Friday, January 7, 2011

American Kana Shodo

http://wimp.com/speaktypography/

Cliff from the Coffeehouse Meetup sent us this link this morning.
Thank you, Cliff.  It's wonderful.  This is similar to Kana Shodo.
I hope to show you more crazy Kana desings later on.  Right now,
I don't have any photos to show you.

Kana is written as かな in hiragana, and 仮名 in kanji. 
仮(ka) means temporary, not permanent, and 名(na), names.
仮 is written also かり (kari), and kari can also be 借 which means "to borrow."
Borrowing is temporary.  Kana were created from kanji, so we often say,
"We borrowed kanji to make kana,"when we talk about the origin of kana.

Also 仮想 means virtual.

So,  仮 is opposite of real.  It can mean fake.  Ian Hideo Levy (http://keiko-amano.blogspot.com/2010/11/ian-hideo-levy.html) wrote a book titled "仮の水.”  It's a story about his experience and thought being in China.  A narrator buys a bottle of water there, but it isn't drinking kind.  I was reading the book before Xmas in Japan, and had to return it to the library before finishing.  So, I haven't read it all, but I think he meant it as a metaphor and included the meaning of fake.

2 comments:

Ashok said...

Thanks for more useful information Keiko.

keiko amano said...

Ashok,

When you have a chance, please show us Hindi word games or visual arts, and a folk tale or two.