News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Abe explains choice of Reiwa for next era name. Parent comment

Re:Abe explains choice of Reiwa for next era name by ekianjo on Monday April 01, 2019 @05:43AM (#19541764)
No, because nobody cares about the sound. The kanji matters. Soundwise there are tons of kanji with the exact same pronounciation so there is no pun to be found.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Abe explains choice of Reiwa for next era name by jpatokal on Monday April 01, 2019 @05:55AM (#19541808)
The joke is blowing up on Japanese Twitter, so yes, people do get the joke:

https://twitter.com/groebner_basis/status/111254775708283289...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Abe explains choice of Reiwa for next era name by wodenokoto on Monday April 01, 2019 @08:02AM (#19542460)
You are right that there are many homonyms in Japanese, but you are wrong in thinking that that results in nobody caring about them.

Japan has a proud tradition of phonetic based puns, called dajare. Wikipedia has a surprisingly long list, which includes explanations:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dajare

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Abe explains choice of Reiwa for next era name by Kurtz79 on Monday April 01, 2019 @09:29AM (#19543005)
"ウランは売らん (uran wa uran) Translation: I never sell uranium. Explanation: ウラン (uran) means uranium, and the second 売らん (uran) means "never sell"."

While in the West we have Uranus puns.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Abe explains choice of Reiwa for next era name by asutekku on Monday April 01, 2019 @06:36AM (#19541982)
Most of japanese puns literally lean on the fact some words sound the same or really similar.
[ Parent | on HN ]