I noticed カラオケ (karaoke) is always written in katakana on signs/buildings in Japan, despite it being a Japanese word. Why is it not written in Kanji or Hiragana?
As I understand it, the usual reasons for using katakana are things like:
But カラオケ is a modern Japanese word (which has been borrowed by English from Japanese, rather than the other way around), so I don't understand why it would be written exclusively in katakana?
Answer
It's not a wholly Japanese word. It's a shortening of [空]{から} ('empty') and オーケストラ. So, since at least part of it needs to be written with katakana, the whole word is written with katakana. (Switching between the two within one word typically only happens in slang verbs like サボる.)
No comments:
Post a Comment