1) The first word that I found for the Katakana project was エブリバーガー which is a Japanese sweet. I found this word on the box of the sweets in an Asian convenience store, m2m. This is a combination of two loan words: "Every" and "Burger." The word "burger" is borrowed from English as it is a borrowed food from a different culture. However Everyburger still uses katakana for the word "every" despite the fact that there are definitely words in Japanese for "every." The company most likely put the whole word in katakana to emphasize the product's name and logo. Many products are like this because the goal is to make a known brand name.
The next word I found was ライチとカルピス which was the flavor of a soft drink in m2m. Lychee is in katakana because it is a borrowed word from Chinese since the lychee fruit is actually from China. Calpis is the name of a Japanese soft drink. Similar to above, I would assume their company name is put in katakana to put emphasis on the brand name. However, Wikipedia explains that Calpis is actually a combination of the words calcium and sarpis (butter flavor).
2) Why does Katakana have this effect?
I think compared to Hiragana, Katakana has sharper edges and straighter lines. This makes the characters more eye-catching. This is most likely why many brands use Katakana in their products, logos, and advertisements. In many of these, the characters are usually block letters and the sharpness of the katakana characters is emphasized. This may also be why Katakana is perfect for onomatopoeias due to this attention-grabbing effect.
3) The interesting thing about katakana is the fact that it is used in many different situations. Most textbooks define katakana to be used for loan words, onomatopoeias, and to emphasize words, however many textbooks differ the definition a little bit. This could be due to the fact that katakana is a fluid script, covering for anything that hiragana and kanji cannot cover. Since the world is constantly changing, new words and expressions will always be coming up. Katakana can be used to fill the gaps for these new things. My mother, who is a linguist and also whose primary language is Japanese, explained to me that Katakana are the most simple characters in the Japanese language (which is why they were taught before Hiragana a long time ago). She believes that Katakana used for words that are further distanced from the Japanese language in meaning and origin because of this simplicity. This was quite interesting to hear because it takes my analysis (that Katakana fills the gaps left by Hiragana and Kanji) one step deeper.
You are right! カタカナis used for many different situations, not only to describe loan words, but to emphasize and for so many other reasons. As you pointed out for the sample of "カルピス", there are also situations where two loan words are put together and become difficult to see the original reason why カタカナ was used. Very interesting!
ReplyDeleteAhh the brand name idea is a good one. It makes sense, especially for all of those food products. What do Everyburger sweets taste like? And I did not know that calcium and sarpis were the root words of Calpis. Good research on that. Makes me want to go buy some right now.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I totally agree with your openion about the fact of Katakana, it’s the fluid script. As the evidence of this, we can see many Katakana in teenager’s magazines. They really like to create new words, and often use Katakana for it.
ReplyDeleteAnd it’s really shred of you to notice the shape of Katakana. Sure enough, as most of the textbook says that one of the main use of Katakana is for empasis. But I sometimes wonder we always can say like this . For instance, Katakana is remarkable in sentences using both Kanji and Hiragana for their sharper shapes. But Katakana themselves, like short words, I don’t think it’s so eye-catching or alarming. I guess they might have another function.
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ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteIt's really interesting how you differentiated katakana from others in terms of how it has sharper edges and straight lines. Now that I have thought about that, these straightness really seems to makes it possible to catch people's attention.