On Mon, 2 Nov 1998, Kevin Aw wrote:

>   The other characters have similar names although they aren't standard C
hinese
> (or Japanese, I bet) names... Except for Mihoshi and Kiyonne.. they appea
r to be
> more Japanese-sounding names?  Right?
>
Ryohko, when written with different kanji (i.e. ending in "child," with
seventeen different choices for the first kanji) is a *really* common
female name.

>   Does anyone know the significance of the middle word in:
> =AF=AB =A7=DA =A4H
>
> =90_ =89=E4 =90l
>
>   The "me" part of Kagato's name?  In Chinese it is exactly used whenever
 you
> would use "I" or "me."  And yet in Japanese the kanji for "I" or "me" is
>
> watashi:  =8E=84
>
>   Which means "personal" or "private" in Chinese.  Perhaps in Japanese th
e middle
> character of Kagato's name means something else other than "me" or "I?"  
(I
> looked it up in a Japanese<->English dictionary and it doesn't explain it
 other
> than "I."  I don't have a very good Japanese-English dictionary.. 8)  )
>
The thing is that Japanese has about eight or nine different words meaning
"I, me." My kanji dictionary lists some of the ones that have different
kanji:

I (polite)
I (familiar)
I (intimate)
I (elegant)
I (pompous)
I (pompus)
I (archaic)

And that's not counting the ones that are different pronunciations of the
same kanji!

In general, the only ones you have to remember (in decreasing order of
formality) are:

                              watakushi
                                  |
                               watashi
          (male)                 / \         (female)
                                /   \
                            boku     \
                             /        atashi
                            /           \
                         ore             \
                                          uchi

according to my Japanese teacher.

However, depending on dialect, there's the male "washi" (I think that's
Kyou Kotoba), the female "atai" (I'm pretty sure that's Oosaka-ben),
"ware," usually only used in "wareware" ("we" in a military situation) but
sometimes used by itself (according to my kanji dictionary, it's
"elegant"), "yo" (which is archaic and now only used pompously), one that
was only used by guys in the Heian period and is now a classical suffix
for forming male names, "temae" can be a very humble way of referring to
oneself (or a very rude way of referring to someone else), and the kanji
you're thinking of, while archaically pronounced "wa" and meaning "I"
(probably a less humble form than "watakushi") and sometimes used for
"ware" in the sense of "I," typically means "self" in modern Japanese.
Hence "wagamama," selfishness.

I hope that helped?

Sincerely,
Luriko-Ysabeth, hon otaku | member in good standing of #WEIRD#
Kendappa Clan | Sosai/Pooh-Bah for life of the Washuu-sensei Rules club
#WASHU#, #SkAS#, #ALAS#, MADS, and the Ryohko Forever Fan Club member

"Mad dogs, Englishmen, and computer     "Itsumademo katadzukanai. Homework
 geeks go out in the afternoon sun."     unagedashi." (my new philosophy)
   --Roland J. Cole                        -- "Homework ga Owaranai"