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There are also many native Japanese onomatopoeiae using an initial p sound. Interestingly enough, if we're at Pokémon, Pikachu's name is influenced by the onoma
by unscaled 2y ago
There are also many native Japanese onomatopoeiae using an initial p sound. Interestingly enough, if we're at Pokémon, Pikachu's name is influenced by the onomatopoeia /pikapika/ which means to shine, sparkle or flash. But if we look at the original pronounciation of the Japanese verb 光る/hikaru ("to shine"), it would have been pronounced /pikaru/ in Old Japanese, so it looks like the onomatopoeia has re-established itself.
The same is probably true for the Japanese word for flag, 旗/hata - it would have been pronounced /pata/ which is suspiciously reminiscent of the onomatopoeia /patapata/, often used for thin pieces of material flapping in the wind.
- thedailymail 2y agoThe Pikachu name is also partly derived from the pika, a small rabbit-like mammal native to Asia and North America.
- naniwaduni 2y agoThe pika is an obscure (yet barely interesting...) rabbit thing with no cultural salience, whose most noted features are its alarm call and lack of visible tail, nor are its names pronounced much like the pika in Pikachu in the languages Japanese has much exchange with. Pikachu is explicitly a rodent (a "mouse" with some squirrel inspirations) designed in the early 90s with none of those features. This claim seems profoundly unlikely.