[ot] Japanese word help

[Zhure]

What would the japanese translation of "chimera" be? I've done a few web searches and found nothing I've got great confidence in so I'd rather get the input of a fluent Japanese speaker.

chimera
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin chimaera, from Greek chimaira she-goat, chimera; akin to Old Norse gymbr yearling ewe, Greek cheimOn winter —more at HIBERNATE
1 a : capitalized : a fire-breathing she-monster in Greek mythology having a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail b : an imaginary monster compounded of incongruous parts
2 : an illusion or fabrication of the mind; especially : an unrealizable dream <a fancy, a chimera in my brain, troubles me in my prayer —John Donne>
3 : an individual, organ, or part consisting of tissues of diverse genetic constitution

I'm primarily interested in 1b. A link to the associated kanji would be great too.

Greg

 

[mmadsen]

What would the japanese translation of "chimera" be?

There wouldn't be a native Japanese term for an ancient Greek monster -- unless they happen to have a similar lion/goat/serpent monster in their mythology -- so there wouldn't be a kanji character for it.

You would simply spell out "chimera" in Katakana: kimera.

 

[pensiv]

In regards to the original Greek monster, chances are that the Japanese would use the word as is. They'd write it in Katakana and probably spell it so (in roman characters, I don't have Japanese input here) ki-me-ra

Katakana is used for foreign words all the time. When a word doesn't have a Japanese equivalent, they just adapt it to their writing system.

funny thing is that "omokage" actually is Japanese for such things as "illusion" "mental image" "visage" etc. but is, of course not the only word for such things.

Maybe a fluent Japanese speaker will get to you soon. If not, I'll look it up even further for you later.

 

[Artoomis]

I found this on-line:

[kimera] chimera/(P)

compare to:

[konnichiha] (int) hello/good day (daytime greeting, id)/(P)

to help understand the formatting.

also:

http://linear.mv.com/cgi-bin/j-e/in...&WC=none&fg=red&S=26&L=E&T=chimera&I=on&IK=on

For the Kanji.

Obviously this is simply phonetic importation of the word.

 

[pensiv]

btw: the Japanese you posted isn't Kanji, it's Katakana.

 

[Artoomis]

btw: the Japanese you posted isn't Kanji, it's Katakana.

Oh.

I was mislead by the site. Of course, in my case, that was really easy to do.

 

[Zhure]

Thanks

Thanks for all the help...

btw, what does this mean? It was pointed out as a possible to me.

 

[frankthedm]

The Chimera would be promounced pretty closesince it has the consenant , vowel, consenant vowel pattern that japanese hiragana and katakana "letters' follow

chi / ki
me
ra

Wish i knew if japanese had a word for "a melding of creatures" or such. while they have some pretty nasty & odd folk lore monsters like kappa [they were vampires that took blood from the rectal area] ,human animal mixes like the decietfull fox Maiden, the lustfull oni, and giant goblin spiders, i have not noticed alot of multi creature medings other than the kirin who are kind of a dragon/unicorn cross breed.