2012年6月18日月曜日

saka and zaka

Tokyo is a city of hills. As I live on a hill, I have to go up and down the hill whenever I go out. It is very tiring on hot days, but there are many “Tokyo hills” fans and hill geeks. This is because the history and culture of Tokyo is often reflected in the names of hills. In my neighborhood every hill has a post and the name and its origin are written on it. When I read them, I learn something like “on this hill there used to be a residence of a samurai who had the same name as the hill. It is interesting to me. Non-Japanese often point out that every hill has a name even though many streets in Tokyo don’t have one”

Actually, if you live in Japan, you probably know some of street names or bridge names in your town. If you live in central Tokyo, you likely have heard “Meiji dori”, “Aoyama dori” or “Nihon bashi”. And when you make your own sentences, you might say, “kono dori o migi ni magaru.” (Turn right on this street.) or “ano bashi o watarou.” (Let’s cross that bridge.) In fact, they are not right.
  • street, road: toori (Not “dori”)
  • bridge: hashi (Not “bashi”)
Therefore, the following sentences are correct:
“kono tori o migi ni magaru” and “ano hashi o watarou”

When a proper noun is put in front of “tori” or “hashi”, the pronunciation of their kanji changes to “meiji dori” or “nihon bashi”.

Let’s have a look at other examples like this.

1. When a word is preceded by a proper noun, the first letter of the word takes on voiced consonant marks. (There are exceptions to this rule.)
  • saka  → zaka  [example: Fujimi zaka]
  • kawa  → gawa  [example: Sumida gawa]
2. When a word is preceded by a proper noun, the pronunciation of the kanji for the word changes from the kun-yomi (Japanese pronunciation) to the on-yomi (Chinese pronunciation). (There are exceptions to this rule.)
  • yama san  [example: Fuji san]
  • mizuumi  → ko  [example: Yamanaka ko]
  • shiro  →  jo  [example: Osaka jo]
So, if you say, “sen shumatsu ni ko ni itta.” (I went to a ko last weekend.) or “Osaka de jo o mita.”(I saw a jo in Osaka.), Japanese people hearing this would be like “???”. The correct sentences are “senshumatsu ni mizuumi ni itta.” and “Osaka de shiro o mita.”

Moreover, Many non-Japanese have an interesting understanding of Mt. Fuji (Fuji san). The san in Fuji san is the Chinese pronunciation of (yama), but those who don’t know kanji sometimes confuse that san with the san that we put after someone’s name. Sometimes they say, “Fuji san is an important mountain to Japanese, so you call it Fuji san to pay it respect, don’t you?” But, this is not the reason.

Incidentally, why is the big park in Shinjuku, Tokyo called “Shinjuku gyoen”, not “koen”? It is because this place was an imperial property during the Meiji period and “gyoen” means an imperial park/garden.