In the upcoming issue of Hiragana Times magazine (printed in both English and Japanese), there is an article about Hanzi Smatter by J. M. Ventura titled "Badges of Ignorance".
What're the characters above the Japanese? Is that a different character set or a translation from one language to another? Congratulations on the increasing coverage!
More specifically, they're furigana, also known as "ruby" characters. They're a literacy aid, which also can convey subtle wordplay, alternate pronunciations, and the like.
(Totally off-topic, but I'm just a little bit disturbed by the ad on the bottom right hand corner of the last page (Japanese women seeking European/American men to marry)...)
What're the characters above the Japanese? Is that a different character set or a translation from one language to another? Congratulations on the increasing coverage!
ReplyDeleteHunter,
ReplyDeleteThe smaller characters on top of Japanese kanji are hiragana. They are there to provide phonetic information.
More specifically, they're furigana, also known as "ruby" characters. They're a literacy aid, which also can convey subtle wordplay, alternate pronunciations, and the like.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on appearing in yet another publication! :D
ReplyDeleteMaybe I should start a blog about the 'misuse' of the @ sign ;)
...and the blog gained another eighty regular visitors.
ReplyDeleteTian, congratulations again. With the increasing coverage of this blog, I suppose you would start collecting money from us!? :O
ReplyDeleteCongrats, and interesting article.
ReplyDelete(Totally off-topic, but I'm just a little bit disturbed by the ad on the bottom right hand corner of the last page (Japanese women seeking European/American men to marry)...)