Japanese Language

l'électeur

6:48 AM

@Choko 「も」の例文ワロタ。

Choko

7:07 AM

@l'électeur 不細工な女は性格も悪い。

でしょ

Choko

7:40 AM

なでしこってpinkって意味だったの

花の名前だと思っていたけど

Choko

8:34 AM

...which means pink. っていうと、

なでしこの花を指すことになるの

色じゃなくて

l'électeur

9:41 AM

@Choko 「なでしこ」と聞いて、真っ先に「色」を思い浮かべる人は少ないのでは？普通は花の名前だと思うと思います。私自身は、それがどんな色なのか今初めて知りました。実際、ユ‌ニフォームにもその色は反映されていませんしね。

Choko

11:37 AM

@l'électeur なでしこの花は、ピンクとは限らないと思います

赤もあるのでは

カーネーションとはちょっと違います

もっと小さい花だと

岩波国語辞典で「なでしこ」を調べてみましたが、

花を指すとは書かれていますが、ピンク色とか桃色とか、色を意味する語として使われるとは書かれていません

Anonymous

In English, pink was originally a general name for Dianthus flowers

Anonymous

And it came to be used as a color word figuratively

Anonymous

However, I don't think most English speakers know this meaning of pink

Anonymous

So it's possible that that user wrote 'pink' but meant 'Dianthus'

Anonymous

> The general name of various species of Dianthus (family Caryophyllaceæ), esp. of D. plumarius, a favourite garden plant, a native of Eastern Europe, with very numerous varieties having pure white, pink, crimson, and variegated sweet-smelling flowers. (from the definition for pink in the Oxford English Dictionary)

Earthliŋ

12:02 PM

@snailboat Is this a complete set of phonemes: / a i u e o k g s z t d n h b p m j r w ʜ ɴ Q / ?

Do people write ɯ instead of u?

Choko

1:30 PM

@snailboat was...

あの人、

おじいさんなのかな・・

@snailboat そうみたいね

コメントとか

My impression of pink is a flower..　からみても

白いのもあるのか・・

ほぼ青！

まさかと思ったけど

黄色もあるなんて

l'électeur

1:47 PM

好奇心旺盛やなあ。調べまくってるやん。

ワシは月曜の朝の決勝のことしか頭にない。

Choko

アジサイとか朝顔とか

バラとか

いろんな色があるでしょう

l'électeur

あるなあ

Choko

アジサイとか朝顔はphで色が変わる

けど

ほら、小さい、はますべり。。なんとかって花

あれは、種で決まる

@l'électeur 何の決勝？

サッカー?

l'électeur

そや

Choko

野球？

へえ

l'électeur

1:51 PM

なでしこや

Choko

そうなんだ

全然見てないｗｗ

知らんのかいな

知らんｗｗ

女子ワールドカップ決勝やで。

思い出した、ポーチュラカ

はなすべりひゆ？

l'électeur

1:54 PM

さっぱりわからん

花より団子や

Choko

いろんな色があるでしょう

l'électeur

あるなあ

ある花に関して、ワシ一年前にめっちゃ不思議な経験をしたんやけど、長すぎて書かれへん。才能があったら短編小説でも書きたいくらいの体験や。

Choko

臨死体験みたいな・・・？

l'électeur

ちゃう。殺すな！

Choko

よく言うやん、

お花畑に行って…

先祖にあって・・・

みたいな

l'électeur

2:01 PM

ちゃう。実世界での体験や。

Choko

げっ

-1

Q: なでしこ (the football team)

I would like to know the opinions of non-native speakers. The female Japanese football team is named なでしこ which means pink. My impression of pink is a flower which is cute but tiny and ephemeral. Whereas the members of なでしこ look far from being tiny and ephemeral, if not extremely stout and robus...

word-choice

マイナス票入ってるやん

あかんって・・

また怒らはるやん・・

l'électeur

CLOSEも入ってる

ま、確かにボーダーラインの質問やろな。

で、その花に関する体験以外に、もうひとつ大きな体験があってん、一年前。これもこいさんに話す機会がなかった。長すぎてここでも話されへん。

Anonymous

2:33 PM

@Earthliŋ You have the traditional system basically right, though I find that most people write /y/ and /u/ in phonemic transcriptions and save [j] and [ɯ] for phonetics. Also, many linguists write /H/ as /R/ instead.

Anonymous

However, there's also a non-traditional system. Some linguists consider that certain sounds which are traditionally considered allophones are becoming phonemes (basically due to loanwords).

Anonymous

These non-traditional phonemes include /š c č ǰ f/, which makes the non-traditional set at least /a i u e o/ plus /k g s š z ǰ t c č d n h f b p m y r w/ plus the special segments /H N Q/.

Anonymous

Here's a key to the non-traditional system, since it's probably not obvious what the letters are supposed to mean:

Anonymous

- /š/ is [ɕ], the sound you know from し: /šɑ ši šu še šo/ [ɕɑ ɕi ɕɯ ɕe ɕo] シャ・シ・シュ・シェ・ショ
- /c/ is [ts], the sound you know from つ: /cɑ ci cu ce co/ [tsɑ tsi tsɯ tse tso] ツァ・ツィ・ツ・ツェ・ツォ
- /č/ is [cɕ], the sound you know from ち: /čɑ či ču če čo/ [cɕa cɕi cɕɯ cɕe cɕo] チャ・チ・チュ・チェ・チョ
- /ǰ/ is [ɟʑ], the sound you know from じ: /ǰɑ ǰi ǰu ǰe ǰo/ [ɟʑɑ ɟʑi ɟʑɯ ɟʑe ɟʑo] ジャ・ジ・ジュ・ジェ・ジョ. /ǰ/ is sometimes [ʑ], usually word-internally.
- /f/ is [ɸ], the sound you know from ふ: /fɑ fi fu fe fo/ [ɸɑ ɸi ɸɯ ɸe ɸo] ファ・フィ・フ・フェ・フォ

Anonymous

As you can imagine, this non-traditional system isn't necessarily a desirable analysis when discussing Japanese in certain contexts. For example, treating these as phonemes makes discussing the morphology of Japanese verbs quite complicated. It's much easier to have /hanat-u/ and so forth.

Anonymous

2:35 PM

Also, some linguists have simplified /ǰ/ to /j/ on the principle that we should keep the symbols as simple as possible (the same reason everyone writes /u/ instead of /ɯ/). That gives us another reason to write [j] as /y/.

Anonymous

The status of /v/ is even more marginal, so even in the non-traditional analysis it's usually not considered a phoneme.

Anonymous

(The special symbols above s c j are called carons, by the way.)

Anonymous

Since the system of phonemes is in the process of changing, there's some debate as to how to analyze these. For example, traditionally you might analyze [ɟʑɑ ɟʑi ɟʑɯ ɟʑo] as /zya zi zyu zyo/, which is the analysis suggested by kana―and probably a more intuitive analysis for many speakers. But these sounds also appear before /e/ in loanwords (but not the other three strata), which is problematic for this analysis.

Anonymous

So I would say:
1. regular vowels /a i u e o/
2. regular consonants /k g s z t d n h b p m y r w/
3. special phonemes /H N Q/
4. non-traditional consonants /š ǰ c č f/

Anonymous

2:50 PM

Actually, there are marginal examples outside the loanword stratum. For example, ごっつぁん

Anonymous

This is one reason why some linguists propose a core-periphery model rather than suggesting Japanese has four discrete lexical strata

Earthliŋ

4:44 PM

@snailboat Oh, great. Thank you for all the info!

One more question. Yesterday you said capital letters would be better reserved for "other uses". What other uses would that be?

Anonymous

@Earthliŋ Well, not necessarily "better"―I'd prefer to remain neutral on the topic―but certainly some linguists do think it would be better

Anonymous

Anyway, for morphophonemes.

Earthliŋ

what's a morphophoneme?

Anonymous

Linguists have used capital letters for both archiphonemes and morphophonemes, which can be confusing.

Anonymous

I'm not sure I can really provide a good explanation since it's a topic I haven't read a lot about

Earthliŋ

4:53 PM

ok, no problem

Anonymous

But I've definitely seen linguists reserve capital letters for various things.

Anonymous

I tried to give two examples the other day, which I think are actually two different kinds of things

Anonymous

One was -Ta

Anonymous

The so-called t-morphemes are special in how they attach, and the capital T indicates that

Anonymous

The result depends on the sound they're attaching to

Anonymous

5:01 PM

I've also seen capital letters used to indicate irregular conjugation, so ラ変 verbs would be like aR- and woR-, and ナ変 like iN- and siN-

Earthliŋ

@snailboat and that makes it a morphophoneme, yes?

Anonymous

@Earthliŋ That's my understanding, but my understanding of that corner of linguistics is fairly limited

Anonymous

I need to read more about it

Earthliŋ

=)

Anonymous

It's where morphology and phonemics come together

Anonymous

5:04 PM

Someone else here may be able to provide a better / more accurate explanation :-)

Earthliŋ

Most of the linguistically inclined people aren't around anymore, as far as I can tell.

TheLittleNaruto

Minna san ^^

Earthliŋ

Like sawa, Matt, Boaz Yaniv...

Anonymous

5:36 PM

@TheLittleNaruto People say minna and mina-san but not *minna-san

TheLittleNaruto

My Apologies! That was just a typo! :)

Anonymous

No need to apologize :-)

TheLittleNaruto

How are you doing, Snail ?

It's been a while!

Anonymous

Like a couple years!

Anonymous

How's learning Japanese going?

TheLittleNaruto

5:40 PM

I haven't got started yet.

I learnt only few words

A Japanese gal, taught me Kanji's few words.

Anonymous

What brings you here to Japanese.SE chat today?

Anonymous

@snailboat: "'where was this picture/photo taken?' game"? Well, honesty is an art, indeed. — eltonjohn 10 hours ago

Anonymous

I don't quite know what this means :-)

TheLittleNaruto

6:09 PM

dunno! But I remember the time I used to come here.

So just came to check-in

Man! You're now a mod ?

That's awesome!

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