Japanese quizOctober 7th, 2005 by Roy Berman |
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This is a simple one. Who can figure out the correct reading of this word?
六ヶしい
I came across it in a 1920s era short story I was reading last week, and when I showed it to half a dozen Japanese people at dinner last night, the only one who could read it was the guy studying for a history PHD.
October 7th, 2005 at 11:22 pm
rokkashii? no idea
October 8th, 2005 at 1:48 am
Mukkashii?
October 8th, 2005 at 9:02 am
Rosshi?
October 8th, 2005 at 9:04 am
aha, maybe rosshii… What does it mean?
October 8th, 2005 at 10:18 am
Enough! Tell us!
October 9th, 2005 at 7:27 pm
rokkeshii? rockshii?
October 10th, 2005 at 6:13 am
Guys, it’s “mutsukashii” an old way to write “muzukashii”
October 10th, 2005 at 7:35 am
六つ＋ヶ＋しい = むつかしい ＝ むづかしい ＝ むずかしい
Remember that the symbol ヶ is both the katakana ‘ke’ and one of the simplified forms of 箇 (the other variants are 個 and 个). The two uses of the what looks like the same character have independent origins and are basically unrelated.
Even back then I think this was an unusual way of writing the word, but today it’s totally archaic. Yet, if you look on google you can find some people using it still, to try and make themselves sound smarter than you, kind of a Japanese equivalent of how people like Christopher Hitchens write.