\nIn Japanese, I\u2019m told, a slight modification in one word or reference changes a sentence entirely, so that\u2014 I don\u2019t know Japanese, I\u2019m making this up\u2014 if a syllable changes in one word, then \u201cthe crickets are singing in chorus in the starlight\u201d becomes \u201cthe taxicabs are in gridlock at the intersection.\u201d I gather that Japanese poetry uses these almost-double meanings deliberately. A line of poetry can be translucent, as it were, to another meaning it could have if it were in a different context. The surface significance allows a possible alternate significance to register at the same time.
does anyone know if this is a real thing UKLG is referring to? if so, word for it, examples?
some googling turns up this:
which looks like is just “japanese has a lot of homophones and poets will use them for artistic effect,” more or less the same as they will in english
Yeah a lot of it is that Japanese (a non-tonal language) repeatedly borrowed words from tonal Chinese, stripping them of tone (so that several words once distinct were now identical) and then re-borrowed the same roots centuries later after meaning and pronunciation had drifted, with the result that there are a ton of words that sound the same and punning is a major feature of Japanese-language culture.
It is huge in Japanese poetry (where the regular suffixed conjugation makes end rhyme trivial), the most honored stuff \u2013 even stuff you might be familiar and impressed with \u2013 translates poorly because you can only translate one meaning at a time, lacking the centuries of cultural context that would make the others even make sense.
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