Katakana Analysis Draft

The first word I found is アフリカ (Africa).  It was part of the title of  an academic journal I saw in the Library.  It is a loan word.  Since all the textbooks tell us that one of the primary functions of Katakana is to write foreign names and loan words, I thought this was a nice example--the name of a foreign place coming into the Japanese language based on an English pronunciation.  It made me wonder what the process (historic, linguistic, political) is for a loanword to become standardized in Japanese.  For example, why isn't the katakana for "Africa" based on a German, French, Chinese or some other pronunciation? As for the question of why Hiragana or Kanji is not used here, it seems that just the use of Katakana signals to the reader that the word or concept is not native to Japanese in a way that the other scripts do not do.  The name of a foreign country is a good example of that idea.

The next word I found is also a loan word, but in a slightly different way than the first. "メジヤーリーグベースーボール" means Major League Baseball.  There is no question as to where this word comes from, it is a proper noun, a brand name and a loan word all at once.  What I found interesting about this however, is that in lesson 9 we learn a way to write baseball using hiragana, and yet that word is not used in "Major League Baseball." In this case, the use of katakana seems to be a deliberate choice to emphasize or reinforce the foreign, and specifically American,  origin of the word and brand name--there hasn't been an attempt to localize the word or the brand.  Katakana in this instance allows the Japanese language to absorb foreign words, brands and ideas without fully assimilating them.  By using Katakana instead of Kanji or Hiragana, it is immediately clear to the audience that the word is representing a foreign brand, and in particular a brand from the West.

あるいて！

I love to walk around and explore new areas.  Whenever I go to a new city for the first time I walk around until I am either completely lost or totally exhausted--it's really the best way to get a feel for a place! I avoid the 地下鉄 as much as possible because you have no chance to see what's around you when you ride underground! In that sense I would much rather ride a 自転車 than a飛行機 because as long as I'm in control I can stop to しゃしんをとります.  Maybe one day I will be able to　友達と自転車で日本へいきます。 Haha, that would be pretty cool, right? I guess it's impossible though, oh well.

If you want to see the places I have explored in the past and some of my しゃしん, you can go to http://picasaweb.google.com/dan.barish and 見ます！

じゃ、またあした