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Baka (fool)
''Baka'' (, in hiragana, or in katakana) means "fool", or (as an adjectival noun) "foolish" and is the most frequently used pejorative term in the Japanese language. This word ''baka'' has a long history, an uncertain etymology (possibly from Sanskrit or Classical Chinese), and linguistic complexities. Word 100px, ''Baka'' written in kanji as The modern Japanese writing system transcribes the insult ''baka'' as in katakana, in hiragana, or ( "horse deer") in ''ateji'' phonetic kanji transcription; earlier ''ateji'' renderings included , , , or . History The first written usages of ''baka'' were during the Nanboku-chō period (1336–1392), when the "Northern and Southern Courts" battled. In the earliest example, the ''Taiheiki'' historical epic records ''bakamono'' () being used as an insult in 1342. The Ashikaga commander Toki Yoritō () refuses to pay obeisance to retired Emperor Kōgon ( 1313–1364), "Yoritō, probably inebriated, loudly demands to know what ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hiragana
is a Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with ''katakana'' as well as ''kanji''. It is a phonetic lettering system. The word ''hiragana'' literally means "flowing" or "simple" kana ("simple" originally as contrasted with kanji). Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems. With few exceptions, each mora in the Japanese language is represented by one character (or one digraph) in each system. This may be either a vowel such as ''"a"'' (hiragana あ); a consonant followed by a vowel such as ''"ka"'' (か); or ''"n"'' (ん), a nasal sonorant which, depending on the context, sounds either like English ''m'', ''n'' or ''ng'' () when syllable-final or like the nasal vowels of French, Portuguese or Polish. Because the characters of the kana do not represent single consonants (except in the case of ん "n"), the kana are referred to as syllabic symbols and not alphabetic letters. Hiragana is used to write ''okurigana'' (kana suffixes following a kanji ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
