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Because context is more than just what words are being used. Facial expressions, who's speaking, gestures -- everything feeds into the context of the spoken lan
by harisenbon 17y ago
Because context is more than just what words are being used. Facial expressions, who's speaking, gestures -- everything feeds into the context of the spoken language.
My favorite example of this was when I was watching "Bushi no ichibun," a samurai movie that came out a while ago. A man and a woman were in a house, and my wife and I could not figure out their relation. The woman says "Hey, you." And we both realized that the characters were married.
"Is modern Japanese so different?"
Yes. Yes it is. Japanese has gone through so many reforms that's it's almost a completely different language. Also take into account that the Take of Genji was the first written novel and you'll see why modern speakers would not be able to read Tale of Genji in it's original format.
- delackner 17y agoWhat you are talking about in the married scene is the emotional context of the way she said "you". I guess in the movie she probably said "anata"? But this is not a very good example, as regardless of emotional context, simply using the word "anata" instead of his name is a solid contextual message that they are married. Otherwise she would say his name, or his "role" (father, older- brother, younger-brother, etc). I'm sure there are some sentences that require clarification, but this is true in english as well. But generally speaking, it is not an issue. Only very rarely do japanese people end up needing to disambiguate through pantomiming the strokes of kanji in the air or saying "you know, the first character from such and such, not the character from that other word" (except when discussing the writing of names, which is totally insane and is the real life version of the old monty python Throatwarbler Mangrove sketch).