Re: [unicode] Re: Is there a Japanese character for the word Unicode? (from Re: Unicode Haiku Contest)

From: Patrick Hall (pathall@gmail.com)
Date: Sat Dec 19 2009 - 03:21:28 CST

  • Next message: suzuki toshiya: "Re: [unicode] Re: Is there a Japanese character for the word Unicode? (from Re: Unicode Haiku Contest)"

    Hi,

    > Google translates "Unicode Code" as "ユニークなコード" ("yunīku na kōdo") using kanas. So I guess that the Japanese
    > translation would be translitterated as "yunīkōdo" by removing some kanas in the middle (but I don't know Japanese to
    > see if this can be a good translation).

    In this case Google Translate is simply wrong.

    "ユニークなコード" ("yunīku na kōdo") means "unique code"; both words exist in
    Japanese as borrowings from English[1] and the phrase ユニークなコード also
    seems to occur, but it doesn't mean "Unicode."

    Dropping of medial and final syllables often happens in combinations
    of borrowed words (e.g., パソコン "pasokon" in lieu of the unwieldy
    パーソナルコンピュータ "pāsonarukonpyūta" personal computer), but not here.

    In this case the grammatical marker な "na" (which is Hiragana, not
    Katakana, and in no way related to English) serves to mark the word
    "yunīku" as an adjective with respect to "kōdo". 

    -- 
Patrick Hall
[1] http://tangorin.com/words/ユニークand http://tangorin.com/words/コード

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