Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the
current reference desk pages.
As a backronym or folk etymology, I doubt. "Pika", or more precisely, "pikapika", is the Japanese onomatopoeia for a spark (incidentally, the Japanese onomatopoeia for shock is "
biribiri". Pikachu, being an Electric-type Pokémon, was named after this sound (see the
Pikachu article). Most probably the connection is coincidental, as Pikachu is supposed to be a mouse and a Pika is not a mouse. Also, are there even Pikas in Japan? I've never even heard of the animal until now.
Narutolovehinata5tccsdnew06:51, 19 January 2013 (UTC)reply
Pikapika means 'flashing' in Japanese. This is how the character got the name, and how it appears on TV, causing hundreds of children to have epileptic seizures. The 'chu' at the end is an affectionate, childish ending. KägeTorä - (影虎) (
TALK)08:29, 19 January 2013 (UTC)reply
Can anyone give a Roman/phonetic transcription of the Japanese name for the animal? I linked to its article in my first post.
μηδείς (
talk)
19:15, 19 January 2013 (UTC)reply
ナキウサギ is "naki usagi", pronounced pretty much as you see it. ("usagi" is rabbit, and "naki" refers to the sound that it makes, translated as "whistling" at the ja article, though the root verb 鳴く can refer to several different animal noises I think.) — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
86.160.213.0 (
talk)
23:09, 19 January 2013 (UTC)reply
'Naki' refers to an animal's cry, and can also be used for human crying, as in babies. In this case, however, as the poster above suggested, it means a rabbit that makes a noise, which, if you have kept rabbits in the past before, you will notice that most of them are silent. KägeTorä - (影虎) (
TALK)23:18, 19 January 2013 (UTC)reply
KageTora: same word, but written with different kanji depending on the context? 泣く(naku) for human crying, 鳴く(naku) for animal noises? 泣 has a water radical on the left; 鳴 is made up of a mouth radical plus 鳥 (bird)? I'd say I'd forgotten the word for this, but I doubt I ever learned it.--
Shirt58 (
talk)
00:58, 20 January 2013 (UTC)reply
Of course the kanji are different, but the pronunciation is the same. They are the same word. Like in English, the cry of a bird or the cry of a baby. 01:53, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, I didn't notice when I replied above that "whistling hare" is apparently a native English name, so rather than "whistling hare" being an attempt to translate ナキウサギ as I thought, it looks that ナキウサギ is actually a translation of "whistling hare".
86.160.213.0 (
talk)
01:12, 20 January 2013 (UTC)reply
Well, I am just going to declare victory then. Except for the lack of a tail, the real life
pika looks a heck of a lot more like a pikachu (i.e., little pika) than any pointy-nosed mouse does. I declare it a fact that the designer started with the animal, and then, noting that the name was similar to that of the Japanese version of zap, decided to retrofit it with electrical powers. Mwahhahahaha....
μηδείς (
talk)
05:06, 20 January 2013 (UTC)reply
According to the ja article
ja:ピカチュウ, the designer said it was an image of
hamster. There are
northern pika and its subspecies Ochotona hyperborea yoshikurai in Japan, but they are not widely known, not to mention the English names are non-notable at all in the country. I'm afraid that it's your OR. There is no mention about pika in this
interview.
Oda Mari (
talk)
08:33, 20 January 2013 (UTC)reply
The English article talks about mice, not hamsters. One of these guys on his deathbed is going to admit it was a pika all along.
μηδείς (
talk)
02:49, 21 January 2013 (UTC)reply
Also, if you want to get the French pronounciation right, the vowel sound at the end ("ee" or [i] is a
monophthong in French, not a
diphthong as it is in English. The difference (in layman's terms) is that the English vowel ends with a "y"-like sound (as in the beginning of the word "you") called a "
glide", while the French vowel lacks this bit. English speakers can approximate the french vowel sound by "clipping" the "ee" sound short, so you only say the first part of it. --
Jayron3216:24, 19 January 2013 (UTC)reply
It depends on the dialect. Some dialects use a [iː] (lengthened monophthong) to realize the "fleece" sound, and others use a diphthong, also the word position matters. Terminal vowels are more likely to be diphthongs in some dialects. However, neither is correct for French, which is an unlengthened monophthong. --
Jayron3205:31, 20 January 2013 (UTC)reply
I think it would still be understandable if you used [ɹ] instead of [ʁ], since French only has one rhotic anyway.
I learnt [ʁ] by starting with [x] (for that you can put your tongue in the velar position (where you say [k]) and them try to say [h] without moving your tongue), and then voicing it to [ɣ] and retracting the point of articulation for [ʁ]. This probably won't work for everybody, though.
Double sharp (
talk)
02:35, 20 January 2013 (UTC)reply
If you want to sound really French, you can put some sort of breathy noise after any sentence-ending [i]. (I'm not sure what it is, maybe a [
ç]? Or just an [
h]?) It's not a standard pronunciation, but everyone does it.
Adam Bishop (
talk)
11:31, 20 January 2013 (UTC)reply
Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the
current reference desk pages.
As a backronym or folk etymology, I doubt. "Pika", or more precisely, "pikapika", is the Japanese onomatopoeia for a spark (incidentally, the Japanese onomatopoeia for shock is "
biribiri". Pikachu, being an Electric-type Pokémon, was named after this sound (see the
Pikachu article). Most probably the connection is coincidental, as Pikachu is supposed to be a mouse and a Pika is not a mouse. Also, are there even Pikas in Japan? I've never even heard of the animal until now.
Narutolovehinata5tccsdnew06:51, 19 January 2013 (UTC)reply
Pikapika means 'flashing' in Japanese. This is how the character got the name, and how it appears on TV, causing hundreds of children to have epileptic seizures. The 'chu' at the end is an affectionate, childish ending. KägeTorä - (影虎) (
TALK)08:29, 19 January 2013 (UTC)reply
Can anyone give a Roman/phonetic transcription of the Japanese name for the animal? I linked to its article in my first post.
μηδείς (
talk)
19:15, 19 January 2013 (UTC)reply
ナキウサギ is "naki usagi", pronounced pretty much as you see it. ("usagi" is rabbit, and "naki" refers to the sound that it makes, translated as "whistling" at the ja article, though the root verb 鳴く can refer to several different animal noises I think.) — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
86.160.213.0 (
talk)
23:09, 19 January 2013 (UTC)reply
'Naki' refers to an animal's cry, and can also be used for human crying, as in babies. In this case, however, as the poster above suggested, it means a rabbit that makes a noise, which, if you have kept rabbits in the past before, you will notice that most of them are silent. KägeTorä - (影虎) (
TALK)23:18, 19 January 2013 (UTC)reply
KageTora: same word, but written with different kanji depending on the context? 泣く(naku) for human crying, 鳴く(naku) for animal noises? 泣 has a water radical on the left; 鳴 is made up of a mouth radical plus 鳥 (bird)? I'd say I'd forgotten the word for this, but I doubt I ever learned it.--
Shirt58 (
talk)
00:58, 20 January 2013 (UTC)reply
Of course the kanji are different, but the pronunciation is the same. They are the same word. Like in English, the cry of a bird or the cry of a baby. 01:53, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, I didn't notice when I replied above that "whistling hare" is apparently a native English name, so rather than "whistling hare" being an attempt to translate ナキウサギ as I thought, it looks that ナキウサギ is actually a translation of "whistling hare".
86.160.213.0 (
talk)
01:12, 20 January 2013 (UTC)reply
Well, I am just going to declare victory then. Except for the lack of a tail, the real life
pika looks a heck of a lot more like a pikachu (i.e., little pika) than any pointy-nosed mouse does. I declare it a fact that the designer started with the animal, and then, noting that the name was similar to that of the Japanese version of zap, decided to retrofit it with electrical powers. Mwahhahahaha....
μηδείς (
talk)
05:06, 20 January 2013 (UTC)reply
According to the ja article
ja:ピカチュウ, the designer said it was an image of
hamster. There are
northern pika and its subspecies Ochotona hyperborea yoshikurai in Japan, but they are not widely known, not to mention the English names are non-notable at all in the country. I'm afraid that it's your OR. There is no mention about pika in this
interview.
Oda Mari (
talk)
08:33, 20 January 2013 (UTC)reply
The English article talks about mice, not hamsters. One of these guys on his deathbed is going to admit it was a pika all along.
μηδείς (
talk)
02:49, 21 January 2013 (UTC)reply
Also, if you want to get the French pronounciation right, the vowel sound at the end ("ee" or [i] is a
monophthong in French, not a
diphthong as it is in English. The difference (in layman's terms) is that the English vowel ends with a "y"-like sound (as in the beginning of the word "you") called a "
glide", while the French vowel lacks this bit. English speakers can approximate the french vowel sound by "clipping" the "ee" sound short, so you only say the first part of it. --
Jayron3216:24, 19 January 2013 (UTC)reply
It depends on the dialect. Some dialects use a [iː] (lengthened monophthong) to realize the "fleece" sound, and others use a diphthong, also the word position matters. Terminal vowels are more likely to be diphthongs in some dialects. However, neither is correct for French, which is an unlengthened monophthong. --
Jayron3205:31, 20 January 2013 (UTC)reply
I think it would still be understandable if you used [ɹ] instead of [ʁ], since French only has one rhotic anyway.
I learnt [ʁ] by starting with [x] (for that you can put your tongue in the velar position (where you say [k]) and them try to say [h] without moving your tongue), and then voicing it to [ɣ] and retracting the point of articulation for [ʁ]. This probably won't work for everybody, though.
Double sharp (
talk)
02:35, 20 January 2013 (UTC)reply
If you want to sound really French, you can put some sort of breathy noise after any sentence-ending [i]. (I'm not sure what it is, maybe a [
ç]? Or just an [
h]?) It's not a standard pronunciation, but everyone does it.
Adam Bishop (
talk)
11:31, 20 January 2013 (UTC)reply