1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
|
## メルヘンチック
The title is a Japanese word meaning "fairy-tale-like", and can be transcribed as "meruhenchikku".
Notes on pronunciation: both _e_ are roughly the first _e_ in _<u>e</u>nter_; the _r_ is a single-tap "r" as in Spanish "caro"; both _u_ are roughly the stressed sound in English "you" halfway between the initial "i" and the final low "u"; the _ch_ is like an English "ch" but brought closer to "t" while also raising its pitch; and the _i_ is short but with the quality of English "beat", not English "bit".
The double _k_ indicates a small pause.
The etymology of this word is funny.
In German, there is word _Märchen_ that means "fairy-tale"; its adaptation into Japanese phonology became "meruhen" (メルヘン).
The "-chikku" part, however, comes from English.
### English
There are a number of adjectives ending in _-ic_ in English: romantic, alcoholic, metallic, etc.
These generally come from Latin _-icus_ ([wiktionary](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-icus#Latin)) where English dropped the _-us_/_-um_ ending as usual.
This originally came from Proto-Indo-European _-kos_ ([wiktionary](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-cus#Latin)).
Some of the _-icus_ words in Latin happen to have a _t_ in front of it, and hence some English words also do: romantic, galactic, etc.
While _-ic_ 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 _-tic_ to a word in English for this purpose would make little sense.
### Japanese
However, Japanese is not bound by such compunctions and decided that _-tic_ 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 _Märchen-tic_, i.e. meruhenchikku: fairy-tale-like.
That's all I had, hope you considered this a good use of 3 minutes of your time.
|
