Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2022 October 13

= October 13 =

クビね
fired in japanese, but i didnt know why someone type like this a combination of katakana and hiragana? the kubi is a katakana word which means fire or onomatopoeic "Kuvi". the suffix means politely verb type which refers to "You". Please can you explain why this such word have a hiragana and katakana hybrid? why those 2 katakana letters are accompanied by suffix hiragana not katakana? 2404:8000:1027:85F6:F44A:BF5:606B:B925 (talk) 13:57, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Katakana and hiragana are routinely mixed in Japanese sentences. I'm not sure which "ne" exactly is used in this example. If it's the same "ne" as in 'isn't it?', 'right?', it makes sence since hiragana is used for all grammatical filler words. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 14:19, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * i thought the word kubine in japanese speak is arbitrary probably in china. 2404:8000:1027:85F6:68CF:D40C:4D78:80AE (talk) 14:22, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * what the hell?! it is illegal to write grammatical filler words in katakana? 2404:8000:1027:85F6:68CF:D40C:4D78:80AE (talk) 14:40, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Katakana and hiragana are functionally differentiated in Japanese writing: Hiragana is used for inflectional suffixes and short grammatical function words, while katakana is used for "ideophones" (quasi-onomatopoeia), loanwords borrowed from non-Chinese languages, and transcriptions of foreign names (and a few Japanese names that can't be written with accepted common kanji). If a word written in katakana for whatever reason is followed by a short grammatical function word, then you'll naturally get katakana followed by hiragana, and there's nothing wrong with this, as far as I know... AnonMoos (talk) 21:59, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * If this is an onomatopeia followed by a grammatical function word, I would even say it is the most natural way to write Japanese. (Although my knowledge is admittledly very basic.) 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 00:36, 14 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Indeed, in that case writing 「クビネ」 would be unnecessarily confusing to a Japanese reader, who'd tend to seek an interpretation as a single three-syllable lexical unit, possibly the transcription of a foreign-language word (French *?). --Lambiam 06:51, 14 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Is there any context for this "kubi- ne"? Have I got this right, that this kubi comes from China. Why Katakana and no Kanji then?--Ralfdetlef (talk) 12:11, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The context is a bit vague. I think a few words from Chinese might be written in katakana for emphasis, when borrowed rather recently, or for historical purposes. A notable example is the word for elephant; ゾウ (zō), the kanji 象 and hiragana ぞう spelling are both rare for some reason, although you would initially think that this word would regularly be written in kanji. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 14:24, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
 * It is common to write the names of animals in katakana. For example, the Japanese counterpart of the English Wikipedia article is at, while  redirects to it.  --Lambiam 12:41, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the answer.--Ralfdetlef (talk) 13:54, 22 October 2022 (UTC)