I see katakana as a tool to emphasize the word in question. Because it has this capability, it is often used to represent words from foreign languages (many of which have kanji or hiragana terms that convey similar ideas) and in onomatopoeia.
Wikipedia mentions that katakana is also regularly used for scientific terms and the names of plants, animals, and corporations.
Ben Bullock, author of the sci.lang.japan website, mentions a few other uses. He explains that katakana was the first Japanese language used on computers, and, as a remnant of that, all banking information is written with katakana. Additionally, he tells us that katakana marks foreign accents and, interestingly, was used until the 1940s where we now use hiragana in marking okurigana.
I'll leave you today with my friend's clever understanding. Takumi Murayama, born in Japan and a native speaker, has a new, insightful take: "I always thought of Katakana as what you would use if you didn't know what to use," he responded.
Examples of katakana:
Format:
(Usage – かたかな – Translation – Location of word)
Emphasis – マツザカ – Matsuzaka (Name) – Red Sox baseball jersey
Loan word/emphasis – ラーメン – Ramen – Japanese menu
Onomatopoeia – ガーン – Expression of shock – Hetalia (Manga)
I'm glad that you mentioned katakana being used to mark foreign accents. I don't think too many people know about this, but it's definitely there. I can't remember which manga it was, but there was one manga I was reading which had a foreigner as a main character, and everything he said was in katakana (which makes it super difficult to read, by the way).
ReplyDeleteI also still see some karaoke machines which use katakana for okurigana. What's even more interesting to try is to sing an English song and have it display katakana okurigana for the entire song. Try reading that some time. It'll give you a laugh and good practice with reading katakana.
いいアナラシスです。
ReplyDeleteI found your middle paragraph really interesting. I would guess that in many of those cases カタカナ were used to describe something relatively new to Japanese culture or lifestyle (e.g. the scientific names and the computers). Using カタカナfor corporations seems different - is there something about the nature of corporations that might prove similar to the other examples you've listed?
On the topic of academic terms (e.g. scientific names), I think it is interesting that カタカナ are not used for most of the academic fields that I've looked up via Wikipedia. For example, quantum mechanics is りょうしりきがく and neuroscience is しんけいかがく. Why are these, which were most firmly established as scientific studies in the west, converted into かんじ? Is something else is being emphasized by not using カタカナ?
がんばって下さい！
Wow, a lot of cool info here. I didn't know that scientific names were written in katakana. マクドナーさん brings up a good point that some scientific term which are undoubtedly foreign are written in kanji. I would have guessed that it was because some scientific name had to be universal to communicate between languages, but then I looked and found that although taxonomy classifications are often written in katakana, they rarely correspond the English of Latin terms that describe them. Eucarida, the superorder that includes krill and lobsters, is ホンエビ上目. This seems like an entirely different use than a loan word. Do you have any idea why this might be?
ReplyDeleteThis was very interesting. I didn't know that katakana is used for scientific names or foreign accents.
ReplyDeleteThis is very general, and maybe even unnecessary, but I wonder why katakana was used for onomatopoeia to begin with. Yes, foreign words have foreign sounds and therefore use a writing system to show they are foreign. Also, if an item is labeled mostly in hiragana, then yes, a word in katakana will definitely stand out. But onomatopoeia are Japanese sounds and not borrowed, so why do you think they are written in katakana?