Sunday, September 30, 2018

Monster Girl

Within the anime fandom, "monster girl," monster musume モンスター娘, is the name given to non-human fantasy game "monsters" turned into cute anime "girls." It's a sub-category of jingai musume 人外娘, which includes all "non-human girls," whether they're from games or not.

The word is also romanized monsutaa musume モンスター娘, and abbreviated monmosu もん娘. The musume part can mean "daughter," but in this case it means "girl." (see: suffix -kko っ娘)
Tuesday, September 25, 2018

Peachification

In anime, peachification, in Japanese Piichi-hime-ka ピーチ姫化, literally "Princess Peach-fication," is the term for turning characters into Princess Peach-like characters by putting a Super Crown on them. It's also spelled peachfication or peach-fication.

See Bowsette and Other Princesses for reference.

"Bowser," Kuppa クッパ, turning into Bowsette through a Super Crown.

Bowsette's Japanese Name

For reference, the Japanese name for Bowsette is Kuppa-hime クッパ姫, literally "Princess Koopa," and I'm writing this post, of course, because I think it's funny how the English name Bowsette and the Japanese name Kuppa-hime have almost nothing to do with each other.

(and of Other Princesses that got "Peachfied" too)

If you don't know who Bowsette is, she's the gender-bent / rule 63 / nyotaika 女体化 version of Bowser that turned into a meme overnight this week. (it all began in 2018-09-19.)

Bowsette character, "Princess Bowser" or "Princess koopa." Japanese name:also known as Kuppa-hime クッパ姫

doki doki ドキドキ

In Japanese, doki doki ドキドキ is an onomatopoeia for the thumping sound of the heart. It's usually used in situations where someone falls in love, though it may also be used when they're excited, tense, anxious, and so on.

Often, however, it implies romance, like in Doki Doki Literature Club or in PreCure.

Sunday, September 23, 2018

Reduplication in Japanese

In Japanese, sometimes you have words that repeat themselves, they're the same thing said twice, like: hitobito 人々, iroiro 色々, betsubetsu 別々, marumaru 丸々, dandan 段々, hibi 日々, tsugitsugi 次々, itaitashii 痛々しい and so on.

When such thing happens, it's called reduplication, or choujou 重畳, the process of creating "reduplicative words," jougo 畳語, and it's not specific of the Japanese language. English has it too.

Reduplication in Japanese: diagram identifying simplex forms, reduplicative words, their base and reduplicant, the iterative mark noma ノマ, dakuten 濁点 diacritics, and rendaku 連濁 consonant changes in a suffixed morphemes, the reduplicant in this case. Examples include: tsugi 次, "next"; tsugitsugi 次々, "in succession"; toki 時, "time"; tokidoki 時々, "sometimes"; hi 日, "day"; hibi 日々, "daily"; dai 代, "generation"; daidai 代々, "for generations"; ikkoku 一刻, "one momment"; Kokkoku 刻刻, "Moment by Moment"; kami 神, "god"; kamigami 神々, "gods"; hito 人, "person"; hitobito 人々, "people"; hoshi 星, "star"; hoshiboshi 星々, "stars"; marui 丸い, "round"; marumaru 丸々, "very round"; atsui 熱い, "hot"; atsuatsu 熱々, "very hot"; hiroi 広い, "spacious"; hirobiro 広々, "very spacious"; baka 馬鹿, "idiot"; bakabakashii 馬鹿馬鹿しい, "foolish"; itai 痛い, "painful"; itaitashii 痛々しい, "painful to look at".

In this article I'll explain how it works in Japanese, and common effects it has on the meaning of words.
Tuesday, September 18, 2018

Iteration Marks

In Japanese, iteration marks are symbols which can be used to repeat parts of a word. The most common mark, , is written instead of a repeated kanji. The marks ゝゞヽヾ are written instead of a repeated kana. Besides those, there's also a long く mark, this thing 〻, and the ditto mark 〃.

〃 (Ditto Mark)

In Japanese, the ditto mark (〃), called nono-ji-ten ノノ字点, because it resembles the katakana ノ twice, tenten てんてん, chonchon ちょんちょん, and officially onajiku kigou 同じく記号, works just like the English ditto mark: it's used when a part of one line is the same thing as the previous line.

The only difference being that English uses a ditto mark for each word repeated, while Japanese uses just one ditto mark for the entire repeated part.

桜才学園生徒会会則 ひとーつ!秘め事は・・・すべて報告せよ! 〃 ふたーつ!筆おろしは・・・慎重に 〃 三つ!見られたら・・・見せ返せ!

This mark is unlikely to show up in manga, or in any dialogue text. It can show up in a school, an actual, real school, in class, when a teacher is writing on an actual blackboard, as well as in tables when you have multiple rows and cells of a row are the same thing as cells of the row above.

Sunday, September 16, 2018

ゝゞヽヾ

In Japanese, the symbols ゝゞヽヾ are iteration marks for kana (hiragana and katakana). They work just like works for kanji, by repeating the character that precedes them, except that, while 々 is commonly used, ゝゞヽヾ are rarely used in modern Japanese.

Note: if you saw ヽ in the furigana space, that's probably an emphasis mark instead.

The differences between the five symbols are pretty simple:

  • 々 is used with kanji.
  • ゝ and ゞ are used with hiragana.
  • ヽ and ヾ are used with katakana.
  • ゞ and ヾ add a dakuten accent.
  • ゝ and ヽ remove the accent.
Diagram: Iteration marks for Katakana & Hiragana. ヽ(^∇^) ゝ.  Examples: susume すすめ, すゝめ; suzushii すずしい, すゞしい; banana バナナ, バナヽ; habanero ハバネロ, ハゞネロ.

The symbols ゝゞヽヾ are called ichi-no-ji-ten 一の字点, "character mark [that looks like] 一," but they're also known by the same names 々 has: kurikaeshi 繰り返し, odoriji 踊り字, etc.

Friday, September 14, 2018

Mimetic Words

Mimetic words, or ideophones, are words which mimic or evoke an idea. One kind of ideophone are onomatopoeia, which mimic sounds. But Japanese also features hundreds of non-onomatopoeic ideophones, like sappari さっぱり, yukkuri ゆっくり, kichinto きちんと, chanto ちゃんと, wakuwaku わくわく, pikapika ぴかぴか, nikoniko にこにこ, among others.

This post will explain how such words work.

Chart: Mimetic Words in Japanese: Non-Onomatopoeic Ideophones (a.k.a. gitaigo) and Onomatopoeia (a.k.a. giongo.) The four types ideophones, "imitated... something... words:" gitaigo 擬態語, phenomimes, that imitate "state;" gijougo 擬情語, psychomimes, that imitate "emotion;" giseigo 擬声語, animate phonomimes, that imitate "voice;" and giongo 擬音語, inanimate phonomimes, that imitate "sound." Examples of gitaigo: pikapika ぴかぴか, *sparkling,* yukkuri ゆっくり, *without hurry,* hakkiri はっきり, *with certainty,* chanto ちゃんと, *properly.* Examples of gijougo: wakuwaku わくわく, *excitement,* iraira いらいら, "irritation," bikkuri びっくり, *surprise,* unzari うんざり, *annoyance.* Examples of giseigo: wanwan わんわん, *bow-wow,* konkon こんこん, *what the fox says,* nyaa にゃー, *meow,* gya'! ぎゃっ! *eek!* Examples of giongo: dokidoki ドキドキ, *thump-thump,* zaazaa ザーザー, *white noise,* pyon ぴょん, *boing,* gokun ごくん, *gulp.* Among these words, the following feature reduplication: pikapika, wakuwaku, iraira, wanwan, konkon, dokidoki, zaazaa. Some feature ri り endings, and chanto features an embedded to と.
Friday, September 7, 2018

Japanese Onomatopoeia - Grammar

Onomatopoeia are words that imply the sound they sound like. That is, words like *bang*, the sound of a pistol firing. Or *meow* the sound a cat makes. In Japanese, such words are disturbingly common, so I'll dedicate this article to explaining them.

bari-bari gusha-gusha baki-baki gokun. バリバリグシャグシャバキバキゴクン。 Crunch-crunch munch-munch crack-crack gulp. Onomatopoeia found in the manga MONSTER, the full-color extra volume: Name no Nai Kaibutsu なまえのないかいぶつ
(In case you need it: なまえのないかいぶつ on Amazon.)