Re: Alphabetical order.....in Japanese??


"Captain Nerd" <cptnerd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:cptnerd-541E84.21382331082009@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In article <7g3a25F2neu53U1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"Dave Baranyi" <a_nospam.b_nospam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"Nobody" <nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:4a9c47c1$0$22518$607ed4bc@xxxxxxxxx
Hello all,

I'm wondering if anybody here can shed some light on this subject:
What
is the order structure of Kanjis?? I presume that if you wanted to put
Japanese into alphabetical order, the words would have to be sent over
or
"converted" over to Romanji first. Then, put in alphabetical order as
its
know in the Engilsh-speaking world??

For example, names on file in an office: If the names weren't
converted
over to Romanji, what would be the rationalle behind the way they were
ordered using Kanjis??


Japanese is ordered via the kana that make up the words. Kanji have kana
equivalents, so the first kana of the kanji because the ordering key.

Unfortunately most kanji have many kana equivalents, which can cause
all sorts of fun. For example, is "person" filed under "hito" for
kun-yomi or "nin" or "jin" for on-yomi?


In the Japanese encyclopedia that I have (Gakken "Millenium Encyclopedic
Lexicon") "hito" and "nin" show up with the "person" kanji, but not "jin".
They have different uses and applications, so both entries are slightly
different.

"Hito", of course, comes in the "hi" section, and "nin" comes in the "ni"
section.

What is always tough for me to remember is that the "ji" kana shows up under
"shi", but it depends upon the other characters in longer words.

So for instance, there is and entry for "shi n", followed by and entry for
"ji n", followed by an entry for "shi n a i", followed by an entry for "ji n
a i", and so on.

It's sort of counterintuitive for me, because, of course, coming from a
Western language perspective, I expect all of the "shi" words to be
together, and all of the "ji" words to be together, and they are
interspersed. The way that they are interspersed makes perfect sense from
the point of view of the Japanese kana, but it's still difficult to remember
when I am searching for a word.

Dave Baranyi


Kana order is in the "a i u e o", "ka ki ku ke ko", etc. structure.

So, for example, the kanji for river - "kawa" is found under "ka" in
Japanese dictionaries.

Names are the same way, "Watanabi" would be under "wa", "Tanaka" under
"ta",
and so on.

So, no, you won't go into romanji to file things in Japanese, you would
do
it in kana order.

Dave Baranyi

I hope this question makes sense.

Tanomu houga, kotaeru yori yasui da yo...

Cap.

--
Since 1989, recycling old jokes, cliches, and bad puns, one Usenet
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