Talk:Konpa

Konpa is also a spelling variant of Compas. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.73.34.100 (talk) 23:34, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Origin of the word
"It is often suggested that this word originally came from German: Kompanie, English: company, or French: compagnie, although the exact root is unknown."

Despite the information provided in the citation, I doubt this explanation of the word's origin. The citation provides an alternate pronunciation which is relevant: komupa. This comes from communication, which is used in Japan as a buzzword. Since Japanese has no equivalent to the sound, it's been replaced with *; later the word was further contracted to konpa or kompa (written the same way in katakana). The root of konpa is more likely "Communication Party", which also describes its purpose. This is the explanation I've heard most often, whereas I have never heard the what's given in this article. Unfortunately, it does seem that recent etymology is a complete mystery to most native speakers of Japanese.


 * Although an approximation can be made with   (ミッユ), this would result in a "longer" word: more difficult to pronounce and more difficult to write. 126.209.12.27 (talk) 10:32, 23 August 2013 (UTC)