odd little linguistic quirk

Hi Chris,
> an odd little linguistic quirk that I like a lot.  In Japanese,
> the word "ame" can mean either "rain" or "candy", depending on which
> syllable takes the pitch-accent.  (Most every language has a quirk like
> that, right?)  What I like about it is that in the 2 major dialects of
> Japanese, the 2 meanings are reversed.  :)  I really don't know what point
> that has, except we have a new Japanese list member, and I rather like it
> anyway ...
 Well, Tokyo area and Osaka Kyoto area(or Kantou/Kansai... tou= east,
sai= west) have been opposed for hundreds of years in their cultures and
the prides of the people... like Samurai culture and marchant and
nobirity culture as the older capital and city. So, yes,
Hashi{bridge/chopsticks} two meanings and the accents are reversed, the
accents of Ame(rain)between two are reverse, but Osaka Ame(candy) is
pronouced just flat.

In Alphabet you might think the same but the origins had to be
different. Also, we use completely different Kanji for these couples.
 I guess:
Old Japanese Ame or Ama(heaven, sky) -> Ame(rain)
Old Ama-shi(present Amai = sweet) -> Ame(candy)

Variety of accents exist in Japan, so accents can't be a good keys for
distinguishing meaning in entire Japan.
Japanese has too many homonyms with different Kanji. Because we use only
5 vowels and 14 consonants in simple syllables. We are speaking but
actually we are sharing images of Kanji and communicating. It is too
hard to communicate in Japanese using Latin Alphabets.

--------------------------
Yoshiko Fujita McFarland  (kamos@sfo.com)
The Earth Language Homepage:
http://www.sfo.com/~ucathinker/earth/english/ehome.htm