At 12:03 AM 6/16/2001 +0100, Simon Cozens wrote:
>On Fri, Jun 15, 2001 at 06:58:24PM -0400, Dan Sugalski wrote:
> > The kanji dictionary I have handy gives non-numeric translations for
> > several of the numeric kanji, though it might be something that gets lost
> > in translation.
>
>Ah, OK; sure, there can be numerics with non-numeric meanings, but not
>the other way around.
That's what I meant, though I expressed it rather badly.
> > Some of the examples for ya (and I don't have the Unicode
> > set handy to look up the code points, alas) are "vegetable store" (yaoya)
>
>That's weird.
I make no judgements there. (Granted, I tag on "weird" to anything
involving people--I find it's wrong less often than not... :) It's
certainly possible the dictionary's wrong, too.
> > and "afternoon refreshments" (oyatsu).
>
>Hrm. About the same as "Elevenses". Or maybe that's a .ukian concept. :)
Ah, hadn't thought about that one. Makes sense. (I expect it's pretty
obvious that my knowledge of the language is rather limited)
The question, then, is should ya be considered a literal number in either
of those contexts? Non-numeric figurative translations being rather
significantly beside the point, of course. (11 should if one spelled it
11ses, though I'd personally consider that spelling grounds for a good
smack 'round the head :)
The other question is do any of the numeric kanji get used in names? I'd
expect they'd not be considered numbers in that context either, though it
just might not happen.
Dan
--------------------------------------"it's like this"-------------------
Dan Sugalski even samurai
[EMAIL PROTECTED] have teddy bears and even
teddy bears get drunk
