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I've noticed that sometimes loan words (usually pairs) are truncated to just
the first two morae from each word:

>   * Smash Brothers ➤ スマッシュブラザーズ ➤ スマブラ
>   * "Don't mind." ➤ ドンマイ
>

I assume this is done to shorten the writing and pronunciation. Is the
accepted practice to just grab the first two morae from each word and shove
them all together?
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-09-07T20:52:11.177
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2012-09-08T03:59:21.963
2012-09-08T03:59:21.963
question
loanwords katakana abbreviations
Is there a generally accepted "rule" for truncating loan words?
It depends on the words and how they are pronounced, although the pattern you
noticed is common.

For example, the following don't fit the pattern you see:

> Brad Pitt -> ブラピ
>
> Ice Cream -> アイス
>
> Convenience Store -> コンビニ

There has been a lot of linguistic studies about this and many patterns that
exist. One rule is that they are always truncated to 2 to 4 mora. Also,
[濁音]{だくおん} are avoided if possible and generally heavy syllables are avoided
at the end.

[Here is a link to one
paper](http://roa.rutgers.edu/files/532-0802/532-0802-LABRUNE-0-0.PDF) if you
are interested.
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2012-09-07T22:35:44.950
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2012-09-07T22:45:18.900
2020-06-17T08:18:27.500
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answer
It is common to abbreviate a loanword to four morae, and when the original
loanword is a compound word consisting of two components, then it is common to
do so by taking the first two morae from each component. Sometimes sokuon
(little tsu: ッ) and chōon (ー) are skipped when counting two morae for this
purpose.

  * リモートコントロール (remote control) or リモートコントローラー (remote controller) → リモコン
  * パーソナルコンピューター (personal computer) → パソコン

Sometimes the final sokuon or chōon after abbreviating is dropped, and this
explains ブラピ in Jesse Good’s answer and ハピバ in Tim’s comment on Jesse Good’s
answer.

But not every loanword is abbreviated like this, as Jesse Good already wrote.

This pattern is not really specific to loanwords. I have seen this pattern
applied to the title of comics, video games, and TV programs. In some sense,
even abbreviations such as [外国]{がいこく}[為替]{かわせ} to [外為]{がいため} may be viewed as
an instance of the same pattern.

By the way, I do not think that ドンマイ is an abbreviation of something like
ドントマインド. It seems to me more like a transcription of the pronunciation of the
phrase “Don’t mind” heard by Japanese speakers.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-09-07T23:40:43.897
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2012-09-08T00:38:49.610
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answer