Hello, I have a question. Is it okay to use Katakana for a word that is not foreign? From what I understand, Katakana is used for mostly foreign words. The context that I’m asking in is that I’m interested in getting a tattoo with the name of a city I really liked (カマクラ). Would it make sense to have this or does it need to be in Hiragana to make sense? The design would just be the word itself. I respectfully ask since I’m trying to educate myself on this.
2 comments
It’s definitely okay. Although it’s quite uncommon to see a Japanese city written in katakana, it’s not wrong. I think Japanese use hiragana and katakana quite flexibly and interchangeably. For example, 桃 (momo) is not a foreign or borrowed word, but in many Japanese books it’s written in モモ
first go talk to your friends about the wisdom of getting tats. at the Kita-Kamakura eki kiosk you can get small mementos with the name on it. you could pin that to your shirt. people might ask you about it and you could engage them with the reply that it is your favorite place in JP. in any case, seek some plain wisdom.
to deal with your underlying Q though…. the kanji/kata distinction is not as cut and dried as textbooks and beginners seem to think. if you could, for instance, read the train signs on the way to **Kamakura / 鎌倉 かまくら。カマクラ**
you would find all sorts of intermixing of the romaji/kanji/hiragana/katakana vocabulary. sometimes it just advertising talk, effort to stand out from other ads, making a linguistic point, making a language joke, but never for sarcasm as JP folk just dont do sarcasm. but they do use their available languages choices in all sorts of interesting ways. look at the kanji fonts used — there are all sorts of choices to be made which make statements about the intention that even a middle-schooler will get. my favorites are the labels on nihonshu and shochu bottles sold within in Japan. take a look: swish, swoosh, hard forms, noodle forms, lazy, strict forms and so on.