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Japan Travelogue 2014 - 8 - Thu, 04/30/2015
sparrow as a basis of measurement
Posted April 30, 2015 at 06:54 pm

Ananth's feeling under the weather, so I'm on blog duty today!  Hello!

So to continue talking about language for a sec: the word for a hawk moth is "suzumega"— 'suzume' being the word for sparrow and 'ga' being the word for moth, so a sparrow-moth.  Similarly if you pick apart the word for wasp, "suzumebachi" is literally sparrow-bee.  I like how unusually large bugs are likened to sparrows!

 


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