[Multilingual Monday] 宛字

[aadroma]

Today, after far too long on hiatus, we have another MM!  Hey, LJ is one of the few outlets I have for language musings

Comments

[muckefuck]

With personal names, I think it also has to do with making them distinctive. It's the equivalent of "SanDeE*" only in a more subdued and conventionalised fashion.

Me, I love the possibilities for folk etymology that arise with ateji. Like the way everyone believes that 馬鹿 originates with a foolish prince who couldn't tell a horse 馬 from a deer 鹿, when in reality the word is probably just a phonetic adaption of Sanskrit moha. By the same token, I wouldn't be surprised to find there are people who believe the first 合羽 were made out of feathers!

[bluebear2]

Here in Vancouver there are many bilingual signs in English and traditional Chinese and I see the same characters used for city names. I suspect that the Japanese got these from the Cantonese since they'd be using the On readings.

[zet1972]

Also, it is very easy to mispronounce words if the person doesn't know the romanization of the kanji. 勇気 is an example.