Katakana Analysis - Revised

[A hardy "どうもありがとうございます！” to all the people who took the time to read and comment on my initial post.]

My first katakana sample is from the Meguro Parasitological Museum (目黒寄生虫館, めぐろきせいちゅうかん）. Yup, you read that correctly. Meguro is an area of Tokyo vaguely associated with the healthcare industry and medicine. There you will find a museum devoted to cataloging parasites and the lucky hosts they inhabit. My brochure from this museum features a framed tapeworm on it. The description beneath the picture uses サナダムシ to describe the parasite. “Sanadamushi” is neither a loanword nor an onomatopoeia. This use of katakana is also not in our catch-all category of emphasis, because other crawly things in the brochure were referred to using Kanji. Tapeworm was given katakana treatment exclusively, so it wasn't for the benefit of children because otherwise all of the specimens would be in easier to read script.  むし means bug and is normally written with the kanji 虫 -- just as it sounds, it is a word native to Japan. さなだ means braid and is written using the kanji 真田. So why isn't it 真田虫? My first instinct was that perhaps they thought the subject matter isn't dignified enough to be given kanji status, but that seems incorrect. This museum wasn't built
from revulsion, but instead LOVE. 

I have been doggedly researching the Japanese etymology of サナダムシ and other bug names. Not all, but a whole class of bug names are written in katakana almost exclusively even though kanji for them exists. It turns out that (according to the Japanese Wikipedia entry on Tapeworm) サナダムシ is a relatively new word. In ancient Japan they used to call tapeworms "寸白" . The second ideogram means white (しろ）, but the first one even though it looks simple has been difficult to translate. It wasn't even in my dictionary! It is used in measurements (e.g. 寸法記入,すんぽうきにゅう) and the verb “to rip apart” (寸断, すんだん). It is also used in the adjective eloquent (三寸, さんずん) and a word for the phenomenology of being (胸三寸, むねさんずん). So now my hypothesis is that katakana is used because "サナダムシ" replaced an older phrase, “すんしろ” -- and even more evolution took place. The kanji used in braid became more esoteric and as a result dropped out of public consciousness. This is the hypothesis used to justify the use of katakana instead of kanji for a lot of different types of insects -- not all, however: 

• Japanese beetle - 兜虫 - カブトムシ
• Spider - 蜘蛛 - クモ 
• Locust - 蝗 - イナゴ
• Fly - 蝿 -ハエ
• Butterfly (and moth)- 鱗翅目-リンシモク
  

These characters just faded out. Something else might be at play, however. There is a folklore-belief system derived from the significance of the number the in Taoism called こうしん (庚申) with some strong views regarding regarding worms as demons who corrupt the innards of people. Particularly, there are three worms-deaths (三尸 -さんし) who people need to be communally absolved of every 60 days. 上尸、中尸、下尸 are the names of these worms and this indicates their directional affinities. Perhaps the kanji of bugs are willfully phased out because of their unpleasant connotations stemming from folklore like this.

My second sample comes from the November 2009 issue of Vogue Nippon. Tao Okamoto is a Japanese model from Chiba. The featured article chooses to spell her name as タオ　オカモト (or just TAO) and not 多緒 岡本. This katakana rendering of Japanese names in fashion isn't uncommon. Maybe the angular script is more hip and minimalist.

This brochure isn't a telegraph. The tapeworm isn't talking. And no author wants to stress any one phrase -- all parasites are created equal. サナダムシ is distinctly Japanese. Textbooks really can only go so far. I think the truism "rules are meant to be broken" is applicable here. The samples we were shown give us a good start on where and how to use カタカナ (except, of course, none of them mentioned telegraphs). Just mentioning loanwords and onomatopoeia won't capture the full purview of カタカナ, but I still think it was helpful, especially the third sample which went into general history of Japanese script (hiragana was once おんなで -- おもしろいですね). We would be hard pressed to find a concise rule for all the quirks in English... and who would want one anyway? 

Language is a living thing that evolves and feeds off of us!