せんしゅうのしゅうまつ、アニメをみました。アニメのなまえはコードギアス One of the episodes was titled "The Battle of Kyushu", and きゅうしゅう was written in カタカナ：キューシュー。Since きゅうしゅう is an original Japanese city that has its own kanji, I thought it was weird that it was written in カタカナ。Here's my guess -- in this particular episode, the battle of きゅうしゅう was the determining battle that ended the first season of コードギアス。So, maybe because of its significance to the storyline, きゅうしゅう was written in カタカナ as a means of emphasis.
Then, while わたしはだいきゅうかのたんごうをならいました、one of the vocab words was "karaoke", except written in カタカナ：カラオケ。If カラオケis an original Japanese concept, why is it written in カタカナ? じゃあ、since カラオケhas become such an international phenomenon (わたしはニューヨーックにカラオケのバーをたくさんみました) maybe writing it in カラオケ is a way to reflect this international appeal. Of course, すし is just as well known as カラオケ and is not written in カタカナ, so I cannot be too sure.
No wonder why textbooks cannot make up their mind! Since カタカナ is pretty much set in usage for loan words and onomatopoeia, most textbooks have no problem mentioning these purposes. However, regarding the matter of emphasis, カタカナ usage becomes a personal preference, which may be why some textbooks just leave that reason out altogether.
Interesting! It seems like a lot of people ask about カラオケand according to what I just looked up, the word comes from から→空→（empty) + オケ→ orchestra. Since one of the words is a shortened version of an english word, I guess it ended up being written completely in katakana, even though the origins of the activity came from Japan. Katakana usage, hiragana usage, and kanji usage is definately hard since people use it as a tool and deviate from the rules to create more meaning. Goodluck!
ReplyDeleteWow! That makes a lot of sense! とてもおもしろいですね！どうも！
ReplyDeleteこんにちは。I looked up コードギアス on wikipedia and found that キュウシュウ is a city name based on the city in Japan, but it seems different from the real place. キュウシュウ seems only in the world of コードギアス. I also found so many カタカナ words used in コードギアス, like Tokyo is also written in katakana.
ReplyDeletehttp://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B3%E3%83%BC%E3%83%89%E3%82%AE%E3%82%A2%E3%82%B9_%E5%8F%8D%E9%80%86%E3%81%AE%E3%83%AB%E3%83%AB%E3%83%BC%E3%82%B7%E3%83%A5
あいさん、
ReplyDeleteどうもありがとう！That's extremely helpful and makes a lot of sense. ^_^