Homophones - Douongo

Also called homophones. Taking into account the characters, a distinction is made between homophones (spellings) and homophones (such as when "sencho" means "captain" and "length of the ship" and the English word "case" means "case" and "box") and homophones (different spellings). Historically, there are cases where the origin is different (such as when "kawa" means "river/skin" and "kumo" means "cloud/spider"), and cases where the origin is the same but the semantic differentiation has led to heterologous words (such as when "kara" means "empty/shell"). Homophones are usually avoided by the help of context, but sometimes the context is the same (such as "municipal/private" and "chemistry/science"). Sometimes the meanings are almost opposite (such as "bright red/light red", "ubiquitous/omnipresent", "purely Western/semi-Western"). Sometimes they are synonymous (such as "climate/seasons", "machine/instrument", "dictionary/encyclopedia", "standard/standard technique", "growth/growth"). Synonyms can also be a source of misunderstanding in spoken language ("hospital/beauty salon"; "calf/lattice").

[Tetsuya Kunihiro]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

同音異義語ともいう。文字を考慮に入れると、さらに同音同字（同綴(つづり)）語（「船長」が「キャプテン」と「船の長さ」を意味し、英語のcaseが「場合」と「箱」を意味する場合）と同音異字（異綴）語が区別される。歴史的にみると、語源が異なる場合（「かわ」が「川・皮」、「くも」が「雲・蜘蛛」をさす場合）と、語源は同じであったものが、意味分化が進んだ結果、異義語となった場合（「から」→「空・殻」）がある。同音語の混同は、文脈などの助けで避けられるのが普通であるが、文脈も同じ場合がある（「市立・私立」「化学・科学」）。ときには、意味がほとんど反対になることもある（「鮮紅・浅紅」「偏在・遍在」「純洋式・準洋式」）。類義である場合もある（「気候・季候」「機械・器械」「辞典・事典」「定石・定跡」「生長・成長」）。類音語も話しことばでは誤解の元となりうる（「病院・美容院」「小牛・格子」）。

［国広哲弥］

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