Awesome language +1 On 29/11/2010 1:40 PM, "Ben Hoskings" <[email protected]> wrote: > Here are some more details if anyone is interested. I learnt a tiny bit of > Japanese after travelling there for RubyKaigi in Aug/Sep. > > The text is in a character set called Katakana. Katakana and Hiragana are > both phonetic character sets, which means each character has exactly one > syllable that it always represents. It also means that a given word has a > strict 1-to-1 mapping between its pronunciation and the way it's written. > This is pretty powerful, because you can reliably pronounce anything you see > written in Hiragana or Katakana, and vice versa. > > (In Japan, almost all writing has Kanji interspersed, which is far more > complex (the standard set is ~ 1800 characters, and they have meanings > instead of pronunciations; they're only pronounceable when they're combined > in context). But, it's a good start to be able to read the phonetic stuff. > > The two sets have an equivalent set of symbols and phonetically anything > said in one can be said in the other. The difference is that Hiragana is for > Japanese words, and Katakana is for things that are imported (in practise, > mainly English). Hence, "email", "McDonalds" and "Capybara" are all written > in Katakana because they're all things that didn't originate in Japan. The > nice thing is that once you learn how the pronunciations map across, you can > "read" Katakana as English. > > Capybara is written as カピバラ: > > カ ― ka > ピ ― pi > バ ― ba > ラ ― ra > > The same syllables could be written in Hiragana as かぴばら, but that wouldn't > have any meaning because it's not a Japanese word. > > Some other examples of Katatana (the dash ー means the preceding syllable is > drawn out longer) > > ツイート : tsu ii to ("tweet") > スライドショー : su ra ii do sho ("slideshow") > メルボルン、オーストラリア : me ru bo ru nn, oo su to ra ri a (Melbourne, Australia) > ベン ホスキングス : be nn ho su ki nn gu su (Ben Hoskings) > > It's a pretty cool language :) > > ―Ben > > > On 29 November 2010 13:16, Josh Price <[email protected]> wrote: > >> It is and says Capybara. >> >> The fan club lives here: >> >> http://www.facebook.com/pages/kapibarasan-Kapibara-San/49825139716 >> >> On 29/11/2010, at 1:13 PM, Daryl Manning wrote: >> >> > Just curious if it was anything... assumed it was Japanese on the front >> of it, but realized it could be the reverse of "Engrish" transliterations. >> And what i that on the front? A capybara? >> > >> > Inquiring minds have asked and I came up wanting... =] >> > >> > ciao ! >> > Daryl. >> > >> > >> > -- >> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Ruby or Rails Oceania" group. >> > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> [email protected]<rails-oceania%[email protected]> <rails-oceania%[email protected]<rails-oceania%[email protected]> > >> . >> > For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/rails-oceania?hl=en. >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Ruby or Rails Oceania" group. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> [email protected]<rails-oceania%[email protected]> <rails-oceania%[email protected]<rails-oceania%[email protected]> > >> . >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/rails-oceania?hl=en. >> >> > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby or Rails Oceania" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]<rails-oceania%[email protected]> . > For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rails-oceania?hl=en. >
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