Last time, I pointed out two usages of カタカナthat befuddled me, since they were not examples of loan words or onomatopoeia. Well, now that I have been given some insight, I will tackle these カタカナwords again!
1. キューシュー
コードギアスがいつもみたかったです。さいきん、みました。On one of the last episodes of the first season, I noticed the title was "The Battle of Kyuushuu", with 九州 （きゅうしゅう）in カタカナ. Since きゅうしゅうis a にほんのまち that has its own かんじ, writing it in カタカナstruck me as weird. I guessed that きゅうしゅうwas written as キューシューto emphasize the fact that this battle was a deciding factor regarding the end of the first season. While that may or may not be true, I have also found out from a wonderful commentor that the places in コードギアス are meant to be parallels to にほんのまち, but not actually be the まちthemselves. For example, elsewhere in the series, とうきょうis even written in カタカナ. Apparently, these カタカナequivalents exist only in the world of コードギアス . This makes sense since コードギアス takes place in 2010, which was the near future for when it was released.
2. カラオケ
While わたしはだいきゅうかのたんごをならいました、I noticed that カラオケwas written in カタカナ. This also struck me as odd since カラオケis an original Japanese concept. My previous guess as to the reason for this was maybe カラオケbecame too globalized and it seemed only natural to write it in カタカナ. But this did not make sense to me then (since more popular words like すしand さむらいare not written in Katakana), and does not make sense to me now. Thankfully, a very helpful commentor mentioned that カラオケused to be spelled like this: からオケ. Just like けしゴム, the second part of the word was in カタカナand the first part ひらがな. Apparently, "から" means "empty" and "オケ" was meant to be an abbreviation for the English word "orchestra". Overtime,I guess it just became easier to write the entire word in カタカナ. Who knows, maybe eraser will be next!
If I got one thing out of this project, it's that カタカナis a tricky pickle to eat. Most textbooks have no problem agreeing that カタカナis used for loan words and onomatopoeia, since those usages are, for the most part, not debatable and clear cut. Some textbooks mention emphasis as a possible reason why some words would be written in カタカナ, but what does that even mean? At that point, カタカナrules give way to personal preference.This is why キューシューis an anomaly, since it's the result of artistic lisence. Nevertheless, none of the textbooks mention that カタカナusage varies with time and historial context, since this influence is unpredictable and ambiguous. This is why カラオケis uncategorized.
Well, I hope you learned something from this ^_^ バイバイ！
