3

Maybe a hard to understand question, but for example, I love the word 百日紅 (さるすべり) because it's the name of a red flower and uses some very poetic kanji (one hundred days of red) but opts instead for a reading that means a slipping monkey. I suppose I mean this in more of an interesting way than just gikun or ateji. Rather I'm looking for this total disconnect that 百日紅 seems to have, if that makes sense.

Are there any more like this?

ssb
  • 18,213
  • 2
  • 54
  • 95
  • You should clarify that you're not actually looking for gikun or ateji. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Oct 26 '12 at 00:20
  • Can it also be read ひゃくじつこう? – silvermaple Oct 26 '12 at 00:22
  • Amended. As for the reading, apparently it can be read both ways, but サルスベリ seems to be the preferred from what I can tell, at least from here: http://www.weblio.jp/content/%E7%99%BE%E6%97%A5%E7%B4%85 – ssb Oct 26 '12 at 00:27
  • Isn't this an example of 熟字訓? –  Oct 26 '12 at 00:31
  • Maybe it's a certain kind, but rather than something like 昨日 where you take a Japanese word and attach it to kanji with that meaning, I'm looking for words that have a different reading from what you would expect. – ssb Oct 26 '12 at 00:34
  • 3
    Although not a complete answer, this entry seems quite related to what you are looking for (along with some explanation of why such words exist): http://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/6581/kanji-for-native-japanese-concepts-kunyomi-spanning-multiple-morphemes – Dave Oct 26 '12 at 03:54
  • Actually that's really helpful. I had no idea how to search for something like this. – ssb Oct 26 '12 at 05:25
  • 1
    http://www.geocities.co.jp/collegeLife-Labo/6084/jukujikun.htm –  Oct 26 '12 at 05:29
  • 2
    If I am not mistaken, two names さるすべり and [百日紅]{ひゃくじつこう} both existed once, and somehow the kanji 百日紅 and reading さるすべり survived. (The reading ひゃくじつこう is not completely extinct, though.) This is how a 熟字訓 is typically made: a kanji notation and a native Japanese word for one notion were independently made, and later the native word is considered to be a reading of the kanji notation. – Tsuyoshi Ito Oct 26 '12 at 15:27

0 Answers0