Re: Shikona and the Three NOs

[abe@kaleida.com (Masumi Abe)]

At  8:59 PM 10/3/94 -0400, hank@westford.ccur.com wrote:
>Jordan Plitteris <jsp@morgan.com> writes:
>>The odd thing is the differnt ways that "no" is written. The Hanada brothers
>>use the Katakana no in Takanohana and Wakanohana. Mainoumi (Mai-no-umi, or
>>"Of the Dancing Sea", or something equally poetic), and Kotonowaka use a
>>Hiragana "no". And finally, Asanowaka and Akinoshima use a Kanji "no".
>
>I once mentioned this phenomenon, using the katakana no rather than
>hiragana, to somebody who should know. (sorry it may have been a Japanese
>teacher but I can't remember now)  Anyway that person said that it was not
>katakana but really a kanji.  

I bet he was talking about "ga" in KotoGAume, instead of "no". "Ka" or "ga"
is written the same way as katakana "ke", but this particular "ka" or "ga"
is abreviated form of kanji "ko" the unit for counting pieces. This kanji
has "bamboo radical" part on top of another "ko" character. The bamboo
radical looks like two katakana "ke" side by side. People used to use
katakana "ke" shape as an abrevisted form of kanji "ko", for this reason.
The "ka" in 
"n-kasho" (n for numbers) is from this original meaning, but "ga" is
vertually the same as "no" since its meaning is "possesive". By the way,
the tradition of writing "ka" in the form of katakana "ke" is getting old.
Younger generation can't read this correctly and people started using
katakana "ka" in the place of katakana "ke". In both cases, these
katakana-shaped "ka" (katakana "ka" and katakana "ke") are usually written
smaller than regular katakana (about 2/3 x 2/3) in regular Japanese
typography.

>However the character katakana no is only
>listed as katakana in the JIS character set.  Unlike,  for instance,
>katakana ta which is listed both as a katakana and seperately as a kanji.

Mr. Mizutori descibed about the case of katakana "ta" very well. I only add
that original kanji "ta" is constructed with two "yuu" kanji.

Other similar examples:
Katakana "e" and Kanji "kou" which means "manufacturing".
Katakana "ka" and kanji "chikara" or "riki (ryoku)" which means "power".
Katakana "chi" is from kanji "sen" which means "thousand".
Katakana "ni" is from kanji "ni" which means "two".
(Katakana "ne" and kanji radical "shimesu-hen".)
Katakana "ha" is from kanji "hachi" which means "eight".
Katakana "hi" and kanji "ai" in "ai-kuchi" which means short sword.
(Katakana "ho" is very similar but not exactly the same as kanji "ki" or
"tree".)
(Katakana "mi" is from kanji "san" which means "three".)
(Katakana "me" is almost the same shape as "shime" mark in Japanese.)
(Katakana "mo" is similar to hiragana "mo" and both share the original kanji.)
(Katakana "ya" is similar to hiragana "ya" and both share the original kanji.)
(Katakana "ri" is virtually the same shape as hiragana "ri".)
Katakana "ro" and Kanji "kuchi" which means "mouth".

>It is also not listed seperately in kanjidic.  Does anybody know the whole
>story?  I suspect that it's just one of those quirky things in Japanese
>typography.  There is not always one correct way of writing something in
>Japanese.  Different writing styles give different flavors.  It may also be
>important to remember whan discussing things like shikona that the
>convention of using katakana for gairaigo (foreign loan words) is
>relatively modern, really only postwar, yet katakana itself is just as old
>as hiragana.  There may be a connection to the fact that in the Nara
>period katakana was used by men and hiragana was used by women.

This is true. For a long time, katakana is considered as musculine and
hiragana feminine. Mainoumi and Kotonowaka with hiragana "no" look more
like feminine.

-Masumi

>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>Hank Cohen
>Concurrent Nippon Corp.
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Masumi Abe                               
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