How to dehumanize a baby, ft. Abel and The Way Japanese Numbers WorkSo you know how in English, when

How to dehumanize a baby, ft. Abel and The Way Japanese Numbers Work

So you know how in English, when we say how many of something there are, we usually just say [number] [thing]…but sometimes you need another word? Something like “five sheets of paper” instead of “five papers,” or “two sticks of gum” instead of “two gums.”

Japanese numbers are like that, but with everything.

You don’t just have five sheets of paper, you also have a couple sheets of blanket, 52 sheets of playing card, a sheet of cheese on your burger. The word for “sheet(s) of something” is 枚（まい）

You have five sticks of finger on each hand, which you use to hold a stick of pencil while you write, and there are many more sticks of hair on your head. The word for “stick(s) of something” is 本（ほん）

Words like ~枚 and ~本 are called countersorclassifiers, and there are a bunch of them depending on what type of thing you’re counting. So if you’re saying that there’s one of something, it could come out as all sorts of different words:

• 一枚（いちまい） one flat thing
• 一本（いっぽん） one long cylindrical thing
• 一人（ひとり）one person 
• 一個（いっこ） one small roundish object
• 一匹（いっぴき） one small animal (cats, dogs, fish, rodents, bugs…)
• 一つ（ひとつ） one thing that doesn’t fit neatly into other categories
• and many more!

I bring this up because of what Abel called poor unborn Yukio in the new Blue Exorcist chapter. When he was told that the doctors were trying to take Yuri away from the commotion surrounding her first (very demonic!) newborn twin so she could give birth to the second (less demonic!) one, he responded:

止めろ。腹の中にはまだ一匹残っている。
Stop them. She still has one more of those things left in there.

• 止めろ stop them! (imperative form of とめる “stop someone from doing something”)
• 腹（はら）belly, abdomen
• ～の中に（～のなかに） inside of ~
• は makes 腹の中に “inside (her) abdomen” the topic of the sentence
• まだ still, yet
• 一匹（いっぴき）one (small animal)
• 残っている (のこっている） is left, is remaining (from のこる “to remain/be left over”)

So he says there’s one more baby…but he didn’t use the counter for people, now did he? That would be 一人. He said 一匹, with the counter for smallish animals. 

Really drives home the fact that he sees the twins as vermin to be exterminated, doesn’t it?