In Japan, a word chain game called “Shiritori しりとり” is very famous and popular especially among school kids. The name “shiritori しりとり” expresses rules of the word chain game.
“Shiritori しりとり” can be broken down into two parts, “shiri しり” and “tori とり”. The former one means “hip”, and the latter means “taking”, so the translation of this word can be “hip taking”. What does it mean? Let me explain in detail.
We can consider that all words have their own head and tail (hip perhaps). In other words, the first and last character of words. For example, the word “shirotiri しりとり” has “shi し” as its head and “ri り” as its tail (hip). If you have a good intuition, you can guess what “hip taking” means. And also considering that the game which we are talking about is called “Japanese word chain game”, you can guess how to chain Japanese words and play the game. There are only two simple rules:
- You have to choose a new word so that the last character of the previous word becomes the head of the new word, for instance: しりとり→りんご. The previous word is now “shiritori しりとり” and “りんご” is chosen as the new word. Two characters on both sides of the arrow are the same “ri り”. The tail (hip) is taken and becomes the head of the new word. This is the reason why the game is called “shiritori しりとり” and introduced as Japanese word chain game.
- If you choose a new word ending with the character “n ん”, you will lose a game. In Japanese, we don’t have any words staring with “n ん”. This means you cannot chain a word anymore.
This is an overview of Japanese word chain game, “shiritori しりとり”. Why am I talking about it? I’d like to think deeply about characteristics of Japanese language through this game.
This game is very popular in Japan, so when I heard that in English this game can be very difficult or perhaps cannot be realized, I was very surprised. In Japanese, we can chain words very easily and enjoy the game, but in English it’s difficult. I needed a long time to understand the reason of it. Please recall that we have two rules for the game. In English, these two rules are not sufficient for the game. Let’s think about easier one, the rule 2.
The rule 2 is very important because every game should have a condition which define winners and losers. In Japanese, we don’t have any words starting with “n ん”. So, if someone chooses a new word ending with “n ん”, nobody can chain the next word. The one who use a word ending with “n ん” is defined as a loser. Apparently, this condition works well. Compare to this, in English, we cannot find a appropriate character taking over the role of “n ん”. All 26 alphabets can be a head. Therefore, we have to make another rule which can end the game and define winners and losers.
In the upcoming article, I will continue talking about the rules of Japanese word chain game.
