Just about any aspect of Japan can provide an interesting cultural lesson, even names. In Japan, everyone has a family name and a given name, always listed with the family name first, although this doesn't apply for non-Japanese (e.g. I am still pii-taa pein in Japanese). Japanese never have middle names, but they understand the Western concept and sometimes choose exotic-sounding names for anime characters just for fun, like Louise Françoise De La Bamue Le Blanc De La Vallièr from Zero no Tsukaima. Japanese names may be written in hiragana or katakana, but the vast majority use kanji, and just as there are alternate spellings for English names, Japanese parents can choose between different kanji characters to capture just the right nuance they want for their baby. Names follow trends just like in the West, and sometimes names that sound strange to the ear will become popular. In case you're wondering, the top three names for boys this year are Hiroto, Shota and Ren; for girls, it's Rin, Sakura, and Hina.
(Another interesting note...the names Ren (Len) and Rin could be said to be Vocaloid-derived, although those characters use katakana and not kanji, and of course Shota has a special meaning in fandom. Japanese wouldn't think of this at all by the way, as the vowel is longer and the kanji is different. )
Studying how names work in Japanese is interesting.
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As a foreigner in Japan, one thing I used to get particularly tired of was not hearing my real name. I've grown accustomed to it now, but the katakana-ization is still odd to my ears. It's not "me," you know?
Yes, it's odd. Or then there's the tendency for a foreigner to be called by his first name, like all my students who would say "Hello Peter!" or maybe "Mr. Peter!" I wrote about this before too.
Hi Peter,
Sorry for a slightly off topic comment, but...
Are there regional accents in Japan, and how do they impact on students of the language?
And secondly, can you recommend any online 'radio' stations that would help someone learning Japanese?
Many thanks, and now back to the regularly scheduled comments thread...
Aha, I notice you have a picture of Remilia Scarlet. Her sister's name has been romanized both as "Flandre" and "Frandle". At least we know it's not "Flandle" or "Frandre"...
Phil, yes there are quite a few strong accents around Japan, it's supposedly analogous to Britain (which has many more accents than the U.S.) due to people not moving around and mixing as much. Some are famous like Osaka, but each region has some phrases that are unique. Right now everyone is watching Ryoma-den, the NHK drama about Ryoma Sakamoto, and so Kochi-ben (the dialect of the prefecture of Kochi on Shikoku) is popular now, with people using it to seem cool like Ryoma. Not too sure of a radio station, maybe there's a good podcast?
John, yes romanization is difficult especially when there's no absolute guide. For all the Queen's Blade girls there is _no_ official English spelling, and the closest thing we can find is the JPG filenames on the company's website. Silly...
Hi Peter, As a Brit, I can indeed say that there are many local accents 'over here'. Once your ear is used to listening for them, you can spot them quite easily. But then you find nuances of accent where it can change when you travel as little as five miles...
Phil, yes I've studied that in linguistics, and the BBC documentary on the English language I wrote about a few weeks ago was also good at reporting on that. We have that in America too -- near San Diego there's a town called Lakeside and we are amused at them for talking like they're from Texas and everyone having a gun rack on their truck.
When Japanese from the "chiho" (the rural regions around Japan) come to Tokyo there's a lot of pressure to speak "standard" (boring) Japanese, do you have that in London?
I think you are right that people do try to minimise their accents around outsiders - and when they are outside of their home area - simply because they want to be understood. I also suspect that in Japan, the idea of conformity will have an effect - based on your observations on the blog.
I have been thinking as to how best to answer the other part of your question, so please forgive me if I ramble on a bit...
I am currently seeing an accent as having two parts - dialect related words (ones that have meanings specific to that accent/dialect), and the second part being differences in pronunciation (different vowel sounds, omitted consonants etc.)
When dealing with an 'outsider', you may find the dialect words removed from the conversation, and some of the 'extremes' of pronunciation moderated.
One of the causes of a person's accent being different to their home area is education, and certainly pre the 1970s, that was very closely tied to social class and wealth.
By being taught to speak properly, your accent would approach that of the old Standard English of the BBC - probably best epitomised by the late, great Joyce Grenfell (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oom2EPuNPv8). And with some variations, that was seen as a posh, upper cass accent.
The wealth being concentrated where the power was, that sort of accent was and is seen as being a London accent. However... There is also the sort of accent of the uneducated Londoner, of which the Cockney version is probably best known (My Fair Lady being the classic example). Here is a classic advert that illustrates the differences... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz9_YfIQaz4
Cockney rhyming slang still exists, and is a living language, although you wouldn't have vast quantities of it in the same sentence. But someone might say "I haven't a scooby." to indicate that they don't know the answer. Scooby Doo=Clue.
So - to answer your question - do people change their accent to a standard accent? Well yes and no - yes, some dialect words will be removed, but otherwise, no - they will talk in the way they are used to.
On a completely unrelated subject, I watched a DVD of Walk, Don't Run, starring Cary Grant, Jim Hutton and Samantha Eggar. It was set (and filmed I think) in Tokyo, during the 1964 Olympics, and I was wondering if any of the city is still like that, nearly 50 years later..?
Phil, yes, good comments there. One interesting note, that in Japanese the way to say a word often changes, e.g. "wakaranai" in standard Japanese is "wakarahen" (nai -> hen) in Osaka. But the AIUEO pronunciation doesn't ever change -- hiragana is hiragana.
Never seen that movie, but I'll check it out. I love Cary Grant in North by Northwest.
Heh - Having read a lot of your blog posts, I am aware of your fondness for bath houses, so I will simply say that the bath house scene made me smile a lot...
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