Japanese words

The old culture of Japan has long fascinated the West and was particularly influential in the arts in the 19th century. The samurai [E18th], from a verb meaning ‘to serve’, and their customs have been a particular interest in popular films and books. From the 7th to the 19th century Samurai were a powerful military class in feudal Japan, who followed the code of bushido [L19th] ‘military knight code’. They carried a katana [E17th], a long, single-edged sword. They might also be ninjas [M20th] from words meaning ‘stealth, invisibility’ and ‘person’, hence ‘spy’, or be trained in one of Japan’s martial arts. Aikido [M20th], literally ‘way of adapting the spirit’ but usually translated as ‘The Way of Spiritual Harmony’, is the art of using an opponent’s strength against himself. Others are karate [M20th] ‘empty hand’, judo [L19th] ‘gentle way’, or ju-jitsu [L19th], from which judo evolved, meaning ‘gentle skill’. A disgraced samurai would kill himself by hara-kiri [M19th] ‘belly cutting’. A survivor of this culture is the geisha [L19th] a ‘performing arts person’.

When Japan opened up to the West in the 19th century, it was a country effectively ruled by a shogun [E17th], a title borrowed from a Chinese phrase meaning ‘barbarian-subduing great general’ or tycoon [M19th] ‘great lord’. Also 19th century is the tsunami or ‘harbour wave’. Further military terms which became familiar from the Second World War were the suicidal pilots called kamikaze, meaning literally ‘divine wind’, referring to a wind which blew up in 1281 and destroyed the navy of the invading Mongols, and honcho, originally a military group leader which was rapidly transformed in English into ‘boss’.

The success in reviving the Japanese economy after World War II has introduced the hard-working salaryman, an obvious borrowing from English, who might work so hard that he suffers karoshi [L20th] ‘excess labour death’. More recently, at least half a million Japanese have responded to the pressure of modern life by becoming self-isolated hikikomori [L20th], literally ‘staying indoors, (social) withdrawal’.

But Japan has also given the West many forms of entertainment. Bonsai [L19th] ‘tray planting’ is one of the older ones, as is origami [M20th] ‘fold paper’. More recent are manga [M20th], literally ‘aimless picture’, an etymology which must displease its many admirers, and anime [L20th] derived from English ‘animation’. The social might enjoy singing karaoke [L20th], ‘literally ‘empty orchestra’, or the quieter charms of sudoku [E20th], a contraction of su¯ji wa dokushin ni kagiru ‘the numbers are restricted to single status’.

The Japanese also take their food very seriously, and many dishes have been eagerly adopted into English. Ramen [M20th] is a term meaning ‘hand-pulled noodles’ borrowed from Chinese. Sashimi [L19th], thin slices of raw fish, comes from sashi ‘pierce’ and mi ‘flesh’. Sushi [L19th] originally referred to the rice rather than the trimming such as fish or nori [L19th] ‘seaweed’ or the hot root paste wasabi [E20th]. Tofu, borrowed from the Chinese for ‘fermented beans’, has been in English since the 19th century, but the other fermented bean paste, miso, has been known since 1615. Katsu, recent enough not to be in many dictionaries at the time of writing, is a shortening of katsuretsu, a Japanese form of the English ‘cutlet’, itself a borrowing from French. The rice wine sake [L17th] is simply the Japanese for alcohol.

See also chinese words, emotion, soy, yen.