Making hanzi with Japanese kana
« previous post | next post »
From Weibo:
The sentence (from weibo):
Suīrán wǒ bù dǒng Rìyǔ, dàn wǒ fēicháng kěndìng zhè shì sì gè guórén zǔ pái
虽然我不懂日语，但我非常肯定这是四个国人组排。
"Although I do not understand Japanese, I am very sure that these are four Chinese people forming a team (in an Online Multiplayer Game)."
Indeed they are — and look at how these four players forming Chinese characters with a mixture of Japanese kana to mimic the hanzis' components, intermixing both hiragana and katakana. Ingenious!
Oh, and "beta" from the Greek alphabet also comes into play a few times.
The four names:
1. 什么JB (what a d*ck)
2. 他奶奶的 (lit., "his grandma", meaning "damn it" / "damn his granny"? LOL)
3. 林北 (this is perhaps the only non-cursing "normal" name of the four)
4. 啊对对 (oh yes yes)
I literally "wow-ed" at these four players' ingenuity — and the fifth netizen who found out and posted it online!
[Thanks to anonymous.]
Chris Button said,
January 26, 2026 @ 10:32 am
Ingenious! It's also ironically a sort of bastardized way of taking kana back to their kanji roots.
Jonathan Smith said,
January 26, 2026 @ 11:27 am
"林北" means "yur old man"
Victor Mair said,
January 26, 2026 @ 2:56 pm
林北
(Northern Taiwanese slang) I, used by the speaker to refer to themselves in a rough or assertive manner) (Microsoft Bing)
Southern Min (Hokkien, POJ): lín-pē
alternative form of 恁爸 (Wiktionary)
恁爸
Southern Min (Hokkien, POJ): lín-pē / lím-pē / lín-pě / lín-pēe
Southern Min
(Hokkien: Xiamen, Tong'an, General Taiwanese, Singapore)
Pe̍h-ōe-jī: lín-pē
Tâi-lô: lín-pē
Phofsit Daibuun: lynpe
Sinological IPA (Singapore): /lin⁴²⁻²⁴ pe²²/
Sinological IPA (Xiamen): /lin⁵³⁻⁴⁴ pe²²/
Sinological IPA (Tong'an): /lin³¹⁻²⁴ pe²²/
Sinological IPA (Kaohsiung): /lin⁴¹⁻⁴⁴ pe³³/
Sinological IPA (Taipei): /lin⁵³⁻⁴⁴ pe³³/
(Hokkien: Singapore)
Pe̍h-ōe-jī: lím-pē
Tâi-lô: lím-pē
Phofsit Daibuun: lympe
Sinological IPA (Singapore): /lim⁴²⁻²⁴ pe²²/
(Hokkien: Quanzhou)
Pe̍h-ōe-jī: lín-pě
Tâi-lô: lín-pě
Sinological IPA (Quanzhou): /lin⁵⁵⁴⁻²⁴ pe²²/
(Hokkien: Zhangzhou)
Pe̍h-ōe-jī: lín-pēe
Tâi-lô: lín-pēe
Sinological IPA (Zhangzhou): /lin⁵³⁻⁴⁴ pɛ²²/
Note: lím-pē is due to assimilation.
恁爸
(Hokkien, men's speech, derogatory or humorous) I; me
Usage notes
In Hokkien, 恁老爸 (lín lāu-pē) refers to "your father" while 恁爸 (lín-pē) acts as another first person pronoun, usually used either arrogantly, jokingly, contemptuously, or when angry.
Synonyms
(female equivalent) 恁母 (lín-bú), 恁祖媽／恁祖妈 (lín chó͘-má)
(Mandarin) 老子 (lǎozi)
(Gan) 爺老子／爷老子
Descendants
→ English: limpeh, lim peh, limpei
References
“恁爸”, in 教育部臺灣台語常用詞辭典 [Dictionary of Frequently-Used Taiwanese Taigi] (overall work in Mandarin and Hokkien), Ministry of Education, R.O.C., 2026.
(Wiktionary — with many embedded links)
"Luv u" 4/29/17)
My wife had an aversion to the first person pronoun. She would do practically anything to avoid saying "I". She thought it was egotistical to make frequent, direct reference to herself, whether in speech or in writing. Among traditional Chinese, she probably was not entirely unique in that regard, but she was extreme in her first person avoidance, and it was through her that I became aware of the lengths to which someone might go to keep from saying "I".
I do not fully comprehend the psychological reasons why some people shy away from use of the first person pronoun, but my sense is that it has to do with not wanting to be assertive.
Omission of the first person pronoun was almost like a religion for Li-ching, but zero anaphora extended beyond the first person to all the other pronouns, though not as prohibitively. Sinitic languages, by nature, are pro-drop; it's not unusual to see twenty or more sentences in a row without a pronoun.
See:
Keith Vander Linden, Zhihua Long, and Liang Tao, "Chinese Zero Anaphora in Translation: A Preliminary System" in Victor H. Mair and Yongquan Liu, eds., Characters and Computers ( Amsterdam, Oxford, Washington, Tokyo: IOS Press, 1991).
It was particularly difficult, virtually impossible, for Li-ching to say "I love you" to anyone, not even her mother or me, for both of whom she had deep affection.