Katakana Analysis(Draft)
1. Loanwords/Foreign names
This is a picture from a famous Japanese comic/cartoon Detective Conan名探偵コナン. The name Conan is from the author of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Author Conan Doyle, a world-known English writer. Therefore, it is written in katakana.
2.Fashion?
The picture is from an interesting website Culture Japan which introduces a lot about Japanese food, places of interest, social activities, etc. This is a signboard of 東京チカラめし, a well-known restaurant in Japan. チカラ is the pronouciation of 力, a kanji which means power and energy. There might be two reasons for this rewritten sign. The first one is that the Chinese character力 is similar to カ in katakana. In order to avoid the misunderstaning, 力 is replaced by katakana. Secondly, katakana is more fashionable than hiragana, which is often regarded as childish.
3. Loanwords
This is a picture of a food packaging box, from a blog of a Japanese writer. Here we have several names rewritten in katakana, all from foreign names of food. The name on the top on the packing box クッキース is from the English name "cookies". The three names on the bottom on leftside list three tastes of the cookies. The first one is the ココナッツ coconut; the second one is カスタードcustard;the last one is チョコーレートchocolate. It seems that all the three kinds of food are not avaible in the previous Japan.
