What are the kanjis for...

[dasch]

Belgium and for Morocco ?

Because, I saw on this page that most countries had some kanjis associated with it.

So, just by curiosity, what are the kanjis associated with these two countries : Morocco and Belgium ???

Thanks in advance,
Dasch

 

[TwistedMac]

that's a good question, I hope we find someone that knows the answer..

I'd like to add Sweden to that list, in case someone happens to know a lot about this stuff (I've also been wondering how to say "Sweden", "Swedish", "Denmark and "Danish" in japanese.. thought i'd finally post it here, since it's kinda on topic)

 

[fixelbrumpf]

According to my dictionary,

白耳義 【べるぎ】 Belgium (p)

is the way to write "Belgium" in kanji. There doesn't seem to be a single kanji that's associated with it. Sweden seems to be a similar case.

瑞典 【すうぇいでん】 Sweden (p)

Again, there's no single character for "Sweden", so it seems.


I couldn't find any kanji for Morocco, though. Looks like katakana will have to do.

 

[sl0815]

that's a good question, I hope we find someone that knows the answer..

I'd like to add Sweden to that list, in case someone happens to know a lot about this stuff (I've also been wondering how to say "Sweden", "Swedish", "Denmark and "Danish" in japanese.. thought i'd finally post it here, since it's kinda on topic)

My teaching book says: Sweden is スウェーデン. Thus, Swedish is スウェーデン語 and the people of Sweden are スウェーデン人.
Denmark is デンマーク --> デンマーク語 (for danish language) and デンマーク人 (for danish people).

My teaching book lists no kanji for these countries but if you prefer to write it in kanji, just replace the katakana above with the previously postet kanji.

Hope this is correct...

 

[dasch]

Thanks to all of you

sigh, that there's no official kanjis for morocco

 

[fixelbrumpf]

I'm guessing that the kanji compounds I posted are pretty uncommon nowadays, though. The Goo online dictionary doesn't even list them. You'd probably be better off using katakana. As far as I know, the only "country kanji" that are common and occur frequently in newspapers and the likes are the ones on the web page you posted (they usually have a single-kanji abbreviation), and a bunch of others like 中国 for China and 朝鮮 or 韓国 for Korea.

 

[seasurfer]

Thanks to all of you

sigh, that there's no official kanjis for morocco

Don't worry, cheer up man, there are kanjis for Morocco, there is kanji for every country that you can name in the world. I will type it below.

that's a good question, I hope we find someone that knows the answer..

I'd like to add Sweden to that list, in case someone happens to know a lot about this stuff (I've also been wondering how to say "Sweden", "Swedish", "Denmark and "Danish" in japanese.. thought i'd finally post it here, since it's kinda on topic)

These are the kanji writing of the country names that were mentioned:

Belgium is 白耳義 (べるぎ)

Denmark is 丁抹 (でんまあく)

Morocco is 摩羅哥 (モロッコ)

Sweden is 瑞典 （スウェーデン）


So, Swedish is 瑞典人 and the language is called 瑞典語
Danish is 丁抹人 and the language is called 丁抹語

According to my dictionary,

Again, there's no single character for "Sweden", so it seems.

I don't get what you mean by single character for "Sweden"?

I'm guessing that the kanji compounds I posted are pretty uncommon nowadays, though. The Goo online dictionary doesn't even list them. You'd probably be better off using katakana. As far as I know, the only "country kanji" that are common and occur frequently in newspapers and the likes are the ones on the web page you posted (they usually have a single-kanji abbreviation), and a bunch of others like 中国 for China and 朝鮮 or 韓国 for Korea.

Writting the country name in kanji is pretty uncommon in Japan today. But it is used in certain situation. Such as naming two countries together. Example: Japan-Russian war, it will then has to be written as 日露戦争。日＝＝日本(which is Japan)、露＝＝露西亜（ロシア）(which is Russia).

Basically, when it comes to naming the two countries together, Kanjis, instead of Katakana will be used. They will take the first kanji of each country and put it together, depending on what the writer is writing about and where the article is going to be published, for example, the Japan-Russian war, because it is to be written in Japanese, so Japan will come first, and the character 日 will be put first, then followed by Russia. Let's say that it is a relationship between US and Japan, and the article written is to be published in US for its citizen, then it will be 米日関係, this time America will comes first, then followed by Japan. So it depends on who writes the article and where is it to be published.

The reason why Katakana is not used is because it will be difficult to guess the country name. To those who learn Japanese, don't you all encounter this problem? Having difficulty in telling the meaning of Katakana immediately. Whereae for kanjis, you can tell the meaning immediately. When you put two countries together using katakana, it does really makes sense at all. For example: ニロ(I never seen this abbrevation before, I just make it up for the sake of example, so if it is wrong, please correct me.)。。。With this example, will you be able to tell immediately that it means Japan-Russia? For me, I wouldn't be able to tell, I need to see the content of that article before I will know that it means Japan-Russia.

Lastly, there are few countries where the name will normally be written in Kanji, there are:

日本-Japan、中国-China、韓国-South Korea、朝鮮-North Korea、台湾-Taiwan、香港-Hong Kong、澳門-Macau、越南-Vietnam、蒙古-Mongolia。

The above countries have its own kanji name for a long time. They are also the kanji user. So, it has to be written in its own official kanji name. It is also a kind of respect for the mentioned countries. As in the chinese and korean language, they followed the kanji that is set for japanese names as well. Basically, the kanji names for all these countries or places are unified among the kanji users, which are basically the chinese, japanese and korean. Vietnam used to be a kanji user as well until the Frenchmen came and changed their language, so they have kanji name as well. For Mongolia, because it used to be part of China, so it has a well-established kanji name for a very long time.

For every chinese and korean city, with the exception of Seoul and a few far flung chinese cities in western China, the kanji names are also used. Seoul does not have a kanji name. In the korean language, it is written in its pronunciation as well, so there is no kanji for it even in korean. I don't know why, I am searching for the reason as well, if anyone happen to know why, kindly tell me. However, Seoul has another name in Korean which has a Kanji for it, it is called Hansung (한성), when written in Kanji, it will be 漢城（かんじょう）。The name 漢城 is used by chinese and japanese, but not so widely used by korean, unless you are talking about history. So, it depends on how you want to call the Korean capital, Seoul or Hansung.


However, there are countries or places whose name are also usually written in kanji, the most common ones are:

米国-United States of America、英国-Great Britian、亜細亜-Asean、印度-India、欧洲-Europe、亜洲-Asia、印度支那-Indochina、新加破-Singapore、馬来西亜-Malaysia。

For the case of Singapore and Malaysia, because of its huge Chinese ethnic population there, so there is an official chinese name for the country. I believe because of this reason, that is why the Japanese newspaper there quite oftenly used the kanji name for these 2 countries, but when it is outside these two countries they normally use the Katakana.

 

[dasch]

THANKS A LOT Seasurfer for your very complete explanation !

 

[alp]

How do you pronounce 丁抹人 (danish) then? I'm just beginning to learn japanese

Thank

 

[nice gaijin]

from the kanji themselves, I would say teimatsujin... but really I never see anyone using kanji for countries that much, although the pronunciation sounds close to the english name, it really makes no sense... I showed 丁抹人 to my girlfriend and she didn't even know what it meant; so I'd stick to デンマーク人 (denmaakujin)

 

[Elizabeth]

How do you pronounce 丁抹人 (danish) then? I'm just beginning to learn japanese

Thank

The pronouncation is still デンマーク for 丁抹, but as nice gaijin said it is extremely rare so stick with the katakana in writing.