In my katakana analysis, I will analyze Doraemon and coffee.
ドラエモン is a very popular manga in Japan, and it was written by Fujiko Fujio. It was first published in 1969, and about 1344 different stories were published. The manga is about a robotic cat named Doraemon who is from the future and who befriends a boy named Nobita kun. It chronicles their adventures together. The name "Doraemon" is interesting to analyze because "dora" is written in katakana, whereas "emon" is written in hiragana. "Emon" was a popular male last name, and can be written in both kanji and hiragana. Some people think that the "dora" comes from dorayaki (in dorayaki, "dora" is also written in katakana, and "yaki" is written in hiragana) because ドラやき is Doraemon's favorite food, but others think that the "dora" comes from どらねこ, which means "stray cat" in Japanese. Both theories are plausible.
Sources: doraemon-doraneko.blogspot.com, goodreads.com, sljfaq.com
コーヒー is derived from the Dutch word "koffie." If it had been derived from the English word "coffee, " it would have been spelled "コーフィー" instead of "コーヒー." In the 18th century, Udagawa Yoan created the Ateji for "coffee": 珈琲. (Ateji are foreign words that are made into kanji based on how they sound). Other foreign words have been made into Ateji, such as "engineer" and "club."
Sources: sjvlang.com, enotes.com
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