Leanne Ogasawara (a translator from Japanese) describes an amusingly cockamamie proposal:
After Japan’s defeat in World War II, one of the famous novelists of the time, Naoya Shiga, published “National Language Issues” in the periodical Kaizo, in which he proposed that the Japanese language be abolished. And more, he suggested the country adopt French, “the most beautiful language in the world.” This created a huge uproar, given Shiga’s stature as an artist. It also fed into the suspicion the Japanese had at the time that their “exceeding difficult language” could be holding them back in terms of development.
Again and again, Japanese people would tell me how difficult Japanese is. I always thought it was a way to encourage me by saying, “It’s hard for us too!” But it wasn’t just the Chinese characters that Shiga found problematic, otherwise he would just have suggested they start using hiragana to write. This was what happened in Korea, when Hangul was developed in the 15th century. Because it was devised with much study and thought after using the Chinese system for a thousand years, Hangul is an almost perfect phonetic system.
Shiga knew this was a possibility and yet he suggested French because he felt it was not only the characters that was the problem. The defeat in the war had caused much soul-searching in Japan, leading to the idea that the Japanese language was somehow “too ambiguous”—aimai na nihongo. And that this had ultimately caused the country’s downfall.
(Shiga lived from 1883 to 1971 — quite a tumultuous span.)
Mori Arinori advocated the supplanting of Japanese by English, way back in the Meiji era.
This sort of thing seems to be the flip side of the widespread mystical idea that Japanese is radically different from all other languages, long popular with Japanese nationalists. Even being radically defective is at least preferable to being a language not unlike many another …
Though I have suggested here before that French should be the official language of the UK. (After all, it used to be the official language of England, so it’s not as if the idea is unprecidented.)
French should be the official language of the UK
Do you mean French as spoken by the French or French as taught to generations of British schoolchildren? The two languages are not always mutually comprehensible.
And Frensh she spak ful faire and fetisly,
After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe,
For Frensh of Paris was to hir unknowe.
If only everyone could use Esperanto, all our troubles would go away.
(Se nur ĉiuj povus uzi Esperanton, ĉiuj niaj problemoj forirus.)
I agree with Etienne: Haitian creole is the international language of the future.
Rigardu la komplikajn vortfinaĵojn!
“the widespread mystical idea that Japanese is radically different from all other languages”
But it also confirms that Japanese culture is radically different from that of the French:)
Mais non!
All cultures are French, insofar as they can properly be described as “cultures” at all, of course.
Ça va sans dire.
St Francis Xavier apparently thought that the Japanese language was a Satanic plot meant to prevent the evangelization of Japan.
The language of the far future. or at least the far-future working class, is Tok PIsin.
“All cultures are French, insofar as they can properly be described as “cultures” at all, of course.”
@DE there must be some Japanese writers who would agree.
I was impressed by a book by Nagata Hiroshi (“История философской мысли Японии” in Russian, a history of Japanese philosophical thought. I am not sure if it has been translated to English) that began from “Хорошо известны слова Накаэ Тёмина [3] о том, что у нас в Японии нет философии” (“The words of Nakae Chōmin that we don’t have philosophy in Japan are well known”), then described a sequence of borrowings of foreign philosophical ideas, then explained how backward cultrues develop their versions by mixing their backward ideas with foreign advanced ideas, concluding that Japanese versions of foreing teachings are by no means creative – and then confirmed the author’s point, because the book was thoroughly Marxist.
Animes where “the world is saved but Japan is destroyed” are quite unlike your usual Western cartoon too.
Nakae Chōmin:
This strikes me as yet more Japanese exceptionalism, this in the “we’re uniquely defective” mode. The Brits are quite prone to this too, if perhaps not quite so hardcore about it. Perhaps it comes of living on islands next to continents where Civilisation comes from.
You could actually say much the same about English philosophy (casting the analytical tradition as an import from Scotland and/or Vienna.)
(In religious matters the only true British innovator of any significance has been Pelagius, and he was Irish. We’re so defective …)
There’s a crucial assumption in all this. Confucian scholars don’t count because Confucianism is foreign. Likewise, Buddhism, however important in Japan, doesn’t count. Things only actually matter if theyre totally home grown. This is just … nationalism.
…which is itself a philosophy imported from early-19th-century western Europe.
Doesn’t look exceptionalist to me: for a sufficiently restrictive definition of “philosopher” as apparently required here, “not having philosophers” would be a fairly common “defect” in all kinds of cultures and nations (or since I’m on a scare-quote roll already, “cultures” and “nations”?). Indeed if the definition involves having left a written record by which to judge, for the vast majority of humanity’s existence there would have been none anywhere.
Is the person who arrived to the conclusion that “all [vulgar word for women] are [vulgar word for female dogs] and all [vulgar word for men] are [vulgar word for male dogs]” a philosopher?
@DE, Nagata Hiroshi’s point was that there is philosophy of universal importance, that to be able to contribute Japanese philosophy must reach or exceed the level of more advanced cultures and that even though some attribute the differences between Japanese and foreign philosophy to “creativity”, it is not creativity at all, just a mixture. It seems he agrees that “creativity” must be a good thing… But it is not nationalism. Nakae Chōmin is quoted above. He speaks about having digisted Western theories. What makes them “nationalist” is that the subject they are writing about is “Japan”. A philosopher would write about the Man and the Triangle, not about “Russia”, “Japan” and anythign like that.
If you write about the Goat and the Compasses, is that philosophy or philogophy?
Indeed if the definition involves having left a written record by which to judge, for the vast majority of humanity’s existence there would have been none anywhere
If one believes in si tacuisses, philosophy actually vanishes if someone leaves a written record 😉
Is (at least moral/ethical) philosophy implicit in a codified legal system with a written corpus? Did the Japanese have such a system that applied to the whole island?
l’anglais n’est que du français mal prononcé
As Charles de Batz reported to have said.
Not just l’anglais, come to that, but all languages; though in some cases the pronunciation is even worse, of course. Danish springs to mind for some reason.
Is (at least moral/ethical) philosophy implicit in a codified legal system with a written corpus?
It seems to me that the main difficulty with delimiting “philosophy” is the fuzzy border it has with “religion” (this is true even of the canonical Western footnotes-on-Plato kind of “philosophy”, and even more so in Buddhist and other traditions.) The fuzziness is obviously most evident in ethics, but it extends even into ontology and epistemology.
And in fact in a case like the traditional Kusaasi Weltanschauung, to call it “philosophy” is perhaps at least no more misleading than to call it “religion.” It’s not systematised; but then, neither is Philosophical Investigations.
@drasvi, – I can’t even think of a vulgar word in English for a male dog.
German doesn’t even have one for female dogs.
Well, there are colloquial deprecating words for dogs like Köter, Töle etc., but they are not swear words applicable to humans like the b-word in English or seen as inherently vulgar like Russian кобел or сука.
swear words applicable to humans
Vilkat goð geyja:
grey þykkjumk Freyja.
And our plot would have succeeded if it hadn’t been for you meddling Welsh!
Freya is still causing trouble.
Ah, maybe Drasvi meant “cur”? That’s insulting, but I don’t know if it is “vulgar”, and strikes me as antiquated, at least when used as an insult. I am also not sure “cur” necessarily implies a male dog, although when used as an insult it applies almost exclusively to men.
Vanya, I meant Russian все бабы суки, все мужики кобеля.
Sometimes it is quoted as a whole. Sometimes the speaker shares a (somewhat more personal) observation about one gender, but then adds the second part as well.
My impression is that
(1) “women are bitches” is an observation occasionaly shared by speakers of both genders.
(2) “all men are he-dogs” is an observation usually shared by women and – unlike “bitches” – the implications are sexual. Men tend to view their promiscuity more positively.
(3) the jokular generalization too is usually made by women.
As for insults… they stick to women better. Баба and мужик originally referred to female and male peasants, but now the former can be rude and the latter is a compliment.
Сука is an insult and also a technical term. Кобель is perceived (by me, a man) mostly as a technical term. But you don’t normally use it when discussing dogs (unless you are a dog breeder) it does sound unpleasant to some even if “officially” it is not a bad word, and it is used by female speakers as an insult too, with a specific reference to supposedly indiscriminate male sexuality.
I honestly don’t know why the difference in perception: maybe it is just my male perspective.
@Hans: кобель and сука are not inherently vulgar unless applied to humans. As technical terms, they are perfectly neutral and acceptable even though some people giggle at hearing кобель or blush at сука, uncontrollably.
“Men are nothing but horn-dogs, and women only want them for their money” is a modern, equal-opportunity insult.
As technical terms, they are perfectly neutral and acceptable even though some people giggle at hearing кобель or blush at сука, uncontrollably
I normally don’t have discussions with dog breeders, but I have had native speakers warning me against using either word even when talking about dogs and advised to use самец and самка instead. So it seems that the degree to which the words are acceptable varies.
I am also not sure “cur” necessarily implies a male dog
In Latin it implies brunch, at least in the idiolect of the carefree author of the questions: hoc est quod palles? cur quis non prandeat hoc est?
It never occurred to me that the meaning might be “dog’s breakfast” ! But maybe that amounts to the same thing. A brunch consists of a little bit of this, a little bit of that – whatever is available.
@Hans, кобель is
(1) not what I normally hear when people discuss dogs
(2) what I sometimes hear when a woman accuses a man in excessive… er. ебливость.
(3) what I read in some very technical discussions of dogs (especially their sexual behaviour).
This is my input. Already (1) and (3) is enough to make any child speaking any language feel that there something must be not quite right about the word. We are extremely sensitive to what words are not used when, and we (native speakers) are sensitive to associations: the context where words are mentioned.
Given all this, I honestly don’t know if (2) makes me feel more or less comfortable about the word, after all I love profane language.
Havign this said, it normal literary word that dog breeders are happy to use, so much unlike сука (another normal literary word that dog breaders are happy to use) which is a terrible insult.
IF, of course, men’s insults count and women’s insults don’t count:)
Otherwise both are normal literary words.
Not just dog breeders, and not just technical discussions.
Actually собачники. The idea is that if your dog is a сука that it is who she is. Why consider it a bad word?
@drasvi: What you say basically confirms my impression that both кобел and сука are words better not used in polite society, even if the degree of vulgarity and usability as swear word are different between both. Maybe both are usable as technical terms, but then dog breeding is not a topic coming up often in my conversations, and as mentioned, even for such situations I have been told by native Russian speakers to rather use самец and самка.
@dm
The phrase “läufige Hündin” seems to apply frequently and pejoratively to two-legged creatures. Maybe Hündin itself is unmarked and applies principally to those with four legs.
There are always running-dog imperialists and capitalist roaders; they seem to be pretty unisex, in principle, though in practice most of those accused of such deviancy seem to be male.
Hans, “better not used in a polite society” is a status.
What I tried to convey is the feelings associated with them. Likely, some (but not all speakers) may feel certain discomfort.
For сука it is just that it is used as an insult (and I think “bitch” is not too different). As for кобель, I described it above. Presumably for dog owners who talk to other dog owners they are like a “man” and “woman”, but what I (as a child, when I learned all those words) could feel about a word that people apply to dogs only in two very special contexts: dog sexuality and situations when one dog owner asks* another dog owner about the sex of her dog?
People struggle to embrace their own sexuality, and don’t want to associate anything with canine sexuality.
—-
*To me such questions sound as cold dehumanising (rather decaninising) professionalism, but it is not cold professionalism. It is just because for me these words are technical. For them they are absolutely normal.
The phrase “läufige Hündin” seems to apply frequently and pejoratively to two-legged creatures. Maybe Hündin itself is unmarked and applies principally to those with four legs.
In my experience, even läufige Hündin hasn’t yet achieved the status of epithet, but is normally used only in comparisons (wie eine läufige Hündin “like a bitch in heat”). Hündin alone isn’t normally used as epithet or swear word, and calling someone Hund would make you sound like someone from a 19th century novel.
@Hans: “I have had native speakers warning me against using either word even when talking about dogs and advised to use самец and самка instead.”
It’s probably a good idea to take extra caution in such cases but within reason. Some native speakers, especially women, use мальчик and девочка instead. These are Victorian-grade genteelisms to me, more cringeworthy than most swearwords.
No doubt сука the swearword is offensive to both sexes, although in slightly different ways. Despite this, in the postwar decades – when standard Russian was more Victorian than now – announcers at dog shows would say things like, “and now… the bitches!” to the amusement of random visitors.
Кобель is nowhere as offensive, if at all. When my wife saw a picture of a small, timid-looking dog with a description that included “кобель” (the poor thing had been lost), she couldn’t help laughing. To her, the word suggested an assertive, self-assured, on-the-prowl male, canine or human.
And, by the way, there is an issue witrh самец and самка.
Those are applied to male and female animals, usually in more or less abstract discussions (a freind of mine loves them, but she will take it as a compliment if I call her животное. She loves animals and the neuter gender of abstractions). In other words, it is words from biology textbooks.
They are totally good for birds.
If you apply them to cows they will sound strange, because it’s going to be the first time your interlocutor hears a cow called самка.
As applied to people they may sound dehumanizing and like reducing people to animals (see above about my freind). They do not sound bad: as I said, it is just biology textbooks words. Some do it as a joke (самка человека is even idiomatic). But a person applying them to people seriously, in a casual tone, is going to sound like an extra-terrestrial sceintist.
As applied to dogs, they may also sound dehumanizing/decaninizing to dog owners (see above about cold professionalism) and strange for others (see above about cows). It is not the most popular strategy for avoiding a word “bitch”. I guess он или она? and мальчик или девочка? are more common.
@Alex, drasvi: for me it was astonishing when I first learnt that кобель is even mildly offensive / having “impolite” overtones at all, because its German equivalent Rüde really is a simple technical term. But I have been admonished as described when talking about dogs and their sex, on more than one occasion and by different people, so there seem to be more pockets of Victorianism than you might think.
(And I can confirm that I’ve also heard мальик and девочка being used, which anyway fit into the current trend of humanising pets.)
To her, the word suggested an assertive, self-assured, on-the-prowl male, canine or human.
The word shows up in a neutral-ish context in an aside in Shcherbakov’s song about Australia, but AFAICT the male dog described as such is not implied to be particularly timid or non-assertive.
calling someone Hund would make you sound like someone from a 19th century novel.
Americans over 50 learned from movies and TV shows about WWII that Germans favored Schweinhund, a word I have never heard in the wild, although “Schweinehund” occasionally appears in print.
I know Schweinehund as 1) bull terrier, from the original meaning (taken for granted in Wikipedia) of any dogs actually used to hunt wild boars; 2) an idiom I’ve read very often, den inneren Schweinehund überwinden – “to overcome one’s laziness”; 3) a rather comical old-fashioned insult.
Hündin is about as technical as Rüde, not in most people’s active vocabularies. To the laity, all dogs are male until proven otherwise; actual dog owners can immediately assert insider knowledge by saying sie tut nix, sie will nur spielen “she won’t harm you, she only wants to play [with your shinbones]”.
Son of a bitch is very widely misinterpreted as “son of a whore” by Germanophones and routinely dubbed that way (Hurensohn*) on TV. Sohn einer (räudigen) Hündin is something an Arab in a 19th-century novel would say; I haven’t encountered applications of Hündin to humans otherwise.
* …though the version I’ve encountered in actual use is Hurenkind, applicable to daughters as well. If you say Hurensohn nowadays, you probably have a Turkish background.
If you say Hurensohn nowadays, you probably have a Turkish background
My 14 year old son, who doesn’t even have classmates with Turkish backgrounds, uses Hurensohn as his default insult. Seems like it has become part of the normal active vocabulary of Viennese gymnasium students – probably indirectly via German youth culture, rap music and Tiktok, would be my guess. To be sure, the word clearly has an “Ausländer” flavor for him, but that makes the word even more attractive and transgressive. It would also not surprise me if immigrants with Slavic or Arabic cultural backgrounds find “Hurensohn” a more satisfying insult than “Arschloch”, which has probably also boosted its widespread adoption among Viennese youth.
Ah yes, I’m sure you’re right.
@Hans, I wrote above:
‘“better not used in a polite society” is a status.
What I tried to convey is the feelings…‘
I meant: I do not think it has the status of an “impolite” word.
(1) people (henseforth: people around me) do not tell each other that сука (as applied to dogs) is bad.
(2) people do remind each other that сука (as applied to dogs) is normal.
(3) people do tell each other – in the specific situations where people urge each other not to use rude words – that сука (as an insult) is a bad word.
Let us use this situation when people tell people not to say something – that is, when a word explicitly is claimed to be “bad” – as a basis of our definition of “the status of a bad word”. Then сука (about dogs) does not have the status, and сука (about people) has it.
(4) people around me don’t discuss the status of кобель at all:/ Not as in 1 and 2, not as in 3.
I heard ladies use кобель as an insult for promiscuous men, but I haven’t heard promiscuous men warning each other that they shouldn’t use the word in presence of ladies. (which makes sense, because men simply don’t use it this way:-))
Dogs are still the main motivation for using the word at all (it is different for сука) so I guess its acceptability is understood as “obviously acceptable”.
If someone uses it in a context where it is normally appears (because no one uses it in contexts where no one uses it) and Petya (a generic speaker) says it is better to avoid it, I expect Vasya (another generic speaker) to object or even accuse Petya in excessive prudishness. Because see (2): people warn each other that сука is fine! Discouraging even кобель can be seen as an expansion of Victorianism. A cowardly (or bold) incursioun in the heart of the anti-prudish territory where we don’t even have fortifications.
All the discomfort associated with the word that I can find within my own mind comes not from its status, but from the fact that it never appears in normal contexts (when it does, it is often dog sexuality that is being discussed). Innocent words don’t have this distribution.
All of this is different from your expereince. Possible explanations:
– variation among speakers.
– they wanted to warn you as an L2 speakers about subtleties of native perception.
– you used the word in a context where native speakers usually say something else.
Well, it was long. Sorry:) I just tried to be precise.
Regarding сука, if you quote an insult involving сука in a polite company (but polite companies are rare) someone may start to wonder if someone else’s tender feeligns were offended. Not as much because of the status, it is just that in insults this word is often loaded with too much of hatred and aggression. Snowflakes are expected feel discomfort.
Ай да Пушкин, ай да сукин сын! is fine. Generally, сукин сын is what you met in literature.
Using the word in a formal situation is a breach of etiquette. It is not a word that can appear in a movie title.
Male Danish animals can be i brunst/brunstige, including human ones who are not willing to control their animal nature, so to speak. These days, female dogs and cats are said to be in løbetid or at løbe, but I can see that farmers use or used to use the term for all domestic animals and both sexes — ostensibly because that makes them want to roam — and earlier it was also used for the consequent act and the resulting state.
Using the latter for women is not in my language, or at least it will have the nature of an obvious metaphor, but there are some derogatory terms like mandgal “man crazy”. However it has been attested, an ethnologist collected Kvier og piger skal holdes godt, så løber de tidlig = ‘heifers and girls must be kept well to be willing young’ — not a sentiment that would/should go down well now, but this was published in 1890 and quoted as “little used” in 1932. (I think holdes/”be kept” here refers to nourishment. Also I note the loss of adverbial -t in tidlig — this has since been restored in the standard, which is why I noticed it).
All of this is different from your expereince. Possible explanations:
– variation among speakers.
– they wanted to warn you as an L2 speakers about subtleties of native perception.
– you used the word in a context where native speakers usually say something else.
I would put it down mostly to variation among speakers, with maybe a little part of trying to protect an L2 speaker against mistakes. The contexts were talking about the sex of dogs (more or less “X has a dog, it’s a (male / female)”, so a situation where a technical term shouldn’t have caused offence and no using it to describe people was involved.