I think parent’s use of ”logical” instead of “complex” better fits the bill.
For instance, on the 1 onyomi with 1 kunyomi average, there’s no specific logic making it that way (I actually doubt it’s only one of each in average), and there’s no limit on how many readings a kanji can get, people can randomly add new readings and popularize them.
It’s not a problem in practice because not knowing most words’ reading has little impact in day to day life, and mixing up kanjis is pretty common and people won’t make a fuss about it.
All in all I think Japanese has a very steady learning curve where other languages will have sudden walls to climb, but it’s not more or less complex, difficulty is just more evenly distributed.
> Song lyrics are a case in point. It is the height of erudition to contrive a novel way to write some verb or other.
This is intensely interesting -- do I understand this correctly, that what happens is a songwriter uses a verb (or I guess any word) and writes it down as a different set of kanji(+kana) than how it's usually written, and the new form is confusing at first to a reader of the lyrics, and the new form evokes some different emotion or context because of the choice of kanji?
Can you think of an example? I want to see for myself.
Wordplay is delicious and I've never heard of this kind of it. . o O ( this had better not awaken anything in me. )
I'm not familiar with many Japanese song lyrics, so not familiar with the phenomenon mentioned. I'd also be interested in examples.
There are always several ways to write a word in Japanese. As far as I know, any word can be written in hiragana. Additionally, there are the kanji writing and then katakana. While katakana is primarily used for words that were appropriated from other languages, it has several other common uses. For example, if a robot, alien, child, or non-Japanese is speaking, the words may be written in katakana to indicate the non-fluency of the speaker. Also, many animal names are often written in katakana.
Additionally, there are quite a few pseudo-English words that are written in katakana because they originally arose from English words. Some of my favorites (written in romaji for those who don't read katakana):
- "baabeekaa" : pronounced similar to "baby car", this word means a stroller
- "akogi" : short for acoustic guitar
- "brappi", "jimihen", etc: Brad Pitt, Jimi Hendrix, etc.
- "handoru": pronounced similar to "handle". This is what a steering wheel is called in Japanese, so..
- "handorukeepaa": or handle keeper, refers to a designated driver.
Another interesting thing that occurs in Japanese is referred to as ateji. This is where kanji are used only for the sound they give. In other words, any word can be written by just using a kanji with that sound for each syllable. The meanings of the kanji chosen (there are many with each particular sound) can give additional flavor/wordplay/signifigance to the usage.
Finally, one of the most interesting things I saw in Japanese was a baby soap, called "Arau baby". The first word "arau" is the Japanese infinitive for "to wash" written in romaji, or roman script. Since this is the product name and it is written in roman script, the product label also includes a katakana translation (アラウベビー). So instead of using the kanji for arau, it was treated as a foreign word and then appropriated back into Japanese using katakana. Or something.
I can't think of any examples of the top of my head, but I have definitely seen this many times. One form it comes in is writing the meaning in kanji but then using an English word in Katakana as the Furigana for it. One example I can remember in that form, though it's not song lyrics, is "とある科学の超電磁砲" where 超電磁砲 has the Furigana レールガン (rail gun). Another form it takes is doing the same thing but using a different Japanese word instead of an English one.
There is just absolutely all sorts of fuckery in Japanese on a count of people playing with the language. It's a fun language to play around with.
It's a pretty broad mechanism, also widely used in drama/anime/manga where you can basically stick any reading to any word as long as people accept it.
Traditional examples would be 本気 (honki) -> マジ (maji), 頭文字(kasiramoji) -> イニシアる(initial), 因果(inga) -> カルマ(karma)
I remember a live stream where a comment with "超電磁砲"(choudenjihou) was straight read into "railgun", as at this point the novel/manga/anime just established it as a popular reading.
One good example is from GReeeeN's 愛唄(Aiuta/ Love Song). It's a song about a guy apologising for all the times he's fought with and been a nuisance to his partner, and reaffirming his love for them.
「君の選んだ人生「みち」は僕「ここ」よかったのか？」
Taken as you'd hear it from listening to the song, it means "Are you happy with the road you have chosen?", but reading the lyrics uses different kanji to give it a slightly broader meaning.
人生 is read as jinsei, meaning life, but the furigana is 道（みち）which is a road or a path, note that this can be a literal road or a more figurative pathway through life.
僕(boku) is a male pronoun for "me/myself" but ここ means "this" as in "this road, not that one"
It's not that deep, but it extends the meaning of the lyric to be something like "are you happy to spend the rest of your life with me?" I thought it was kinda clever. There's probably better examples, but this pops into my head often as it's still quite a popular song.
For instance, on the 1 onyomi with 1 kunyomi average, there’s no specific logic making it that way (I actually doubt it’s only one of each in average), and there’s no limit on how many readings a kanji can get, people can randomly add new readings and popularize them.
It’s not a problem in practice because not knowing most words’ reading has little impact in day to day life, and mixing up kanjis is pretty common and people won’t make a fuss about it.
All in all I think Japanese has a very steady learning curve where other languages will have sudden walls to climb, but it’s not more or less complex, difficulty is just more evenly distributed.