[DYK] Names for Months

In more ancient times, names for months did not follow the Chinese model of simple numbering; each month had a distinct name related to agriculture and the seasons. However, in modern times, even before the Meiji Restoration and consequent adoption of the Gregorian system, months were numbered sequentially [note the Kanji (Chinese Character) for moon is used for "month"]:

- Click on the image to view full version.

*People believed that in NanaTsuki (October), all the gods and deities gathered at Izumo Shrine (near modern Matsue in Shimane Prefecture). In a sense, for other Prefectures, it was a “Month of No Gods”.

Source:
http://www2.gol.com/users/stever/calendar.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_months

[DYK] Parts of the Body Trivia

In Japanese culture, the eyes are the most important part of the face. Japanese has many proverbs about eyes, and one of them says “the eye talks as much as the mouth does”, which means you can express and read emotions through eyes. This is one reason why eyes of Japanese manga and animation characters are exaggerated.

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The nose is the least important part of the face in Japanese culture.

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In colloquial Japanese, the word “bero” is more commonly used for tongue.

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In colloquial Japanese, the word “odeko” is more commonly used for forehead.

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Kubi also means firing a person. It comes from decapitation as a metaphor of dismissal.

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Tenohira (palm) consists of three parts: te (hand), the genitive marker no, and hira (flat surface).

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Tenokou (back of the hand) word consists of three parts: te (hand), the genitive marker no, and kou (tortoise shell).

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The word “oya” means parent, so oyakubi literally means parent finger.

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Hitosashiyubi comes from “hito” (person), “sashi” (the noun form of the verb “sasu”, which means point), and yubi (finger), so its literal meaning is person-pointing finger.

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Since the word “naka” means middle, nakayubi is exactly the same as middle finger.

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The word “kusuri” means medicine, and kusuriyubi literally means medicine finger. The ring finger often has a strange name in many languages, such as ring finger in English and “wúmíngzhî” in Mandarin, which literally means nameless finger. Those names are probably related; ancient people thought the ring finger was a magic finger.

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The prefix “ko” means little, so koyubi is the same as little finger.

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またね。

Source:
www.sf.airnet.ne.jp/_ts/japanese/index.html
http://www.anikaos.com/chibi_anime_gifs_gallery.html
http://sugroups.wustl.edu/~anime/library/inventory.cgi?title=%5E%5BI-O%5D
http://tell.fll.purdue.edu/JapanProj//FLClipart/Medical.html 

[DYK] Hentaigana?

Sound familiar? I read this in wikipedia.org after browsing for some kana information:

Hentaigana (変体仮名) are alternative kana letterforms equivalent to standard kana characters.

Hentaigana were used more or less interchangeably with their equivalent hiragana on an ad hoc, individual basis until 1900.

Hentaigana are considered obsolete in modern writing, but a few uses still remain. For example, many soba shops use hentaigana to spell kisoba on their signs.

Hentaigana are used in some formal handwritten documents, particularly in certificates issued by classical Japanese cultural groups (e.g., martial art schools, etiquette schools, religious study groups, etc).

Also, hentaigana are occasionally used in reproductions of classic Japanese texts. Hentaigana may be used much like blackletter in English and other Germanic languages, to give an archaic flair.

However, most Japanese people are unable to read hentaigana, only recognizing a few from their common use in shop signs, or figuring them out from context.

Note that this hentai (変体: “variants”) is not the same word as the hentai (変態) from which the English slang term is derived.

Click here for a Hentaigana chart.

Note: 変体 <- if you take each kanji individually, 変 means change or strange while 体 means form or body (as in karada). Although 態 in 変態 also means appearance, synonymouse to form. :confused:

Ja, mata ne.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hentaigana
Image: Copyright under Creative Commons

[DYK] wi and we

Two redundant letters, wi ゐ (hiragana) ヰ (katakana) and we ゑ (hiragana) ヱ (katakana) in their hiragana form, were abolished.

I’m not sure why the site only mentioned hiragana. I have not encountered their katakana forms either.

Ja, mata ne.

Source: http://www.cjvlang.com/Writing/writjpn.html

[DYK] History of Kana

Both hiragana and katakana developed from the ancient kana system man’yōgana, a kind of phonetic characters using kanji. Man’yōshū, a poetry anthology assembled in 759, is written in this early script.

Kana is traditionally said to have been invented by the Buddhist priest Kūkai in the 9th century. Kūkai certainly brought the Siddham script home on his return from China in 806; his interest in the sacred aspects of speech and writing led him to the conclusion that Japanese would be better represented by a phonetic alphabet than by the kanji which had been used up to that point.

The present set of kana and rules for their usage were codified in 1946.

You can also read detailed History of Hiragana and Katakana at wikipedia.org.

Ja, mata ne.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kana#History_of_kana

[DYK] Kana order

The order of kana came from Devanagari, which is a phonetic alphabet used for Indian languages such as Sanskrit and Hindi.

Devanagari’s vowel order is: a, â, i, î, u, û, r, e, ê, o, ô. Its consonant order is from the back of the tongue to the lips:

velars (k, g, ng)
palatals (ch, j, ny)
retroflexes (.t, .d, .n)
alveolars (t, d, n)
bilabials (p, b, m)
semivowels (y, r, w)
and fricatives (sh, s, h).

Japanese doesn’t have retroflexes, and the consonant of the syllables now represented by “h” + vowels was “p”.

In addition, some linguists think the consonant of the syllables now represented by “s” + vowels was “ch”. (Other linguists think it was either “ts” or “sh”.)

Devanagari’s consonant order thus gives the Japanese consonant order: k, ch (later s), t, n, p (later h), m, y, r, and w.

Ja, mata ne.

Source: http://www.sf.airnet.ne.jp/ts/japanese/table.html