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I came across this sentence in a manga:

なにすんじゃこんガキャ―――！！

There is no kanji use in that speech-bubble, making it hard to work out the meaning. In fact, I haven't been able to find the meaning of anything past なに (which I already knew means "what").

What does it mean when the whole sentence is in kana?

(And, as a side question that I hope is related, all-kana doesn't seem like it should make the sentence that much harder to translate, but I can't seem to find any of the combinations characters aside from なに and possibly すんじ (which ignores the ゃ and doesn't seem to fit the context anyway). So is there something that I'm missing here?)

AlbeyAmakiir
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    You seem to be asking two questions here: 1. What does *this* sentence mean, and 2. What does all-kana spelling signify? The latter is an entirely different question. It's worth noting that the only word in this sentence which is *normally* spelled with kanji is なに. (It is possible to maximise the use of kanji by spelling the sentence like 何為んじゃ此ん餓鬼ャー, but that looks utterly ridiculous.) – Zhen Lin Aug 05 '11 at 05:57
  • I was expecting a question about robot speech in all katakana or an English sentence transliterated straight into katakana, both of which are not uncommon. – hippietrail Aug 05 '11 at 07:15

1 Answers1

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I believe the sentence, as written in more conventional Japanese, would be:

なにするのだ、このガキは？

Where:

なにすん = なにするの (の here makes it a question)

じゃ = だ

こん = この

ガキャーーー = ガキは

The ーーー at the end is just an extension of the last vowel, probably because the speaker is screaming in typically histrionic manga fashion.

The sentence means something like:

What the hell are you doing you fucking brat!

You could change up "brat" to "punk" or "asshole", or other things. I put in "fucking" because I felt that it was needed to convey the real sentiment of the sentence, but you would be right to point out that there is no direct equivalent in the original Japanese. My goal here was to give you a working understanding of what is happening to carry with you for general use, not to provide a perfect translation of this particular sentence.

I believe the reason dialogue in manga, like this one, are mostly done in kana and not kanji is because it is meant to reflect spoken speech (is that redundant?), not written text, and so it conveys inflections and pronunciations that would be hard to do with fixed kanji.

The only way to learn this kind of thing is with practise. The way people play with abbreviating words and changing the way they are said is by definition beyond textbooks. Think of it like how in English you could see "whassup?", or even "'sup", in a comic, and only by familiarity would you know it's actually "what's up?".

Questioner
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  • Your translation makes perfect sense in the context. I hadn't really come across abbreviations before (this manga is probably beyond my abilities, but I like it). I'll have to find some kind of slang dictionary (online or otherwise). They have them in English, so I'd assume Japanese ones exist. Thanks! – AlbeyAmakiir Aug 05 '11 at 04:01
  • @AlbeyAmakiir there are on-line slang dictionaries (entirely in Japanese), but if you can't parse the sentence, it's not going to be very helpful I'm afraid… . – Axioplase Aug 05 '11 at 04:09
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    Nice breakdown. ガキャー is most likely from ガキは, and じゃ is a colloquial/dialect/archaic equivalent of だ. – Matt Aug 05 '11 at 04:19
  • Matt is right. And Dave's `ですか` is obviously wrong. Why do expect the original to be a polite form when the whole sentence is offensive? –  Aug 05 '11 at 04:21
  • @Axioplase: I can guess where to split the words, and if I can't find anything, I'll split it a different way. For example, じゃ must be together, and you can't start a word with ん, so that's こん and すん. It'll be slow, sure. Also, I'm not surprised that they're entirely in Japanese, but I'll figure something out. – AlbeyAmakiir Aug 05 '11 at 04:22
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    @sawa: I wasn't translating for politeness levels, just for meaning. You have to understand that from a Japanese learning point of view, people are often taught that です is the fundamental word and だ is a casual variation. That may or may not be correct in the eyes of a native speaker, but I was appealing to the sensibilities of a learner. – Questioner Aug 05 '11 at 04:50
  • @AlbeyAmakiir: in Tôhoku, where I live, it's common to start a sentence with "ん"… Anyway, there you go: http://zokugo-dict.com/ – Axioplase Aug 05 '11 at 05:01
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    @Dave: I'm fairly certain ガキャー is a contraction of ガキは. It's essentially the same contraction which gives us しちゃ、すりゃ、しなきゃ etc. – Zhen Lin Aug 05 '11 at 05:51
  • Okely dokely. I'm swayed. I'll edit accordingly. – Questioner Aug 05 '11 at 06:07
  • @AlbeyAmakiir: Yeah, to add to Axioplase's comment, even in non-dialect manga you will eventually run into someone saying んなもん、要るかー！ or the like. But don't worry, it just means more variation to enjoy. – Matt Aug 05 '11 at 06:07