/jp/ - Otaku Culture

[Anonymous No.]

Hey, why is it that the Japanese say "shi" instead of "si", but have no problems with "so", "se", "sa", and "su"?

[Sakura !!sCKns1iPkwx No.]

They do say Si, it just doesn't conform to your idea of what it should sound like.

[Anonymous No.]

as I understand it when written chinese came across to Japan something like 2500 years ago a lot of the sounds in the Japanese language were similar enough to the sound of the Chinese kanji that they adapted their language to suit the variation.

Which is why a lot of kanji end up with the sound shi, it's basically the best way they could pronounce some of those sounds the original Chinese made when reading those kanji. As kanji simplified to become hiragana and katakana they kept the most basic sounds adapting si to shi, ti to chi, hu to fu, and tu to tsu.

[Anonymous No.]

>>3410729
I hope that makes sense because i suck at explaining. Look up a kanji dictionary some day, there's a fuck ton of shi kanji out there.

[Anonymous No.]

>>3410729
>>3410742
Thanks, man. Curiosity sated for the night.

[Anonymous No.]

you're thinking of it in terms of the romanized kana chart. to the japanese, it is just a natural phonetic sound. to us, we look at it and say, "why doesn't it follow the pattern?"

[Anonymous No.]

>>3410748
This information comes from someone who may not know shit about what they were saying so take it only so far. The way languages shift over time is fascinating, English probably more than most.

Like we can look at rhyming poetry to learn how people pronounced words over time. Back in the 15th century day and tea rhymed. We're pretty sure the word Day has kept it's pronunciation so imagine saying to someone, pass the "tei"

[Anonymous No.]

>>3410772
Please pass the Tewi.