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| author | Tom Smeding <tom@tomsmeding.com> | 2025-05-12 11:47:04 +0200 |
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| committer | Tom Smeding <tom@tomsmeding.com> | 2025-05-12 11:47:04 +0200 |
| commit | a04e7a21ad151ab3ea365a0839a6fd24b65ba5b5 (patch) | |
| tree | 048a459f3547adbd92ece6dae3a30b80ea98d181 /natlang/meruhenchikku.html | |
| parent | 9fa67dd485ba033c0adfdfe1ef9265a066a2caff (diff) | |
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| -rw-r--r-- | natlang/meruhenchikku.html | 18 |
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diff --git a/natlang/meruhenchikku.html b/natlang/meruhenchikku.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f7fdbd2 --- /dev/null +++ b/natlang/meruhenchikku.html @@ -0,0 +1,18 @@ +<h2>メルヘンチック</h2> +<p>The title is a Japanese word meaning "fairy-tale-like", and can be transcribed as "meruhenchikku". +Notes on pronunciation: both <em>e</em> are roughly the first <em>e</em> in <em><u>e</u>nter</em>; the <em>r</em> is a single-tap "r" as in Spanish "caro"; both <em>u</em> are roughly the stressed sound in English "you" halfway between the initial "i" and the final low "u"; the <em>ch</em> is like an English "ch" but brought closer to "t" while also raising its pitch; and the <em>i</em> is short but with the quality of English "beat", not English "bit". +The double <em>k</em> indicates a small pause.</p> +<p>The etymology of this word is funny. +In German, there is word <em>Märchen</em> that means "fairy-tale"; its adaptation into Japanese phonology became "meruhen" (メルヘン). +The "-chikku" part, however, comes from English.</p> +<h3>English</h3> +<p>There are a number of adjectives ending in <em>-ic</em> in English: romantic, alcoholic, metallic, etc. +These generally come from Latin <em>-icus</em> (<a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-icus#Latin">wiktionary</a>) where English dropped the <em>-us</em>/<em>-um</em> ending as usual. +This originally came from Proto-Indo-European <em>-kos</em> (<a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-cus#Latin">wiktionary</a>). +Some of the <em>-icus</em> words in Latin happen to have a <em>t</em> in front of it, and hence some English words also do: romantic, galactic, etc.</p> +<p>While <em>-ic</em> is not particularly productive any more in English, it appears in enough words its meaning would be clear if it is added as-is to an existing word. +Adding <em>-tic</em> to a word in English for this purpose would make little sense.</p> +<h3>Japanese</h3> +<p>However, Japanese is not bound by such compunctions and decided that <em>-tic</em> is what the suffix shall be, rendered in Japanese phonology as "chikku" (チック) because they don't naturally have a clean "t", nor a "k" without a following vowel. +Naturally, thus, it makes perfect sense to build the word <em>Märchen-tic</em>, i.e. meruhenchikku: fairy-tale-like.</p> +<p>That's all I had, hope you considered this a good use of 3 minutes of your time.</p> |