After spending so much time this semester discussing and studying katakana and its uses, some more light has been shed on this interesting facet of the Japanese language for me. In my analysis draft, I discussed the use of the word チケット to mean “ticket” while there is already a word for it in Japanese. As I had said, this brings to light some of the ways that Japanese society has sought to emulate the West and how it has handled the heavy impact upon its culture. But it wasn’t until I thought about turning the tables around that I began to see how much a simple word could say about a people and a culture. In English there are numerous words of foreign origin used in daily speech, but that is mainly because there is no English alternative (e.g. piñata, schadenfreude, denouement, affogato, etc). In general, these foreign words have not really displaced English ones. I asked myself then, how would Americans feel and what would they think and do if they were told that “kippu” was a new alternative word for “ticket”? Of course there are many cultural, historical, and national elements to take into account, but hypothetically I think that Americans would not be open and understanding of this change. Having seen it from this point of view, I understand the Japanese use of foreign words in a different way as well as understanding Japanese people and their outlook on the West a little bit better. I am thoroughly fascinated by the fact that katakana creates this realm where words like this can coexist with loan words for which there is no alternative (コピー) and with other uses like onomatopoeia. In short, there really is a lot more to katakana than meets the eye.
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