Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Words for family members have two different forms in Japanese. When referring to one's own family members while speaking to a non-family-member, neutral, descriptive nouns are used, such as haha ( 母 ) for "mother" and ani ( 兄 ) for "older brother".
The Japanese language has a system of honorific speech, referred to as keigo (Japanese: 敬 （ けい ） 語 （ ご ）, literally "respectful language"), parts of speech one function of which is to show that the speaker wants to convey respect for either the listener or someone mentioned in the utterance. Their use is widely seen in a ...
Gairaigo are Japanese words originating from, or based on, foreign-language, generally Western, terms.These include wasei-eigo (Japanese pseudo-anglicisms).Many of these loanwords derive from Portuguese, due to Portugal's early role in Japanese-Western interaction; Dutch, due to the Netherlands' relationship with Japan amidst the isolationist policy of sakoku during the Edo period; and from ...
A kakekotoba (掛詞) or pivot word is a rhetorical device used in the Japanese poetic form waka.This trope uses the phonetic reading of a grouping of kanji (Chinese characters) to suggest several interpretations: first on the literal level (e.g. 松, matsu, meaning "pine tree"), then on subsidiary homophonic levels (e.g. 待つ, matsu, meaning "to wait").
Japanese wordplay relies on the nuances of the Japanese language and Japanese script for humorous effect, functioning somewhat like a cross between a pun and a spoonerism. Double entendres have a rich history in Japanese entertainment (such as in kakekotoba ) [ 1 ] due to the language's large number of homographs (different meanings for a given ...
Japanese people use them in contexts such as advertising to catch the reader's attention. Other uses of letters include abbreviations of spellings of words. Here are some examples: E: 良い /いい (ii; the word for "good" in Japanese). The letter appears in the name of the company e-homes.
By contrast, in Old Japanese -shiki (〜しき) adjectives (precursors of present i-adjectives ending in -shi-i (〜しい), formerly a different word class) were open, as reflected in words like ita-ita-shi-i (痛々しい, pitiful), from the adjective ita-i (痛い, painful, hurt), and kō-gō-shi-i (神々しい, heavenly, sublime), from the ...
The modern Japanese writing system uses a combination of logographic kanji, which are adopted Chinese characters, and syllabic kana.Kana itself consists of a pair of syllabaries: hiragana, used primarily for native or naturalized Japanese words and grammatical elements; and katakana, used primarily for foreign words and names, loanwords, onomatopoeia, scientific names, and sometimes for emphasis.