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- Apr 5, 2005
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Somebody asked me a few questions in PM, but in my overenthusiastic haste, I deleted the message (-_-#). So I thought it’s useful to give the answers to those questions in a thread, in the hope of that person (clearly a fan of Densha Otoko) being able to read it. Here goes:
1. What does the –shi suffix and –tan suffix mean in Densha Otoko? Is –tan limited to the Internet?
- The –shi ( 氏 ) suffix stems from old Japanese. They used to stick it onto a persons name in a similar way as they use –san now. It came into disuse but Otaku still use it in their slang. It can be loosely translated as an equivalent of –san, with just minor differences in connotation.
- The –tan suffix on the other hand is not really a suffix and is not directly related to –tyan (an often made misassumption). By attaching it to a name, one creates an endearing nickname. In this case, the ‘name’ is Hermes. By adding –tan one gets Hermes-tan, which is an endearing nick. You can compare it like this: ‘Superman’ is the name; ‘Supes’ is a derived nickname. Same analogy applies here.
- ‘tan’ is not limited to the Internet, it can be used (among many other of these kind of nicknaming suffixes) in spoken language, but not in formal written language, of course.
2. How do you spell ‘Anime’, with an accent on the e?
Anime is not written with an accent on the ‘e’, since it is a Romanized form of a Japanese word ( アニメ ). The French tend to put an accent on the ‘e’ purely for phonetic issues, but this is in fact a wrong way to transcribe. Moreover, its origin has nothing to do with French (in French, we say ‘animation’ or 'dessin animé', which has a different pronunciation than how Japanese pronounce it). The origin is quite simple: it’s short for アニメーション, a loanword from English.
3. What does ‘moe’ mean?
Again this is a word typical for Otaku-slang. It means they have an infatuation with a certain person (mostly a fictional female character). I don’t know the exact origin of the word, since I’m (fortunately) not part of the Otaku community. So if someone knows, I would also be happy to read about it (^_^)
That’s all I can remember. Hope this helps and if someone sees a mistake, please feel free to correct it.
1. What does the –shi suffix and –tan suffix mean in Densha Otoko? Is –tan limited to the Internet?
- The –shi ( 氏 ) suffix stems from old Japanese. They used to stick it onto a persons name in a similar way as they use –san now. It came into disuse but Otaku still use it in their slang. It can be loosely translated as an equivalent of –san, with just minor differences in connotation.
- The –tan suffix on the other hand is not really a suffix and is not directly related to –tyan (an often made misassumption). By attaching it to a name, one creates an endearing nickname. In this case, the ‘name’ is Hermes. By adding –tan one gets Hermes-tan, which is an endearing nick. You can compare it like this: ‘Superman’ is the name; ‘Supes’ is a derived nickname. Same analogy applies here.
- ‘tan’ is not limited to the Internet, it can be used (among many other of these kind of nicknaming suffixes) in spoken language, but not in formal written language, of course.
2. How do you spell ‘Anime’, with an accent on the e?
Anime is not written with an accent on the ‘e’, since it is a Romanized form of a Japanese word ( アニメ ). The French tend to put an accent on the ‘e’ purely for phonetic issues, but this is in fact a wrong way to transcribe. Moreover, its origin has nothing to do with French (in French, we say ‘animation’ or 'dessin animé', which has a different pronunciation than how Japanese pronounce it). The origin is quite simple: it’s short for アニメーション, a loanword from English.
3. What does ‘moe’ mean?
Again this is a word typical for Otaku-slang. It means they have an infatuation with a certain person (mostly a fictional female character). I don’t know the exact origin of the word, since I’m (fortunately) not part of the Otaku community. So if someone knows, I would also be happy to read about it (^_^)
That’s all I can remember. Hope this helps and if someone sees a mistake, please feel free to correct it.
