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From which language did it come to Japanese? And why does it have its own
kanji?
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2015-04-30T10:52:04.277
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2015-04-30T14:19:42.320
2015-04-30T11:22:00.267
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question
etymology katakana loanwords
Why is イチゴ written in katakana?
いちご is a native Japanese word, which is almost as old as the written records
of Japanese itself. ([Apparently](http://gogen-allguide.com/i/ichigo.html) it
first appears as イチビコ in the
[日本書記{にほんしょき}](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihon_Shoki) (8th century) and as
イチゴ two centuries later in the
[倭名類聚抄{わみょうるいじゅしょう}](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wamy%C5%8D_Ruijush%C5%8D).)

As practically all native Japanese words (like 雨{あめ} _rain_ , 村{むら} _village_
, etc.), いちご, too, was assigned a corresponding kanji from Chinese, in this
case 苺.

Fruits (and more generally, plants and animals) are often written in katakana,
so you shouldn't be surprised to see it written as イチゴ. (See for example [this
question](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/20840/1628).)
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2015-04-30T11:21:14.243
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2015-04-30T14:19:42.320
2017-04-13T12:43:44.863
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answer