Re: [Epic] More painting of small details

From: Mark A Shieh <SHODAN+_at_...>
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 13:03:15 -0400 (EDT)

Oki Purwanto <oki_at_...> writes:
> At 08:43 AM 8/13/97 -0700, you wrote:
> Uh, there are 3 forms (IIRC) of Japanese characters. One of them (the formal
> one, I think) follows after Mandarin. Even though the pronounciation is very
> different between Japanese and Mandarin, more often than not, the meaning is
> the same.

4, but one of them is real boring. In order of usage:

1) Hiragana. It's a phonetic system, so there's under a hundred
characters. Used for conjugation, particles, etc. This flows and has
more curves than katakana, and used to be considered a female way of
writing a few centuries ago.
2) Kanji. Borrowed from the Chinese, there are 2000 that you're
supposed to learn to be minimally literate. If you're looking for
something ornate for a banner, this is it. Generally seen as nouns or
verb bases.
3) Katakana. It's also a phonetic system, used for borrowed words.
The vast majority are English, but exceptions abound. (pan for bread.
I can't remember whether it was swiped from Portuguese or Spanish) It
has more hard corners and straight lines than Hiragana, and I would
consider it the easiest one to put on a shoulder pad.
4) Romaji. This is pretty dull. It's the english alphabet. I see
it for "CD" (those music things) and "OL" (office lady, a demeaning
job for females) and little else. I'm not sure if numbers fall into
this category, but my professors tell me they tend to do math using
roman numbers. (I think it has to do with 40 being fewer characters
than 45 and other complications.)

Mark
Received on Wed Aug 13 1997 - 17:03:15 UTC