Gregory's ServerLogographic languages seem to encourage understanding of words' etymology more than alphabetic or syllabic languages, at least to me. Beyond obvious things (三for 3), there's cute things like 鳥 bird and 烏 crow as a bird whose eyes you can't see. And beyond cute things, there are great cultural things, like 大金星 -"big golden planet" meaning "surprising stunning victory". I have no idea whether young Japanese people know why the word is what it is, but older generation probably understands the reference. In sumo matches, the table of games is originally written as ◯◯◯. Losses then are marked as ●●. Thus, victories are "white planets" and defeats are "black planets". If you want to specify that someone had an impressive victory, you'd mark the planet with gold - 🪙. Only wrestlers from lower ranks could get "golden planet". If a low ranking newbie fought a legendary sumoist and won, that'd be "big golden planet". It is even an official term in sumo! 😍
 17 comments
 @nina_kali_nina But still, yes, when I run into a word I don't know, the combination of context and characters can sometimes be enough for me to figure out what it means. I've been led to believe Chinese is clearer in this respect, as they haven't overloaded their characters with meanings and readings to the same degree as japanese.  @nina_kali_nina japan is 日本, "Ni hon." The first symbol is "sun" which was originally a circle with a dot in it (represnting the sun). The second symbol is "origin," which is a tree with emphasis on the roots below the ground, as the root is the origin of the tree. Sun + Origin. Japan's name is literally a reference to the place where the sun rises, the origin of the sun in the sky. "Land of the rising sun." This is because the symbols used are Chinese in origin. Japan is east of china. @GabeMoralesVR things like that happen in other languages too, we just care less, because they're less obvious and don't really help to remember the word. Old version of the post, wrong: For example, "Orient" means "East" because this is the direction one would use to orient themselves with the sun! Plot twist: "orient" means "east/sunrise side" in Roman. English "to orient" comes from "to make something face East". Because that's how you orient, still. @nina_kali_nina I had a teacher once tell me that the word "news" comes from the cardinal directions, as it originally meant "tell me the information from the north, east, west, and south." In other words, tell me the information from the surrounding areas. @GabeMoralesVR this sounds like folk etymology sadly - as there are way too many languages where "news" is plural of "new", for example "nowiny" in Polish - but it makes a memorable story to remember the abbreviations for the sides of the world. @nina_kali_nina@tech.lgbt Languages are awesome! 😍 thank you for sharing this @nina_kali_nina I wonder if most people just think “dot”. In English we have “stars” and “asterisks”, gold stars, etc... I don’t know if I think about celestial bodies much when I see these usages but maybe I should! Great job on the exam you get an iridescent supernova @thankfulmachine now that I think about it, there are stars for grades and rankings. Apparently stars for hotels were used only since 1844, but what about the army? I can't find anything T_T @nina_kali_nina Oh I didn’t even think about that! And then you have flags, which may or may not be related. Watch your step, this is probably an extremely deep rabbit hole @thankfulmachine the oldest mention of stars in army rankings I could find was France 1803. US flag from 1777 already had five pointed stars, and then there were stars known as mullets in heraldics everywhere! Indeed the rabbit hole is deep @nina_kali_nina Tiniest of tiny nits to pick (and sorry!). It's not the language that's logographic, "just" the writing system. Eg Chinese can be written in Pinyin and it stays the same language. But it's true that the writing system adds a whole layer of parallel semantics for the speakers of C&J who are literate, and this is deeply culturally embedded! @nina_kali_nina The evolution of these characters is also often insanely whacko, like when an entirely unrelated character gets borrowed to write a homophone, infusing it with a wholly different meaning. Like 來 lái being an image of wheat, repurposed to write the word for "come" that sounded the same. Character history truly is a deep, endless ocean... |
@nina_kali_nina
To some degree, yes. But a lot of characters (in japanese; not in Chinese I believe) carry multiple meanings, which sometimes have little connection to the original design. 方 means direction and alternative (feels related); but also person.
And the characters are usually used in combination to form words and those frequently have no connection to the meaning. A character is there often just for the pronunciation, nothing else.