Different conventions for animal meat

Question

After reading this awesome question, I got to thinking about different animal meat. Upon researching a little, there seems to be different conventions in referring to different meats.

Using 訓読み

（鳥・鶏）肉　→　とりにく
豚肉　→　ぶたにく

Using 音読み

牛肉　→　ぎゅうにく
羊肉　→　ようにく
豚肉　→　とんにく
鶏肉　→　けいにく

[Animal] + の + 肉

子牛の肉　→　こうしのにく　(veal)
かにの肉　→　crab meat

Why is there not one consistent way of doing this?

@Jeemusu: I don't know, but multiple dictionaries I looked in had that reading. — istrasci, Aug 29 '12 at 03:28
You can say 蟹肉{かににく}, and 仔牛肉{こうしにく} though. — nkjt, Aug 29 '12 at 10:04
あとは・・・魚肉、猪肉、鹿肉、熊肉、鯨肉・・・（まだあるんでしょうね～） — , Aug 29 '12 at 15:58
Related to 桜肉 there's 牡丹{ぼたん}肉 for boar meat and 紅葉{もみじ}肉 for deer. — nkjt, Aug 29 '12 at 16:03
Because the color of horse meat is similar to that of 桜cherry blossoms, boar meat 牡丹peony, and deer meat 紅葉autumn leaves, maybe? — , Aug 29 '12 at 16:11
Chicken is also called かしわ. This word seems to be more common in the western part of Japan. — Tsuyoshi Ito, Sep 01 '12 at 15:21
Don't eat 人魚の肉 unless you want to live for 800 years! — Golden Cuy, Oct 10 '12 at 11:56
How about にんにく? Although 肉 doesn't appear in any written kanji form, a Google search for にん肉 reveals quite a few shops that use the that term. Some kind of wordplay at work? — Jiahao Chen, Jul 31 '13 at 16:24

score 7 · Answer 1 · edited Oct 03 '12 at 19:39

7

There is no convenient rule you can use. The different pronunciations come from the different origins of the words.

There are basically three kinds of words that are written in kanji in Japanese.

和語 were developed in Japan, 訓読み words are likely to be 和語
漢語 originated in China, 音読み words are likely to be 漢語
There are also combinations of 和語 and 漢語, and those words are called 湯桶読み.

For more information: http://www.iwanami.co.jp/moreinfo/0802060/top3.html .

By the way there are 鹿肉(しかにく), 馬肉(ばにく) also. Personally I never heard of 豚肉 as とんにく.

edited Oct 03 '12 at 19:39

jkerian

4,916
3
30
55

answered Sep 23 '12 at 07:46

Teno

1,811
12
13

2

I fail to see how this answers the question any more than what is contained in the comments already. – Earthliŋ Sep 23 '12 at 08:12
@user1205935 Where is 湯桶読み in the comments? – Teno Sep 23 '12 at 08:31
1

@user1205935 It provides a clue why there are different variations in reading words, which answers to Why is there not one consistent way of doing this? – Teno Sep 23 '12 at 09:13

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:54

It's even more inconsistent than that. Gairaigo is sometimes used for meat. Apparently, the animal is still typically referred to with a non-gairaigo word, but the meat is sometimes (but not always) referred to by a gairaigo word.

ラム is sometimes used for lamb (the meat)
マトン is sometimes used for mutton (meat of an old sheep, hence the English expression mutton dressed as lamb)
チキン is sometimes used for chicken (the meat)
オージービーフ for Aussie beef

This inconsistency isn't unique to Japanese, though. In English, the words for animals come from different languages than the words for the meat: the animals are of Germanic etymology, whereas the meats are of French etymology, according to this answer on Linguistics Stack Exchange. The Germanic words would be older than the French words.

Different conventions for animal meat

Using 訓読み

Using 音読み

[Animal] + の + 肉

2 Answers2

Linked