42778
I am a very beginner in Japanese and not very good in English, so I hope my
questions will be clear enough.

I'm learning some kanji and I've been through a reflection when comparing some
kanji between them, with French and with English. I need your help to
understand how it works - it's about something like "what is a word" in
Japanese. Yeah I know I'm not very intelligible but I'm still thinking about
it, so it's not even clear for me.

I'll drop my reflection here and hope you will help me making all this
understandable.

I'll start with French-English comparisons.

In English there is the word **hound** which is a dog for hunting. In French,
we don't have a word for that. We have a locution: **chien de chasse** which
means **hunting dog**. That means in an English-French dictionary, you will
find "hound = chien de chasse", but in a French-English dictionary you won't
find "chien de chasse = hound". You will find "chien" then somewhere in the
description you will find "- de chasse = hound, hunting dog ; - d'aveugle =
guide dog ; d'arrêt = pointer ; etc.". Keep that in mind.

Another thing: in French we have the word **gendarme** which is sort of a
policeman. It comes from **gens d'armes** which means something like "people
with weapons". But nowadays it's a single word, you could say "un gendarme
sans arme" (a policeman without any weapon) without anyone being like "it's
nonsens, don't call him _gendarme_ if he has no _arme_!", because the origin
of the word does not matter. Keep that in mind too.

OK so now let's talk about Japanese.

**Niwatori** is for **chicken**. It was made, before Japanese had writing,
from **niwa** (garden) and **tori** (bird), because basically a chicken is a
bird we keep in a garden. Questions start here:

  * is **niwatori** a word like **gendarme** , which was made from two words but nowadays it doesn't matter, or is it a locution like **hunting dog** and **chien de chasse**?
  * if it's a locution, why is it not **niwa no tori**? I thought it wasn't possible in Japanese to create locutions like in English.
  * can you make words like **yamatori** , **kawatori** , **niwaneko** or whatever you want to do?
  * can you say **niwa no niwatori**?

I heard someone saying **hana no hanabira** :

  * isn't **hanabira** already a **flower petal** or is it only a **petal** so you can say **hana no hanabira** and you could say **yume no hanabira** (I'm such a poet)? Or would you say **yumebira**?

After that, I saw the word **yagi** , which is a **goat**. This word is made
with two kanji: **yama** and **hitsuji**. So the same questions apply to
**yagi** , but do the same answers do?

  * does it really mean **goat** or does it mean **mountain sheep** which _can be understood_ as **goat** (slight difference)?
  * is it really a _word_ , can we call it a _word_ , or is it more like a locution?

Can we create new words with many kanji or do we have to use **no** if we want
to express new things like "a sheep from a mountain is a goat"? Example: I
want to say a cat from a forest is a tiger, can I say **morineko** or is it
**mori no neko**?

Thanks, I know it's hard to understand, plus with Japanese it's never the same
between "saying" and "writing" (it's like you write **chien de chasse** but
read it **hound** so you write three words but pronounce one, wow, does the
question "is it a word?" still have any sens?).
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-01-21T18:17:07.607
42744
2017-01-22T17:24:20.270
19507
question
words etymology
Discussion about kanji being words
Let me start from [鶏]{にわとり} ( **niwatori** ).

" **niwatori** " is like **gendarme** , so we do not imagine gardens when we
say " **niwatori** ". We rarely regard this word as **niwa** plus **tori**.

All of your examples, **yamatori** , **kawatori** , and **niwaneko** , sound
unnatural, as such words don't exist. A similar example is ヤマネコ ( **yamaneko**
), which comes from **yama** (mountain) + **neko** (cat). This is a single
word for a name of a species. However, as we are far less familiar with
**yamaneko** than **niwatori** , when we hear " **yamaneko** ", we still
imagine something like "cats from mountain" while understanding that this is a
single word.

Another example is [家猫]{いえねこ} ( **ieneko** ), which is **ie** (house) +
**neko** (cat) and refers to domesticated cats. In this case, we recognize
that it is **ie** plus **neko** but use this as a single word.

So, saying " **niwa no niwatori** " is fine. Furthermore, there is a famous
phrase for discussing ambiguousness involving **niwa** and **niwatori** :

> 庭には二羽鶏がいる。  
>  niwa ni wa niwa niwatori ga iru.  
>  _There are two chickens in the garden._

* * *

Nextly, [花]{はな}びら " **hanabira** " is definitely **flower petal**. So we don't
say **hana no hanabira** when we discuss general flower petals. But saying "
**ano hana no hanabira** (petals of that flower) etc. is fine.

Note that, though its etymology may be **hana** + **bira** , it is an
unsplitable word. " **bira** " would never be "petal" and you can't say "
**yumebira** ". A phrase " **yume no hanabira** " might be possible but it
doesn't make sense at least to me.

* * *

The last example [山羊]{やぎ} " **yagi** " needs a bit different discussion, as it
involves kanjis. The key is that " **yagi** " is not [漢語]{かんご} ( **kango** , a
word made up with kanjis) but a pure Japanese word (though it may have
originated from other ancient languages). That is, the sound of " **yagi** "
came first and its kanji was determined much later. So the meaning of kanjis
(here, mountain and goat) is not so much related to the meaning of the word.
We just understand **yagi** as goats, but not mountain sheep.

Another example is [海豚]{いるか} ( **iruka** = **dolphins** ). Its kanji is
**sea** + **pig**. Obviously, we should not believe that dolphins are sea
pigs. Especially in animal names (which are rarely 漢語), the relation between
meanings and kanjis are no more than this extent.

If you say **morineko** , every native speaker of Japanese should notice that
it is a result of word creation. They then would wonder how **morineko** is
different from **mori no neko**.

* * *

On the other hand, 漢語s are often understood as combination of kanjis. For
example, [国旗]{こっき} ( **national flag** ) is composed of 国 ( **nation** ) and 旗
( **flag** ). In the region of 漢語s, word creation might sometimes make sense
and be accepted as a result of valid wording.

* * *

As a conclusion, you should consider most non-漢語s as single words but not
composed words. In the above examples, **yamaneko** and **ieneko** can
actually be considered as a composed word, but now they are treated as single
words. Indeed, **yamainu** is still possible but **ieinu** doesn't make much
sense. This kind of composed words may have taken long time to be accepted as
single words, so you have to work very much absolutely hard advertising, for
example **morineko** , to make it accepted as a valid word.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-01-22T17:15:18.580
42778
2017-01-22T17:24:20.270
2017-01-22T17:24:20.270
17890
17890
42744
answer