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 Posted: Sat May 22, 2010 6:44 pm
I looked up 'konnichiwa' on Wiktionary only to find that their entry has it as こんにちは. I can see 'ko', 'n', 'ni', and 'chi', but why does it end in 'ha' instead of 'wa'?
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Posted: Mon May 24, 2010 7:36 am
Because the particle (that is, grammatical marker) "wa" is written as は. It's still pronounced "wa." は appearing as part of a word is still pronounced "ha."
Similarly, へ is pronounced "e", not "he", when acting as a particle. (It indicates the destination of motion, like に.)
By historical curiosity, を is still written with the w-series characters; if it had followed the same pattern as wa and e, we would expect it to be written ほ but it isn't.
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Posted: Mon May 24, 2010 5:13 pm
Wow, interesting, thanks. I'm not very good with Japanese, I've been trying to pick it up by myself. I know all the hiragana and a couple hundred kanji, now I'm working on katakana.
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Posted: Wed May 26, 2010 8:14 pm
Although read differently (usually), another way of putting it is "今日は” which in this case, the wa is the particle ha and not the typical reading. This however is usually read as きょうは instead of こんにちは and means "Today..". If this is the basis for the word hello in Japanese, it wouldn't be the first language where hello when directly translated doesn't actually mean what hello means in English. Though, this reading makes it seem more like a "good day!" than another greeting.
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Posted: Mon Jul 05, 2010 7:25 pm
Coda Highland Because the particle (that is, grammatical marker) "wa" is written as は. It's still pronounced "wa." は appearing as part of a word is still pronounced "ha." Similarly, へ is pronounced "e", not "he", when acting as a particle. (It indicates the destination of motion, like に.) By historical curiosity, を is still written with the w-series characters; if it had followed the same pattern as wa and e, we would expect it to be written ほ but it isn't. Actually を is often read as 'wo' if one is reading a text out loud, but in spoken the direct object particle is pronounced as 'o'. In Classical Japanese, 'wo' was used much like 'wa' (onna 女 was pronounced and written as をんな). ほ was used as 'ho', but was used also as a means to write long 'o' sounds (大阪 was written as おほさか but pronounced oosaka). 言う was read as いふ. Following with what I'm say, 'ha' and 'he' were pronounced as 'wa' and 'e' for long vowel sounds and remained for the particles. We used to have ゑ 'we' an ゐ 'wi', but much like many things they were lost in Modern English. I suggest you get a book for Classical Japanese because it'll help you understand Modern English's grammar. I suggest: Classical Japanese Grammar - Haruo Shirane
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Posted: Mon Jul 05, 2010 11:03 pm
IdiotbyDefault Although read differently (usually), another way of putting it is "今日は” which in this case, the wa is the particle ha and not the typical reading. This however is usually read as きょうは instead of こんにちは and means "Today..". If this is the basis for the word hello in Japanese, it wouldn't be the first language where hello when directly translated doesn't actually mean what hello means in English. Though, this reading makes it seem more like a "good day!" than another greeting. When you think of it, "hello" doesn't actually mean anything in English, aside from "generic greeting!". It's the only language to have a word like that, to my knowledge.
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Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2010 2:51 am
I've heard you can use it either way with wa or ha. It doesn't matter because it's just a word.
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Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2010 9:33 pm
Cassandra Reign I've heard you can use it either way with wa or ha. It doesn't matter because it's just a word. It's always pronounced "wa" when spoken aloud. Spelling it with わ is technically incorrect but in casual writing (chats and e-mail and such) it's as acceptable as any of the variety of casual misspellings in English.
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Posted: Wed Jul 07, 2010 9:38 am
Vakruz IdiotbyDefault Although read differently (usually), another way of putting it is "今日は” which in this case, the wa is the particle ha and not the typical reading. This however is usually read as きょうは instead of こんにちは and means "Today..". If this is the basis for the word hello in Japanese, it wouldn't be the first language where hello when directly translated doesn't actually mean what hello means in English. Though, this reading makes it seem more like a "good day!" than another greeting. When you think of it, "hello" doesn't actually mean anything in English, aside from "generic greeting!". It's the only language to have a word like that, to my knowledge. How many languages do you know? There are many languages that have greetings with no actual meaning behind them rather than "greeting". In modern English and German "hello" and "hallo" might make no sense, but looking at their origins you can find they had a meaning because they were created from a word or 2 in another language. We may not recognize many of our words as having meanings like "bonjour" - good day. but it doesn't mean they don't exist.
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Posted: Wed Jul 07, 2010 11:51 am
My Japanese 1A professor explained that it ends with the particle "ha" because in the old days, it was part of the phrase "today is ______".
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Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2010 4:51 pm
Kanashii Sakura Uta My Japanese 1A professor explained that it ends with the particle "ha" because in the old days, it was part of the phrase "today is ______". Bringing it back to what I said about 今日は "Today (is)....". I knew I wasn't going crazy when my IME gives me the option of that kanji when I type こんにちは on my computer. In actuality, I think I was going for that greetings (including English) for other languages don't resemble anything else in other language in how they were formed (unless they have a common base, then they're similar in how they were formed from the original base too).
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