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There's also a Japanese version of this: 子子子子子子子子子子子子 Unfortunately I can only find a Spanish language Wikipedia article about it (https://es.m.wikipedia.org/w
by durkie 8y ago
There's also a Japanese version of this: 子子子子子子子子子子子子
Unfortunately I can only find a Spanish language Wikipedia article about it (https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neko_no_ko_koneko,_shishi_no_ko_kojishi https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neko_no_ko_koneko,_shishi_no...) but its roughly "kitten is the son of the cat, 'puppy' is the son of the lion" (we don't really have an English word for baby lion)
- yesbabyyes 8y ago(we don't really have an English word for baby lion) Cub?
- pdpi 8y agoDefinitely better than puppy, but not quite specific to lions.
- code_duck 8y agoIt’s specific to lions, just not exclusive to lions.
- pbhjpbhj 8y agoOoh, pedantry, my kind of thread: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/specific https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/specific I think it fails on most if not all definitions of specific. "Lion cub" is specific, lion and cub are both specifiers. But "cub" is specific to juveniles of a range of species; so I'd say "not specific to lions". Interesting then to think which species do have specific English single-word names for juveniles. Owlets, foals, and joeys spring to mind ... French has louveteau for a wolf cub, perhaps it has a specific lion cub word too? I'd imagine Kiswahili to have a specific word, perhaps?
- codetrotter 8y agoYes. I like how Google translate wrote it when translating the Spanish version; "the cat's son is a kitten; the son of the lion, cub".
- durkie 8y agoOh yeah! Definitely better.
- Heag3aec 8y agoOn english wikipedia it's a section of another article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ono_no_Takamura#Takamura_in_later_literature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ono_no_Takamura#Takamura_in_la...
- skykooler 8y agoAn example in Chinese (also involving lions): http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de/SHISHI.RXML http://www.fa-kuan.muc.de/SHISHI.RXML
- durkie 8y agoThis is amazing and insane!
- gcbw2 8y agoWhat can I use nowadays to play this site's .rm (real media?) files?
- simcop2387 8y agoVLC will likely play them fine outside a browser. No idea how one would get them to work inside.
- gcb0 8y agoin chinese the ma sound have several meanings (granted, with different tones). but it can mean mother, horse, hemp, question... there is certainly a chinese version of this around the corner :)
- smrq 8y agoNot quite the same thing. The character 子 has many different readings, meaning it is pronounced differently depending on context. E.g. 子 on its own is KO, but in the word 中性子 (chuuseishi) it is pronounced SHI. Those different pronunciations can be combined to a somewhat sensible phrase when spoken. But that phrase when written would come out as 猫の子子猫、獅子の子子獅子. So it's more of a pun than a grammar quirk. I feel like it's more related to the English "word" ghoti (fish), as it's specifically a quirk of the writing system. But I had never seen this before and it's fascinating! I don't mean to sound pedantic, I just think it's interesting how different languages have different sorts of technical oddities.
- xelxebar 8y agoIt's also interesting how の can be inserted as needed, a la 山手線 or 井上さん. Old Japanese works quite a bit differrently than the modern, productive sort.
- TazeTSchnitzel 8y agoIs that perhaps related to how traditionally, Japan wrote in Classical Chinese, then used a system for “reading” it as Japanese?
- xelxebar 8y agoI suspect so, since this kind of thing becomes more frequent as you go back in time. I think that's the same story for why some two-character words seem to have backwards word-ording, e.g. 日本に滞在する vs 在日する, or 米国へ渡る vs 渡米する. I've also noticed that readings seem to become more liberal in general. These days we tend to think of kanji having rigid associations to readings; however, you'll sometimes see some characters replacing semantically similar ones, despite the readings being different. I also suspect this flexibility is how Japanese acquired such a complicated mapping between it's written and spoken forms. Blah, blah blah. You get me on this subject and I can ramble endlessly. :)