Singularity on the Plane

Random words and kanji are those that I randomly encounter, for example while watching a movie.

Side-effect words are dictionary words that I picked when learning a new kanji from another dump. For example, I encountered 激しい (hageshii, intense) while hunting from a song. 激 was a new kanji for me, and to know its on-reading I searched for some compounds in the dictionary. Those compounds, e.g. 激化 (gekika, intensification) are considered side-effect words because they are not in the original material.

It is also possible that I deliberately set out to memorize words or kanji from a particular source, but the amount is too small to warrant its own section.

A notable source for the current dump is guidetojapanese.org and the name of Morning Musume and Berryz Koubou members.

There are 51 new kanji:

彩暇磨擬譲怒穏契華吉皆叫翼裕蝉痩呟茉莉閑臥釆菅餌澤雍卿嗣雅沙箇荒柳拳圭奈須智紗属欲玄琴勢妻尊垣寧謙耶紺

And 405 words:

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In Japanese, the kana ん (n) is considered a sound that can stand by itself. It sounds somewhat like “uhm”.

In normal speaking the ん sticks to the preceding kana. For example, りんご (ringo, apple) is pronounced “rin-go”, not “ri-n-go” (ri-”uhm”-go). Note that because ん is considered one mora (beat), “rin” (composed of 2 mora, “ri” and “n”) should sound longer than “go” (only 1 mora). The elongation is done by holding the “n” sound for a while.

However, in songs ん is oftenly detached and voiced by itself! This is very funny considering that the same thing doesn’t happen in Bahasa Indonesia and English. Consider Indonesian words like “jantan”, “makan”, and “jalan”. In songs (and conversation), they are always pronounced as “jan-tan”, “ma-kan”, and “ja-lan”. The same thing holds in English (e.g., “wo-man”, “ten”, “a-gain”, “A-me-ri-can”). ‘n’ never gets its own note.

An Indonesian or English song where the ‘n’ is forcibly separated would sound wacko. Try to imagine it… However enter the Japanese music world and a lone ‘n’ doesn’t seem weird at all… Two examples:

Anshinkan (Berryz Koubou): Nee itsu datte anshin shitai no yo (a-n-shi-n)
Aozora ga Itsumade mo Tsuzuku You na Mirai de Are! (Morning Musume): So donna toki mo jibun jishin shinjite GO (do-n-na, ji-bu-n, ji-shi-n, shi-n-ji-te)

Of course ん can also stick to the preceding sound like in normal speaking, so it all depends on the songwriter. In these following examples the ん isn’t separated:

Sakura Mankai (Morning Musume Sakura Gumi): aa sakura mankai, nee sakura mankai mune no naka (man-ka-i)
Lemon Iro to Milk Tea (Morning Musume): onnaji kuukan kuukan eiga no naka kansei kansei (on-na-ji, kuu-kan, kan-sei)

I’ve said that in speaking (conversation, speech, anything other than songs) the ん is normally attached. That is almost always the case. However, I’ve actually encountered the isolated case several times! Here’s one example from a casual talk:

Sugaya Risako: ma… zenbu… kawaiin desu kedo, atashi ga ichiban… (i-chi-ba-n)

Of course, you can deliberately separate the ん if you want to give a slow motion effect. However I don’t consider that normal speaking. Nevertheless, this is what Sayumi does on her radio show:

Michishige Sayumi: Mooningu Musume Michishige Sayumi no “Konya mo Usa-chan peace…” (ko-n-ya)

To finish, I offer the audio file that contains all the above examples:

n-sound.ogg (duration 1:01, 515 KB): MediaFire mirror; 3000mb mirror; Indonesian mirror

(Audio made using the open source audio editor Audacity. To play the audio file in Windows you might need to install the codecs from Illiminable.)

No, I’m not talking about the fruit…

In the Japanese language, なんか (nanka) is a filler that has no particular meaning. In casual speech, some people use it just about anywhere. It serves the same purpose as “like” in sentences such as “His brother is, like, very tall!”

Some examples from guidetojapanese.org:

今日は、なんか忙しいみたいよ。
Ima wa, nanka isogashii mitai yo.
-I guess he’s like busy today.

お母さんが、なんか明日まで戻らないんだってよ。
Okaasan ga, nanka ashita made tomaranain datte yo.
-Mom said she’s not coming back until like tomorrow.

Another example I picked from the novel “Wagahai wa Neko de aru“:

私は唐人の名なんかむずかしくて覚えられませんわ。
Watashi wa toujin no na nanka muzukashikute oboeraremasen wa.
- For me, Chinese names are like hard and I can’t remember them.
(My own translation, flame on for mistakes :))

OK, now to the main point of this post. Some time ago, I watched Morning Musume’s trip to Hong Kong. In the end of the trip every member gave their impressions, and Takahashi Ai spoke using nanka like all the time! Here’s the audio for your hearing pleasure:

takahashi-nanka.ogg (442 KB, 48 seconds): Mirror 1 (3000mb.com server); Mirror 2 (Indonesian server)

I won’t give any transcription nor translation. The point in hearing it is to get a feel about how it is slipped in (besides, uhm, I’m not skillful enough to comprehend her talk yet). Try to spot all 6 occurences.

This is Morning Musume’s 15th single. An energetic song (oh, with some rap!) and one of my favorites.

12 new kanji:

普迷宙悟途符宇簡訪嘩喧叶

Song stats:

• Previous “average new words/song”: 21.14
• New words in this song: 21
• New “average new words/song”: 21.13

And the words themselves:

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