11
Why are words relating to plants, reptiles & insects often written in Kana instead of Kanji? (nord.pub)
submitted 2 days ago by to c/japaneselanguage@sopuli.xyz
7 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

For example, 蠍 is written as サソリ. Even if they use the Kanji in text, they add furigana above it rather than letting the audience themselves decipher the meaning. It's the same with 榊 (サカキ), 仙人掌 (サボテン), 百足 (ムカデ), 蟻 (アリ), 鰐 (ワニ), you get the picture. Why can't they just write them in Kanji without furigana in the same frequency as encountering 本 or 日 upon encountering texts containing these types of words?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 2 points 2 days ago

I wonder if it'd be more likely for an uncommon animal product to have kanji or kana. Like would the packaging for alligator/crocodile be ワニ or 鰐.

I think because so many fish are commonly eaten people get used to a lot of the kanji but anecdotally there are lots that are still very common in kana on food packages like イカ、ヒラメ、ソイ etc

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent