犬 – Shiba Inu Crypto and other Dogs. What does Inu mean?
Shiba inu or whatever the meme coin there are lots of inu popping up if you have been watching financial news lately. But, does this inu word mean anyway? Let’s take a look.
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Inu means Dog in Japanese
The Japanese word for dog in Japanese is inu. If you write that in Japanese it would be 犬. There is not too much else to expand on the word inu. It basically means the same thing in both Japanese and English.
https://japaneseuniverse.com/2024/02/18/pac-man-in-japaneseconcepts-behind-development-to-global-icon/Is Shiba Inu Correct?
Yes, it is correct to say Shiba inu in Japanese. You would write that in Japanese as 柴犬. This is correct but you can also say Shiba-Ken. Shiba ken would actually be the more common way in Japanese to say it. The word Ken actually is written the same as inu. So, Shiba-ken would be 柴犬.
Why can I say both Shiba Inu and Shiba Ken?
Japanese has two types of reading called Kunyomi and Onyomi.
Inu is the Kunyomi reading and Ken is the Onyomi reading.
Ken
When the Onyomi ken is added to the end of the word, it is like a suffix to indicate a type of dog. So, ken in itself would not be a word you would run around saying. It would be like in English running around and saying ology. People know what you mean but ology is not a word by itself. You would need to add it to something to make words like archeology or pharmacology.
Inu
However, you can also say Inu which is the full word for dog in Japanese. This is the form, shiba inu, which became popular in English and then which meme coins started slapping onto the end of coin names.
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