The Beauty of The Japanese Language

The Beauty of The Japanese Language - Printable Version

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The Beauty of The Japanese Language - jettyke - 2011-06-02

Post here something (basically anything) that reveals to you the beauty of the Japanese language.

[Image: kokyuu.jpg]

All About Lily Chou Chou - Arabesque by Salyu
This is in Okinawan, but very similar to Japanese. Very beautiful.

青い空
ao nu tiN
青い海
ao nu tuu

島の歌
shima nu ‘uta
青い空
ao nu tiN
青い海
ao nu tuu
南の島の歌
pai nu shima nu uta

白い花が咲く場所
shiru nu pana nu saku bashyu

娘は生まれ
midum Nmari

pana nu naa
花の名前

[Image: 20060611023448.jpg]

初恋
Miyazaki Aoi's voice is superb in this movie

The Beauty of The Japanese Language - Tzadeck - 2011-06-02

I'm pretty in love with Okinawan music actually. I'm taking Sanshin lessons soon! Which seems silly, since it's illegal to bring them back into the states anyway.

I don't know why, but even new poppy stuff, any song that does the
"I-YA-ZA-ZA"
thing or its variants is great to me.

The Beauty of The Japanese Language - Tori-kun - 2011-06-02

Quote:初恋
Miyazaki Aoi's voice is superb in this movie

jettyke, any japanese subtitles for this movie available? Looks great <3

The Beauty of The Japanese Language - jettyke - 2011-06-02

It is great.
I looked for subs intensively a year ago or so because I wanted to create a subs2srs deck. Didn't find.

This movie is so good that I'd even watch it with English subs once though Big Grin

The Beauty of The Japanese Language - Tori-kun - 2011-06-02

http://livedoor.blogimg.jp/yoshi44704470/imgs/8/f/8fb480ba.jpg
Letters from Iwojima - 硫黄島からの手紙

Actually "ioujima", but I don't wanna be picky, right? Smile

A great film by master Eastwood. He's a genius.

The Beauty of The Japanese Language - yukamina - 2011-06-02

I saw this movie a while ago and fell in love with the music. No wonder I couldn't understand that song, I didn't know it was Okinawan.

The Beauty of The Japanese Language - keikei - 2011-06-02

Chrono Cross - "Radical Dreamers":

This is probably one of the most amazing videogame ending themes.

I fell in love with this song when I was a kid. If only someone had told me about RTK back then... I would have been unstoppable Big Grin

The Beauty of The Japanese Language - Jarvik7 - 2011-06-02

Tori-kun Wrote:http://livedoor.blogimg.jp/yoshi44704470/imgs/8/f/8fb480ba.jpg
Letters from Iwojima - 硫黄島からの手紙

Actually "ioujima", but I don't wanna be picky, right? A great film by master Eastwood. He's a genius.

Actually Ioutou, but I don't wanna be picky Tongue

Romanization wasn't very standardized before/during the war.
Hence "Tokio" etc.

The Beauty of The Japanese Language - ichigoichie - 2011-06-20

I like that Japanese is so minimalistic. Also it's very well structured, especially with the particles.

The Beauty of The Japanese Language - yudantaiteki - 2011-06-20

What really captures me as far as "beauty" is the classical monogatari that don't have many sino-Japanese words. I used to spend time looking for the original versions of sentences i liked in the Genji translation and reading them over and over again even if I couldn't parse the grammar and didn't know what all the words meant (other than a general idea from the translation).

中将の君、面の色変はる心地して、恐ろしうも、かたじけなくも、うれしくも、あはれにも、かたがた移ろふ心地して、涙落ちぬべし。 ("Genji's face paled, and he felt fear, gratitude, joy, and awe -- his feelings shifted from one to the next and he almost cried.")

誰れも誰れも、ことわりの別れにて、たぐひあることとも思されず、めづらかにいみじく、明けぐれの夢に惑ひたまふほど、さらなりや。 ("No one could accept this as a natural parting, one with any peer -- it was too strange and sad; no wonder they felt lost in a waking dream.")

There's nothing like it.

The Beauty of The Japanese Language - fakewookie - 2011-06-20

yudantaiteki Wrote:What really captures me as far as "beauty" is the classical monogatari that don't have many sino-Japanese words. I used to spend time looking for the original versions of sentences i liked in the Genji translation and reading them over and over again even if I couldn't parse the grammar and didn't know what all the words meant (other than a general idea from the translation).

中将の君、面の色変はる心地して、恐ろしうも、かたじけなくも、うれしくも、あはれにも、かたがた移ろふ心地して、涙落ちぬべし。 ("Genji's face paled, and he felt fear, gratitude, joy, and awe -- his feelings shifted from one to the next and he almost cried.")

誰れも誰れも、ことわりの別れにて、たぐひあることとも思されず、めづらかにいみじく、明けぐれの夢に惑ひたまふほど、さらなりや。 ("No one could accept this as a natural parting, one with any peer -- it was too strange and sad; no wonder they felt lost in a waking dream.")

There's nothing like it.

I've often wondered what Japanese would sound like with all of the sino-Japanese words stripped out of it. How is it that this was written with kanji and kana, but without any sino-Japanese words? Was there such a period, after the introduction of the writing system but before the importing of Chinese vocabulary?

The Beauty of The Japanese Language - yudantaiteki - 2011-06-20

Well, keep in mind these are modernized texts. The "original" text of the first sentence (ignoring the hentai-gana) looks like this: 中将の君おもてお色かはる心ちしておそろしうもかたしけなくもうれしくもあはれにもかた／＼うつろふ心ちしてなみたおちぬへし
Kanji was still used there for the sino-Japanese word 中将 (virtually all of the sino-Japanese words in Genji are related to either government or Buddhism) and then for a few native Japanese words (just 色 and 心 in this case).

In this period, classical Chinese was still frequently written and read (mostly by men), and in writing that was associated with women (i.e. tales and poems), even if it wasn't actually written by a woman, few sino-Japanese words were used. So it wasn't that sino-Japanese vocabulary didn't exist, it just wasn't used in Genji. We don't actually know how the original author would have written Genji (my personal belief is that it would have been similar to the text above, with some kanji but mostly kana).

There is a humorous tale in the second chapter where a man relates a relationship he had with a woman who was the daughter of a scholar, and her speech is full of sino-Japanese words. Her first line: 月ごろ、風病重きに堪へかねて、極熱の草薬を服して、いと臭きによりなむ、え対面賜はらぬ。 ("This month, due to difficulty with a serious illness, I have been taking heated herbal medicine, and because it is so stinky, I cannot meet you.") Here there are 5 sino-Japanese words in this one line (風病, 極熱, 草薬, 服, and 対面). The fact that the author of Genji could write this line suggests to me that language with sino-Japanese words in it would have been used and understood by some people, although women certainly were not supposed to talk like this. However, this is one of the many places in Genji that makes me suspect a good many women in Heian Japan actually knew more Chinese and sino-Japanese than they were theoretically supposed to.

Another interesting point is that, the original text of this line uses no kanji at all except for 月. Thus, all of those words are given sino-Japanese pronunciations.

(Sorry, I tend to drone on when it comes to Genji...)

The Beauty of The Japanese Language - Tzadeck - 2011-06-20

keikei Wrote:Chrono Cross - "Radical Dreamers":

This is probably one of the most amazing videogame ending themes.

Frankly, I don't know how you ever made it to the end of that game. The extreme drop in quality from Chrono Trigger was way too much for me.

Though, I'm just talking shit--I somehow finished FFX-2 and even Dirge of Cerberus, haha.

The Beauty of The Japanese Language - IceCream - 2011-07-04

村上春樹. i just started reading 世界の終りとハードボイルド・ワンダーランド and realised i must've read the first few chapters in english years ago in a bookshop. i was astounded at how different it is in Japanese!!!

in english, hmm, how can i describe it, i dunno, i read another japanese book in english years and years ago, and i've forgotten it's name now, but it was about a butler. The english version gave off this very precise, sort of finnicky, picky, almost boring feel to the character, which actually fit the character very well. But i felt this same kind of air in the first few chapters of Hard Boiled Wonderland & the end of the world, from the very detailed description of the coins in his pocket... this sort of hard, logical, precision of this person.

Anyway, of course, that is there in the book, just the same, but in Japanese, it *feels* totally different. The rhythm and tone of the words make such a big difference to the way it feels when it's being read!!! The words are so smooth it's like they roll off your tongue, and it's that feeling of some beautifully refined taste with delicate flavours. I think it's the first time i've really understood the inadequacies of translating literature... i'm so happy now to be able to read Japanese!!!

The Beauty of The Japanese Language - aphasiac - 2011-07-04

IceCream Wrote:i read another japanese book in english years and years ago, and i've forgotten it's name now, but it was about a butler. The english version gave off this very precise, sort of finnicky, picky, almost boring feel to the character, which actually fit the character very well.

The Remains of the Day?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Remains_of_the_Day

The Beauty of The Japanese Language - IceCream - 2011-07-04

yeah, that was it!!! cool, how did you get it from that?!?! lol

The Beauty of The Japanese Language - GreenAirth - 2011-07-04

IceCream Wrote:i read another japanese book in english years and years ago, and i've forgotten it's name now, but it was about a butler. The english version gave off this very precise, sort of finnicky, picky, almost boring feel to the character, which actually fit the character very well.

Perhaps you're talking about Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. It happens to be my favourite book. If so, it is actually an English book in English. Ishiguro moved from Nagasaki to London when he was five and, as far as I know, doesn't speak Japanese or at least wouldn't be able to use it to write a novel.

Anyway, I know exactly what you mean about the inadequacies of translation. The feel and flow are completely different. I believe Murakami has talked about the rhythm of his Japanese writing and how it is lost in English.

The Beauty of The Japanese Language - aphasiac - 2011-07-04

IceCream Wrote:yeah, that was it!!! cool, how did you get it from that?!?! lol

Cos it's a very famous book! and the author is Japanese-British. The "English version" is the original and default (not sure if there is a japanese translation?) and the stiff boring feel was intentional I guess - actually he's been criticised for using the exact same writing style in other novels.

The Beauty of The Japanese Language - Tzadeck - 2011-07-04

IceCream Wrote:Anyway, of course, that is there in the book, just the same, but in Japanese, it *feels* totally different. The rhythm and tone of the words make such a big difference to the way it feels when it's being read!!! The words are so smooth it's like they roll off your tongue, and it's that feeling of some beautifully refined taste with delicate flavours. I think it's the first time i've really understood the inadequacies of translating literature... i'm so happy now to be able to read Japanese!!!

I was in a bookstore a little while ago and I was looking at a translation of The Catcher in the Rye in Japanese. Of course, the famous opening line in English is

"If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."

Now, that's a great quote in English, because you already pretty much have a good understanding of the character's personality without him even saying anything about himself (It reminds me that someone once said that the reason "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is such a great song is because you understand what it's about in the first 10 seconds, considerably before the lyrics start).

In Japanese, on the other hand, the words were quite stale and you didn't really get a feel for the character. In fact, his rebellious nature really didn't come across at all. Actually, 村上春樹 did a famous translation of The Catcher in the Rye, but I don't remember if that's the one I was looking at.

An even more telling example of this was when I worked at my old school. My friend was in the Lewis Carroll Society of Japan, and he edited the newsletter and various other publications by the Society. Since some of the publications had English sections, and I was one of his better foreign friends (and we lived in a small town north of Kyoto where there were no people really), I helped him edit the English sections.

Anyway, he was always talking about Lewis Carroll, and when a new translation of Alice in Wonderland came out he was going on and on about it, and comparing it to other translations. He showed me a bunch of different ones, and how they handled certain sections where translations were particularly difficult. He had faith that the new translation would solve a lot of the problems in a unique way, but in the end it still didn't really capture what it was trying to capture.

Long story short, Alice in Wonderland is pretty much impossible to translate. The book is ABOUT the language, it's not about the plot at all.

The Beauty of The Japanese Language - IceCream - 2011-07-04

cool, i never realised he was brought up in Britain, or that he wrote it in english originally! But yeah, it makes sense that feel was intentional in that case, because it fit that character perfectly. It's a good book!! Smile

it's good to know that Murakami's talked about it too... honestly, the difference is amazing, right?!? It really does change the feel of the book entirely for me. It really makes the difference between him being just a good writer, and a great one, i think.

The Beauty of The Japanese Language - Tori-kun - 2011-07-05

Personally, I really fell in love with Sigsawa Keiichi's "Kino no Tabi". Why's that so beautiful??

The Beauty of The Japanese Language - Tori-kun - 2011-07-30

*push*

Confessions (2010) / 告白 <3
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1590089/

Just a genius this regisseur. My favourite film of 2011, for sure. I guess there is nothing that could be better than this one. If you like black, morbid and cynist stories that have a slight trace of blood and psycho-crap in it -- watch it.

The Beauty of The Japanese Language - buonaparte - 2011-07-30

http://video.qip.ru/video/view/?id=v1817489c4f5
http://video.qip.ru/video/view/?id=v18174815a53
http://video.qip.ru/video/view/?id=v18174764fcb
http://video.qip.ru/video/view/?id=v18175118fe6

[Image: 35hhkw0.jpg]

The Beauty of The Japanese Language - howtwosavealif3 - 2011-07-30

shikisai by shiina ringo. the lyrics to that song is so interesting and creative. It makes me want to sing a long.

here's the lyrics with furigana..
「ねえ一層遠く知らない街に隠居して沈黙しませぬ(ん)こと？
こんな日々には厭(あ)きたのさ　ねえだうぞ(どうぞ)攫(さら)って行つて(いって)」

　　逃げ延びて水蜜桃(すいみつとう)に未練　砂みたいな意識と云ふ(ゆう)次元で
　　逃げ延びた暑さよ何邊(いずこ)へ　揺れが生じ

其の儘(そのまま)　怠惰(たいだ)に委(ゆだ)ねた最後の青さ
まう(もう)還らないと知つた(しった)温度も超えられぬ夜(よ)の恐怖色
境界に澱(よど)む(ん)でゐ(い)た決心の甘さ
たう(とう)に喪った(うしなった)岸壁打つは引いてくれぬ後悔と濤(なみ)の色

　　待ち侘びて凍る馨(か)は混凝土(コンクリイト)　砂みたいな意識と云ふ(ゆう)器官で
　　待ち侘びた寒さよ何邊(いずこ)へ　揺れに動じ

此の儘(このまま)　愛情に模(も)した修正ペンの白さ
現状を必死で繕つて(つくろって)は剥(は)いだ素肌に恐怖色
傍観に徹してゐ(い)た感慨(かんがい)の淡(あわ)さ
たう(とう)に喪つた(うしなった)雷雨仰(あお)ぐは泣いてくれぬ殘忍の雲の色

最後の青さ
まう(もう)還らないと知つた(しった)温度も超えられぬ夜(よ)の恐怖色
境界に澱(よど)む(ん)でゐ(い)た決心の甘さ
たう(とう)に喪つた(うしなった)岸壁打つは引いてくれぬ後悔と濤(なみ)の色

do not worry even normal japanese can't read all this without furigana.
I always thought saigo no aosa was saigo no asa till I looekd it up.

The Beauty of The Japanese Language - jettyke - 2011-07-30

howtwosavealif3　

this is meisai" 迷彩" not "shikisai" btw

I already thought it was some song I haven't heard yet Big Grin

Very good video indeed