Naomasa298

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh yes. There are several different levels of politeness/formality in Japanese. There's the vulgar form, the standard form and the humble form, and nuances within each one. Which one you use depends on your relationship to the speaker. Not only do verbs change, but pronouns and suffixes do as well. The language makes itself ridiculously difficult because you have to learn some words three times. And, of course, it has three different alphabets, but that's a different story.

The style isn't related to the kunyomi/onyomi. Words are generally only read one way (although individual characters may be read differently in different words).

As far as the reading/writing system is concerned, it doesn't affect the written meaning, but you do have to read it correctly. While a Japanese person will probably know what you mean if you get it wrong, you're still basically using the wrong word.

Yorgos

Thanks Naomasa, that's very interesting.

1991sudarshan

I am really sorry. I forgot to post to reply for that. In fact after that post I have been trying to use yamato in the place of japan where i come accross. I thought of implementing the word "yamato" instead fo japan in my mother tongue tamil, in which the alphabet 'J' is an alien one and yamato fix properly in to my language's phonological snytax

sculptingman

Most peoples who predate modern nationalistic identities do not have a formal name for themselves, as a group.

They generally call themselves " the people" or some variant thereof... or they call themselves by a tribal or clan name that has no proper application to the larger group that included multiple clans or tribes.

To the Chinese, the term ChiaPengGuo did not specifically refer to the People as a nation, but as a reference to their "land"... the Islands of the small people.

Since most people just call themselves 'people'- which does not translate as much of an identifier... MOST people end up being called by the name that OTHER groups tend to call them.

Thus the Flathead Indians or Nez Pearce, The Aborigines, or even the Yankees or the Rebels... most groups end up being called by some descriptive terms used by outsiders to group them... and often its based upon terrain, not genetic nor nationalistic identity.

Not until the warring groups in Japan began to coalesce into a unified nationalistic idea does the idea even occur to them that they are One People.

ziggytiger

Japan have three names and got all its name from the Chinese as all of it is recorded first in Chinese text, first referred to as wakoku - this is on'yomi the chinese pronunciation [倭国] then they changed the [倭] which also reads Yamato in kun'yomi the japanese pronunciation of the character (check the taiko troupe Yamato) to wa [和] in the end they were given a new name [日本] as to the Chinese the sun rises from the east where japan lies. for western pronunciation is probably cause by the ancient chinese dialect; know that the Chinese did not use Mandarin until the development of it at the end of the Song (12rd century) so it could be the Wu dialect (Zeppen), the more ancient language similar to the Minnan Dialect (Jit Pun) or adopted and evolve from the Portuguese from the Malay word Jepang (also from the Chinese pronunciation).