Quote:
Originally Posted by Nagoyankee
I just call it 'Jabbreviation'!
Hope they don't create too many of those, though. It's linguistically interesting becasue it shows the flexibility of the Japanese language...and probably the Japaense mind as well. Not many languages would have that large of a 'play' in them.
'KYな人' looked like a phrase from outer space when I first saw it on TV. I thought they were talking about somebody from Kentucky!
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I agree, I hope not too many more are created, but I saw a TV show where (surprise surprise) young Tokyo gals had already created a bunch, some were pretty long, but there was some "KO" (
kusai oyaji) and things of that nature.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nyororin
Unfortunately, as familiar as people are with the English (Roman) alphabet... It doesn`t mean that they`re *skilled* with it`s use. Reading something written in romaji falls somewhere along the lines of trying to read a regular English sentence written all in Katakana. Sure, you can probably do it, but it will take you a bit of time and thought.
It`s an abbreviation - "kuuki ga yomenai" (ga seems to be a lot more common than wo) would be romaji. KY is an abbreviation that is read as 空気が読めない. Just as PC is read as パソコン (which I`d consider a Japanese word at this point), and wouldn`t be considered romaji. In the end, the abbreviation ends up being treated as a character itself, of sorts, and loses connection with where it came from.
Your example was pretty timely too. Last night, they had a show on asking people to read KY and some others, and while almost everyone could read it (sometimes not the exact phrase, but the same meaning), less than a third knew that it was an abbreviation taken from kuuki ga yomenai.
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As always, Nyororin, thanks for the clarification. That's intersting that so few knew what the abbreviation meant...despite the popularity of the book(s). I guess it's true in English...we use words from French and other languages, and know what they "mean" without knowing thier roots.