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Some Japanese personal names are written in katakana. This was more common in the past, hence elderly women often have katakana names. This was particularly common among women in the Meiji and Taishō periods, when many poor, illiterate parents were unwilling to pay a scholar to give their daughters names in kanji. [9]
Japanese does not have separate l and r sounds, and l-is normally transcribed using the kana that are perceived as representing r-. [2] For example, London becomes ロンドン (Ro-n-do-n). Other sounds not present in Japanese may be converted to the nearest Japanese equivalent; for example, the name Smith is written スミス (Su-mi-su).
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.
Today katakana is most commonly used to write words of foreign origin that do not have kanji representations, as well as foreign personal and place names. Katakana is also used to represent onomatopoeia and interjections, emphasis, technical and scientific terms, transcriptions of the Sino-Japanese readings of kanji, and some corporate branding.
Japanese names are usually written in kanji, where the pronunciation follows a special set of rules. Because parents when naming children, and foreigners when adopting a Japanese name, are able to choose which pronunciations they want for certain kanji, the same written form of a name may have multiple readings.
For example, the University of Tokyo, in Japanese Tōkyō Daigaku (東京大学) becomes Tōdai (東大), and "remote control", rimōto kontorōru (リモートコントロール), becomes rimokon (リモコン). Names are also contracted in this way. For example, Takuya Kimura, in Japanese Kimura Takuya, an entertainer, is referred to as Kimutaku.
Sa (hiragana: さ, katakana: サ) is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. Both represent [sa]. The shapes of these kana originate from 左 and 散, respectively. Like き, the hiragana character may be written with or without linking the lower line to the rest of the character.
It is, however, more common to use ディ instead, such as ディオン to translate the name Dion. In the Ainu language, チ by itself is pronounced [t͡s], and can be combined with the katakana ヤ, ユ, エ, and ヨ to write the other [t͡s] sounds. The combination チェ (pronounced [t͡se]), is interchangeable with セ゚.