浜田先生 taught us that long ago, Hiragana was used by women while Katakana was used by men. This was an interesting bit of information. I tried to see if this had had any effect on today's use of Katakana but I could not find any correlations.
However, I found that nearly every Japanese company writes its own name in Katakana. For instance:
"Sony Corporation" は 日本語で ソニ です。 http://www.sony.co.jp/ これを みってください。
Also, sometimes the names of shows are written in Katakana, even when the name of the show might be composed entirely of Japanese words:
サムライ チャンプル は アニメ ですよ。 It is set in the ええどう era of Japan, a time when the society was feudal. Given what 浜田先生 had said about Katakana being used by men and Hiragana by women, I thought it might be insightful to see if there was any mention of that in this show. In an episode of the show, one of the characters is learning to read. However, he is taught in Hiragana instead of Katakana. Evidently the show is not that detail oriented, but then again i suppose it is very anachronistic as well.
So based on this analysis I can add to the list of Katakana uses the category of Proper Nouns (of businesses, titles, products).
I thought it was very interesting that you brought up the fact that historically men used Katakana and women used Hiragana. I wonder if this has anything to do with the choice of Katakana for loan words, instead of Hiragana. Could it be that only men used to travel outside of the country and the words that they had learned abroad were then written in Katakana? Eventually it became a trend to write borrowed words in Katakana?
ReplyDeleteそうですね。Names of companies are often written in katakana. どうしてですか？
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting that you think the anime is anachronistic. Maybe you are right, but it depends on which era they are talking about, I think. Also, they might thought that it's just manga, so who cares? どうしてサムライチャンプルーはカタカナですか？
Coincidentally, I just recently finished watching「サムライチャンプルー」myself. (I blew through it in like a week. It was pretty awesome. =) ) I also noticed upon watching the title sequence that they wrote out the word "samurai" in katakana. Actually, if you check out the credits, the character names are also written out in katakana (ie. ムゲン、ジン、and フウ) I noticed this with a lot of other series, too. I wonder why that is...
ReplyDeleteAs for サムライチャンプルー, it does have a hip hop kind of vibe to it, and katakana does have the harder angles and straighter lines that give it a bit of an "urban" feel...
hmm interesting.. I never thought about how complicated it was to try to explain why Katakana is used in a certain context, but not in the others. Is it completely random?? Or is it just something that 'feels' right? Maybe hiragana is too cute to be used in a formal context?? :P But, to me, Katakana does give a sense of masculinity as opposed to Hiragana which I would describe as softer and more feminine looking.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Sorry, this comment is made at 4 in the morning, so it probably doesn't make much sense...