Setting: Japanese. Fourth-semester. My teacher, カィザー先生, talking about the grammar point of the day, pulled one of my classmates’ shoes into an example, and called them… “ぴかぴか” (romanized: pika pika). Now these were a pair of nice black dress shoes, but seemed to have been polished a minimum of one dozen times. Of course, everyone glazed over “ぴかぴか” until I said, “Wait… shiny? Does that mean shiny??”

I think you might know where this one is going.

In the first couple years of high school, I went through a large stint of trying to figure out the etymologies of every Pokemon’s name. Um… because I was a Pokemon Master. Duh. (In fact, I was the first to buy it in my school when it came out in fifth grade, even though I had no idea what the game was about.) I don’t think I ever considered that the ちゅ (read: chu) in Pikachu’s moniker would ever mean mouse*, even though I had encountered the word multiple times with this commercial:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/ga62uiXbEjI&rel=1]

*In fact, ちゅ does not mean mouse; rather, it is another transliteration of a mouse’s squeak.

Anyway, I spent the next twenty minutes of class in a complete daze because of the previously mentioned intellectual orgasmed. ぴかぴか = shiny. ちゅ = squeaky. Go impress your Pokefriends.

Go look up some more info on Japanese sound effect transliteration (which I find interesting, if you compare it to American comics and their common onomatopoeic tendencies). But I remain unawares to the origin of “ぴかぴか”*.

*Jim Breen’s online Japanese dictionary only gives “ぴかぴか光る 【ぴかぴかひかる】 (v5r) to sparkle; to glitter; to twinkle”

Or, instead, you could simply spend hours dying of cuteness overload:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_ECcbjYW9g&rel=1]