Katakana Analysis (Draft)

1. クリームサンドビスケット: This is the name of the product coming from foreign words (Cream sand biscuits)

The picture shows that case of an おいしい biscuit that I buy from a supermarket called M2M near school. From the case we can see three biscuits and the katakana ビスコ on the case, which reads as bisuko, explicitly tells us that this katakana word stands for biscuit. Below that, we see that there is a katakana phrase クリームサンドビスケット. Again analyzing from its pronunciation, which is kurimusando bisuketto, we can easily know it means cream sand biscuit. 

Surprising I found there is no original word (in hiragana) that corresponds to biscuit. Look at the food culture of Japan, we can conclude that Japanese people directly make a word of hiragana from english word "biscuit", because there was no similar format of such food in Japan before (わがし 和菓子 is not biscuit). This is the same for クリームサンドビスケット. Japan did not have things like cream sand biscuit before 明治維新(めいじいしん), which basically help Japan learn technology and science from western world (we don't discuss political issue here). So the usage of this katakana is pretty clear: to write foreign names and foreign words. 

More surprisingly, when I searched internet with ビスコ, I found that this product has a very long history -- it has a history over 80 years. This product is produced by 江崎グリコ, which is a very famous food company in Japan (note that world-renown Pocky ポッキー is also produced by this company). Check this out for more info: http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%93%E3%82%B9%E3%82%B3_(%E8%8F%93%E5%AD%90.

 2. バ キッ: This is a clip from a comic called 「進撃の巨人」. The katakana here shows the sounds of a fighting between titans.

I found this page in a very popular comic that I recently read called 進撃の巨人 (しんげきのきょじん). Basically this story is about fighting between human and 巨人 (titans). In the comic, some people can become titans with their will freely. The above clip is about two titans (both was human) fighting each other in a battle. The katakana shown here is バ キッ. From its sound, which is ba ke(short stop), we can see that it is kind of sound. From the picture, we see that the scene is two titan fighting each other, and the arm of one titan is broken. The katakana wants to imitate the sound of bone breaking. Note that there is a stop (ッ) at the end of the sound. This is not normal in normal Japanese writing and reading. The author uses ッ here to show that the sound is short and quick. He might also want to tell the reader that the action of fighting between these two titans is very quick. He also wants to show that the breaking of bones of one titan is so fierce that the sound of the process is so short. 

Obviously the use of katakana here is for sounds. We can see with the "unofficial" use of ッ, the author of the comic efficiently gives the reader a clear image that the fight between two titan is very quick and fierce. The special use of katakana helps us to understand things more clearly. 

 3. ぷち Here ぷち is the Japanese way of writing a French name--Petit.

This photo is taken from the newspaper that I brought away from the plane when I flew back to United States. The ぷち here is the name of a virtual character. Her name is Petit (this is a French name). In order to satisfy reader's need, the editor change Petit in Japanese pronunciation, which is puchi. Because this is a foreign word, they use katakana to write it out.