Sudrien
So?
Note: What follows is opinion and rant. As opinion has not been shown to matter outside sports and riots, nothing will happen of this opinion unless you really want it to.
You may have heard of Hepburn. Or Kunrei. They are two systems that systematized pronounced Japanese.
Pronounced.
Not Written.
"konnichiwa" is not Japanese.
"こんにちは" is Japanese.
"Japanese" is not Japanese. It's English.
"英語" is Japanese.
I'm sure I've already lost somebody here.
I am not "talking" to you. You are reading words that I threw in the general direction of the Internet. Likely to be read by people I didn't intend to read them.
So why is it that, when people are trying to communicate with each other, they choose to do it in a way that is not in their language?
One reason might be buy-in: It's natural to notice a dialectical slant in various sub-populations that one is not a member of, thus it is assumed that all populations have one, and that using such a dialect will mean one belongs to that population. Of course there are many more ways to identify a population - but it takes a long time in that population to notice them. Even then, this is only when referring to a stable population, which the Internet does not have.
It used to be that there were established conventions when using words outside of the English language; Italics for words taken from other languages, and small caps when a family name was in doubt. Part of the function of these notations was to assure that, while you might have an idea of meaning, this was not part of the conventions one should uphold.
Interestingly, such standards are clung to more closely by those that think they do not know the language. Idioms from their original language might be mixed in, but not words from that language.
Was I going somewhere with this?
...
The person that knows "a bit of Japanese" does not. They know some Japanese words. Indeed, among the first thing one learns when seriously addressing a subject is how little one knows about it.
Supposing Romaji is Japanese in any respect is throwing out the very concept of literacy. It's a pronunciation guide that is supposed to facilitate learning the (not always apparent) connections between the spoken and written word.
-Sud.
You may have heard of Hepburn. Or Kunrei. They are two systems that systematized pronounced Japanese.
Pronounced.
Not Written.
"konnichiwa" is not Japanese.
"こんにちは" is Japanese.
"Japanese" is not Japanese. It's English.
"英語" is Japanese.
I'm sure I've already lost somebody here.
I am not "talking" to you. You are reading words that I threw in the general direction of the Internet. Likely to be read by people I didn't intend to read them.
So why is it that, when people are trying to communicate with each other, they choose to do it in a way that is not in their language?
One reason might be buy-in: It's natural to notice a dialectical slant in various sub-populations that one is not a member of, thus it is assumed that all populations have one, and that using such a dialect will mean one belongs to that population. Of course there are many more ways to identify a population - but it takes a long time in that population to notice them. Even then, this is only when referring to a stable population, which the Internet does not have.
It used to be that there were established conventions when using words outside of the English language; Italics for words taken from other languages, and small caps when a family name was in doubt. Part of the function of these notations was to assure that, while you might have an idea of meaning, this was not part of the conventions one should uphold.
Interestingly, such standards are clung to more closely by those that think they do not know the language. Idioms from their original language might be mixed in, but not words from that language.
Was I going somewhere with this?
...
The person that knows "a bit of Japanese" does not. They know some Japanese words. Indeed, among the first thing one learns when seriously addressing a subject is how little one knows about it.
Supposing Romaji is Japanese in any respect is throwing out the very concept of literacy. It's a pronunciation guide that is supposed to facilitate learning the (not always apparent) connections between the spoken and written word.
-Sud.
lol