Meaning Behind The Japanese Neko 猫 (Cat)
There is no more important word in the Japanese language than 猫 (cat). That and 可愛い(かわいい – cute). School children are taught in kindergarten that when they see a cat, they shower it with no less than 3 kawaiis (check schoolbook rules).
But what does it all mean?
This is unanswerable.
But what does neko mean?
The major theory is that the word stems from ねこま or ねくま which results in the following appropriate words.
1. 寝子獣 (ねこま): sleeping child beast. Due to cats sleeping all day and being quite scary…
2. 寝熊 (ねくま): Sleeping bear. Getting close…
3. 鼠神(ねこま): Mouse god or god of the mice. And I think we have a winner.
There is another standard theory that ネ(Ne) used to be thought to be the sound cats make, and こ(ko) is an affectionate name ender often used on regular human names like Mariko or Yukiko. Combine them for cat awesomeness.
I hope this has properly taught you to respect cats for what they are.
Wait for it……..
Founder of Jalup. iOS Software Engineer. Former attorney, translator, and interpreter. Still watching 月曜から夜ふかし weekly since 2013.
Lol at the cat riding the cat riding the dolphin!
Would you have it any other way?!
Dolphin riding the cat riding the cat!
And you’ve found another way!
Do you sometimes write neko with katakana? I ask because this sentence was in the Core 2000 Anki deck: うちのネコが子猫を生みました。Or did someone mess up when entering this sentence?
Yeah, some people will use katakana on occasion.
That goes for animals in general.
At least according to “Tokyo Jungle” :D (awesome PS3 game!)
Animal and plant names are often written in katakana. Neko and inu are probably the main exceptions (with uma and a few others), but even they are sometimes. I once used the kanji for mushroom and was told by a Japanese speaker that it was very rarely used. It is a simple kanji: 茸 (ear-plant, presumably from those ear-shaped fungi that grow out of trees and such) but most Japanese people write キノコ。
Add insects to that as well!
From my beloved 化物語:
「牛?違うって。牛じゃない。カタツムリだって」
「漢字で書きゃ牛って入ってるでしょーが。ああ、阿良々木くんはひょっとして、カタツムリって片仮名で書いちゃってるの?知能指数が低いなあ。」
It seems at least some fictional characters don’t even know the kanji for some of these insects…
Insect kanji are intense. Even fictional characters can’t keep up.