Alright, why Fuji-san?

[b4d0m3n]

Mount Fuji in English, Mr.Fuji in Nihongo. Explain.

[zengargoyle]

http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/afaq/fuji-name.html

富士山 ... it's not さん as in b4d0m3nさん but an ON reading of 山.
(so the theory goes.)

[b4d0m3n]

Ah. That kind of explains it.

[Mukade]

Yes, the on-reading of 山 is san, and therefore most mountain names are read "something-something-san."

比叡山　ー　ひえざん (in Kyoto)
大峰山　ー　おおみねさん (in Mie)
高野山　ー　こうやさん (in Wakayama)
阿蘇山　ー　あそさん (in Kumamoto)
富士山　ー　ふじさん (at the border of Yamanashi and Shizuoka)

and so on.

[Infidel]

aka, context is king

[keatonatron]

You will find that there are MANY words in Japanese with the same sound. Just type in "しゅう", hit space and look at all the kanji that come up for it.

So, it's a good idea to check the kanji for words before you make an assumption about the meaning, or assume two sounds are the same.

I used to think omoshiroi was 思 and 白い. Made sense (white thought?), but it's not that at all! (面白い)

[Infidel]

When I first started learning Japanese with the Living Language program, I went batty trying to figure out the kanji for all my romanized vocabulary words, and suffixes.

Ohhhh, did I waste a lot of time looking for the kanji for -san. For a few weeks I was appending 山　to everyone's name which I was writing in kana. やまだ山。
bleh,

[aKuMu]

yes, because of the wrong use of the kanji, fujisan, here in germany is mostly known as fujiyama :@

[skrhgh3b]

When my ex-girlfriend took me to Mt. Fuji, there was zero visibility of the mountain as we were driving towards it, so she would occasionally call out to it in a sing-song voice, "Fuji-chan." I swear, it was the cutest thing I ever heard

[Shibakoen]

Ha! Yamadayama! That's like Tokyoto, or higashi Kyoto as some like to call it...

[Mukade]

The worst, though, is when you see in tourist brochures and the like calling it "Mt. Fujisan."

They'll do the same with temples, saying "Kiyomizudera Temple."

It's like saying "Mt. Mt. Fuji" and "Kiyomizu Temple Temple."


In the same vein, there's a "Table Mesa" just outside Boulder, Colorado. Isn't "Mesa" already the Spanish word for "Table?"

[Infidel]

It's no different than having Journalists reference the Mainichi Shinbun newspaper.

[WacKostRacKo]

zengargoyle wrote:
富士山 ... it's not さん as in b4d0m3nさん but an ON reading of 山.
(so the theory goes.)

Yea thats right. Its a shame though, it would be kinda cool if they had given the mountain the ~さん suffix. To show the respect for the mountain etc...

[keatonatron]

Well, it COULD be they wanted to give honor to all the mountains, and so tacked the さん reading on to the kanji (not the other way around).

Who knows what they were thinking throusands of years ago, the two words could very well have been linked in the beginning.

[AJBryant]

Well, it COULD be they wanted to give honor to all the mountains, and so tacked the さん reading on to the kanji (not the other way around).

Who knows what they were thinking throusands of years ago, the two words could very well have been linked in the beginning.

Well, given that "-san" in names is an early Edo period corruption of "-sama" that's rather doubtful. B)


Tony