The origin of a cellular phone
Nov 19th 2009 00:53
mobile
phone
cell
In English 携帯電話 (kei-tai den-wa) is called “cellular/cell phone” or “mobile phone”. I simply thought it was because the battery of a mobile phone was an electric cell and it was named “cellular/cell phone”, meaning a cell powered phone. But I figured out I was wrong.
The fact is that the “cell”, in this case, means the transmitting/service area of a single mobile. The limited service area is symbolized a single cell in the total communication system of a telephone company. I happened to find it when I was looking over at some document of frequency allocation in radio communication system.
Actually I might have ever told someone else, “It is interesting a ‘mobile phone’ can be also called a ‘cell phone’ in English because it’s a cell powered phone.” That was a lie. m(_ _)m
Now I’m glad I know the truth.
Another thing I want to say today is about a DVD.
Recently everyone knows the non-abbreviation word of a DVD (digital versatile disc). In early times DVDs were coming out and not widely used unlike today, I thought it must be a “Digital Visual/Video Disc” because it was used mainly for videos. I knew I was wrong thanks to a variety of general information from magazines or press.
In my confusion, it is hard to make the Japanese katakana word for “versatile”. Maybe is it a “バースティル” or “バーサタイル”?
Anyway, each of these seems to be far different from its original English sound. Actually we have a lot of katakana words originated from foreign language and most of them had to be changed the readings from the original sounds. I don’t want to say it’s wrong or unfavorable this time. Because of some characteristics of a certain language, a sound of a word would be changed to be suitable for the new language when it was imported from original language.
However, “mobile” is changed into “モバイル (mo-ba-yee-ru)” in katakana Japanese whereas the English word is pronounced like “モゥブル (moh-bl)” or “モゥビル (moh-bil)”.
Who made this Japanese word?
The fact is that the “cell”, in this case, means the transmitting/service area of a single mobile. The limited service area is symbolized a single cell in the total communication system of a telephone company. I happened to find it when I was looking over at some document of frequency allocation in radio communication system.
Actually I might have ever told someone else, “It is interesting a ‘mobile phone’ can be also called a ‘cell phone’ in English because it’s a cell powered phone.” That was a lie. m(_ _)m
Now I’m glad I know the truth.
Another thing I want to say today is about a DVD.
Recently everyone knows the non-abbreviation word of a DVD (digital versatile disc). In early times DVDs were coming out and not widely used unlike today, I thought it must be a “Digital Visual/Video Disc” because it was used mainly for videos. I knew I was wrong thanks to a variety of general information from magazines or press.
In my confusion, it is hard to make the Japanese katakana word for “versatile”. Maybe is it a “バースティル” or “バーサタイル”?
Anyway, each of these seems to be far different from its original English sound. Actually we have a lot of katakana words originated from foreign language and most of them had to be changed the readings from the original sounds. I don’t want to say it’s wrong or unfavorable this time. Because of some characteristics of a certain language, a sound of a word would be changed to be suitable for the new language when it was imported from original language.
However, “mobile” is changed into “モバイル (mo-ba-yee-ru)” in katakana Japanese whereas the English word is pronounced like “モゥブル (moh-bl)” or “モゥビル (moh-bil)”.
Who made this Japanese word?
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The origin of the cellular phone
In English 携帯電話 (kei-tai den-wa) is called a “cellular/cell phone” or “mobile phone”.
The limited service area is symbolized by a single cell in the total communication system of a telephone company.
I happened to find it when I was looking over some documents about frequency allocation in radio communication system.
Actually I might have told someone else, “Isn't it interesting that a ‘mobile phone’ can be also called a ‘cell phone’ in English because it’s a cell powered phone?” That was a lie.
Another thing I want to say today is about DVDs.
Nowadays everyone knows the non-abbreviated form of DVD (digital versatile disc).
When DVDs were first coming out and not widely used like today, I thought it must be a “Digital Visual/Video Disc” because it was used mainly for videos.
I knew I was wrong thanks to a variety of information from magazines or the press.
In my confusion, I find it hard to make the Japanese katakana word for “versatile”.
Anyway, both of these seem to be far different from the original English sound.
Actually we have a lot of katakana words originated from foreign languages and most of them had to change the readings of the original sounds.
Because of some characteristics of a certain language, a sound of a word would be changed to be suitable for the new language when it was imported from original language. (または Because of the nature of the original language, the sounds of some words had to be changed to fit the new language.)
素晴らしい日記を書いていただいてありがとうございます。読むのはとても楽しかったのです。（＾＿＾）
(Thank-you so much for writing such a fascinating entry. Reading it was really fun.)
頑張ってくださいね～～！
Thank you for looking at and making corrections on my entry every time.
いつもありがとうございます。
I couldn't understand モーボルフォンat all when I heard the word at an ESL class in the US. It is quite different from モバイル. Sometimes カタカナ英語 makes me confused.
Thank you for your comment. Yes. You’re right.
You’d think it be hard to get what is said if you know the word as a katakana Japanese. Likewise, if some English word you’ve already known would be changed into カタカナ Japanese, it couldn’t be understood what the origin was like.