AMERICA IS THE BEST! - Feed Post by Oregon_Ducks
AMERICA IS THE BEST!
posted by Oregon_Ducks
Comments 10
Agree to disagree. :P
米国 is the best 国 to find 米 ? :P- Actually, apparently not. Perhaps back when they associated the kanji with the country, but now it is in 13th place for rice production, behind even Japan. If the kanji were to be associated today, it would reference China.
- Never mind. The Japanese word for America actually comes from the Chinese word for America, which really is kanji arranged to make the phonetic sound "amerika". In Chinese, it was "亜米利加". Japan used the second kanji to refer to the country, is all. Maybe Germany's name has nothing to do with being self-dependent, and France's has nothing to do with Buddhism? :P
I thought it was hillarious when I first found out America was written with the rice kanji.
I was thinking of people who use the term "ricer" as in "ricer cars" and suchlike. This is/was a derogatory term used by fans of powerful cars towards people who take Japanese import vehicles and modify them in silly ways that have no effect on the performance of their cars. All along it was the Mustangs, Plymouths and Chevys which were the 米 cars! :D
I've already learnt about the Japanese name for America and stuff like that before. I've posted about it on this site somewhere, but I think I might have posted it in Chat and it's too far back to find now. :/
I don't think it was ever written as 亜米利加 in Chinese. It was 亞美利加 in Traditional Chinese. Although 亞 is simply the older form before it was simplified to 亜 in the post-war Japanese language reforms, 美 is "beauty". In Traditional Chinese I've read America is written as 美國 (mei guo), with 國 again being the old form of 国 before post-war kanji simplification, so "beautiful country"!
So 亜米利加 is only a Japanese word. It seems strange why Japan felt like using 米 instead of 美. :D- The kanji used in 英国 is clearly for its meaning though! :P
- 英 means English now. It didn't always. It used to be a plant related word, but has made the transition to meaning only English/England. Psst. Look at the grass radical at the top!
- I was thinking more the meanings like "bravery", "hero", "outstanding" and "handsome", lol. But yeah, its proper meaning is more related to the petal/sepal part of a flower, or maybe originally referring to some specific kind of flower. I've tried to learn about the meaning of 英 before because I like wasting a lot of time looking up stuff like that. ^^
英 also has kun readings, はなぶさ and ひいでる, which are helpful for figuring out the meaning of the kanji.
Also:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%8B%B1
http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?characterInput%3D%E8%8B%B1 - Bleh, I escaped the second link incorrectly. This one *should* work properly:
http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?characterInput=%E8%8B%B1
- Yeah, so the original meaning had nothing to do with English. It does now, but didn't at the time of the changeover.
