ばか！バカ！　馬鹿ー月！

Yeah. kira earned one level of Japanese understanding.

ainsoph9 wrote:Yeah. kira earned one level of Japanese understanding.

Yay.

Actually, I still wonder why use katakanas. I mean, aren't hiraganas enough?

Katakana are used for one of two things generally: foreign words borrowed by the Japanese or for emphasis (kind of like bold or italics in English). Hiragana is used for "native" Japanese words and plain text without emphasis. I put the word "native" in quotation marks because some words that were originally foreign words have become so common to the Japanese people that they have shifted from being written in katakana to hiragana. In other words, most Japanese do not either realize that they came from another language or they feel that the term is more Japanese than it originally was.

I don't understand why use another alphabet for foreign words...

Katakana was originally meant to be a simplification of kanji to make the lower, less educated classes more literate. Since Japan simplified many kanji post-WWII, katakana in a sense kind of became a hangover from its original purpose, although, to my limited knowledge, it was being used for foreign words and the like beforehand. For a culture like Japanese society that has traditional been very wary of outside elements, it makes sense that they would differentiate between what they consider native and what they consider foreign. The rest of us scratch our heads and make comments similar to yours, kira.

Who was behind the katakana idea?

Buddhist monks is one theory. Others say other things such as Japanese women courtiers.

ainsoph9 wrote:Buddhist monks is one theory. Others say other things such as Japanese women courtiers.

JAPANESE WOMEN COURTIERS???

Yep. Boredom can produce some pretty amazing things.

Like a denpa onna.

No kidding.

So, what can we talk about now?

Denpa Onna?

ainsoph9 wrote:Denpa Onna?

Though it looks good, I like Bakemonogatari better after all.

Why the comparison?