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Wa (Japan) |
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) Chinese character for Wō or Wa, formed by the "person" radical 亻and a wěi or i 委 phonetic element The word WaThe Japanese endonym Wa 倭 "Japan; Japanese" derives from the Chinese exonym Wo 倭 "dwarf; submissive; Japan".倭 and 和 charactersThe Chinese character 倭 combines the or "human, person" radical and a wěi "bend" phonetic. This wěi phonetic element depicts hé "grain" over nǚ "woman", which Bernhard Karlgren (1923:368) semantically analyzes as: "bend down, bent, tortuous, crooked; fall down, throw down, throw away, send away, reject; send out, delegate – to bend like a 女 woman working with the 禾 grain." The oldest written forms of 倭 are in Seal script, and it has not been identified in Bronzeware script or Oracle bone script.Most characters written with this wěi 委 phonetic are pronounced wei in Standard Mandarin:
Graphic replacement of the 倭 "dwarf Japanese" Chinese logograph became inevitable. Not long after the Japanese began using 倭 to write Wa ∼ Yamato 'Japan', they realized its 'dwarf; bent back' connotation. In a sense, they had been tricked by Chinese logography; the only written name for 'Japan' was deprecating. The chosen replacement wa 和 'harmony; peace' had the same Japanese wa pronunciation as 倭 'dwarf', and - most importantly - it was semantically flattering. The notion that Japanese culture is based upon wa 和 'harmony' has become an article of faith among Japanese and Japanologists. (1992:6) In current Japanese usage, Wa 倭 "old name for Japan" is a variant Chinese character for Wa 和 "Japan", excepting a few historical terms like the Five kings of Wa, Wakō (Chinese Wōkòu 倭寇 "Japanese pirates"), and Wamyō Ruijushō dictionary. In marked contrast, Wa 和 is a common adjective in compounds like Washoku 和食 "Japanese cuisine", Wafuku 和服 "Japanese clothing", Washitsu 和室 "Japanese-style room", Waka 和歌 "Japanese-style poetry", and Washi 和紙 "traditional Japanese paper". PronunciationsIn Chinese, the character 倭 can be pronounced wēi "winding", wǒ "an ancient hairstyle", or Wō "Japan". The first two pronunciations are restricted to Classical Chinese compounds. Wēi 倭 occurs in wēichí 倭遲 "winding; sinuous; circuitous; meandering", which has numerous variants including wēiyí 逶迤 and 委蛇. The oldest recorded usage of 倭 is a Shi Jing (162) description of a wēichí 倭遲 "winding; serpentine; tortuous" road; compare (18) using wēituó 委佗 "compliant; bending, pliable; graceful". Wǒ 倭 occurs in wǒduòjì 倭墮髻 "a woman's hairstyle with a bun, popular during the Han Dynasty" (note that wǒtuǒ 婑媠 "beautiful; pretty", with the "woman" radical, is alternately written with the "hair" radical 髟). The third pronunciation Wō 倭 "Japan; Japanese" is more productive than the first two, as evident in Chinese names for "Japanese" things (e.g., Wōkòu 倭寇 "Japanese pirates" above) or "dwarf; pygmy" animals.
In Japanese, the Chinese character 倭 has Sinitic on'yomi pronunciations of wa or ka from Chinese wō "Japan" and wǒ "an ancient hairstyle", or wi or i from wēi "winding; obedient", and native kun'yomi pronunciations of yamato "Japan" or shitagau "obey, obedient". Chinese wō 倭 "an old name for Japan" is a loanword in other Sinosphere languages including Korean 왜 wae, Standard Cantonese wai1 or wo1, and Taiwanese e2. EtymologyAlthough the etymological origins of Wa remain uncertain, Chinese history certainly records an ancient people residing in the Japanese archipelago (perhaps Kyūshū), named something like *ˀWâ or *ˀWər 倭. Carr (1992:9) surveys prevalent proposals for Wa's etymology ranging from feasible (transcribing Japanese first-person pronouns waga 我が "my; our" and ware 我 "I; we; oneself") to shameful (writing Japanese Wa as 倭implying "dwarf barbarians"); and summarizes interpretations for Wō < ˀUâ < *ˀWâ "Japanese" into variations on two etymologies: "behaviorally 'submissive' or physically 'short'."The first 'submissive; obedient' explanation began with the (121 CE) Shuowen Jiezi dictionary. It defines 倭 as shùnmào "obedient/submissive/docile appearance", graphically explains the "person; human' radical with a wěi 委 "bent" phonetic, and quotes the above Shi Jing poem. "Conceivably, when Chinese first met Japanese," Carr (1992:9) suggests "they transcribed Wa as *ˀWâ 'bent back' signifying 'compliant' bowing/obeisance. Bowing is noted in early historical references to Japan." Examples include the Hou Hanshu (tr. Tsunoda 1951:2) "Respect is shown by squatting"; and the Wei Zhi (tr. Tsunoda 1951:13) "they either squat or kneel, with both hands on the ground. This is the way they show respect." Koji Nakayama (linked below) interprets wēi 逶 "winding" as "very far away" and euphemistically translates Wō 倭 as "separated from the continent." The second etymology of wō 倭 meaning "dwarf; short person" has possible cognates in ǎi 矮 "short person; midget, dwarf; low", wō 踒 "strain; sprain; bent legs", and wò 臥 "lie down; crouch; sit (animals and birds)". Early Chinese dynastic histories refer to a legendary Xiǎoréndǎo 小人島 "Island of Dwarfs" located south of Japan, associated with possibly Okinawa Island, Ryukyu Islands, or Kuril Islands. Carr cites the historical precedence of construing Wa as "submissive people" and the "Island of Dwarfs" legend as evidence that the "little people" etymology was a secondary development. LexicographyAn article by Michael Carr (1992:1) "compares how Oriental and Occidental lexicographers have treated the fact that Japan's first written name was a Chinese Wō < *ˀWâ 倭 'short/submissive people' insult." It evaluates 92 dictionary definitions of Chinese Wō 倭 to illustrate lexicographical problems with defining racially offensive words. This corpus of monolingual and bilingual Chinese dictionaries includes 29 Chinese-Chinese, 17 Chinese-English, 13 Chinese to other Western Languages, and 33 Chinese-Japanese dictionaries. To analyze how Chinese dictionaries deal with the belittling origins of Wō, Carr divides definitions into four types, abbreviated with Greek alphabet letters Alpha through Delta.
Carr evaluates these four typologies for defining the Chinese 倭 "bent people" graphic pejoration. From a theoretical standpoint, A "dwarf" or B "submissive" type definitions are preferable for providing accurate etymological information, even though it may be deemed offensive. It is no transgression for an abridged Chinese dictionary to give a short Δ "Japan" definition, but adding "an old name for" or "archaic" takes no more space than adding a Γ "derogatory" note. A Δ definition avoids offending the Japanese, but misleads the dictionary user in the same way as the OED2 defining wetback and white trash without usage labels. (1992:12). The table below (Carr 1992:31, Table 8. Overall Comparison of Definitions) summarizes how Chinese dictionaries define Wō 倭.
Half of the Western language dictionaries note that Chinese Wō 倭 "Japanese" means 'little person; dwarf', while most Chinese-Chinese definitions overlook the graphic slur with Δ type "ancient name for Japan" definitions. This explicitly racist A "dwarf" description is found more often in Occidental language dictionaries than in Oriental ones. The historically more accurate, and ethnically less insulting, "subservient; compliant" B type is limited to Chinese-Japanese and Chinese-German dictionaries. The Γ type "derogatory" notation occurs most often among Japanese and European language dictionaries. The least edifying Δ "(old name for) Japan" type definitions are found twice more often in Chinese-Chinese than in Chinese-Japanese dictionaries, and three times more than in Western ones. Even the modern-day Unicode universal character standard reflects lexicographic problems with this ancient Chinese Wō 倭 "Japan" affront. The Unihan (Unified CJK characters) segment of Unicode largely draws definitions from two online dictionary projects, Chinese CEDICT and Japanese EDICT. The former lists Chinese wo1 倭 "Japanese; dwarf", wokou4 倭寇 "(in ancient usage) the dwarf-pirates; the Japs", and wonu2 倭奴 "(used in ancient times) the Japanese; (in modern usage, derogatively) the Japs". The latter lists Japanese yamato 倭 "ancient Japan", wajin 倭人 "(an old word for) a Japanese", and wakou 倭寇 "Japanese pirates". Historical referencesThe earliest textual references to Japan are in Chinese classic texts, particularly in the dynastic Twenty-Four Histories.Wei ZhiThe ca. 297 CE Wei Zhi (魏志) of the San Guo Zhi describes Wō Japan, which was then in the late Yayoi period, 300 BC-AD 250). Ambassadorial visits to Japan by the later Northern Chinese dynasties Wei and Jin Dynasty (265-420) (Encounters of the Eastern Barbarians, Wei Chronicles) recorded that the Wō people claimed to be descendants of the Tàibó of the Kingdom of Wu (吳國).
) A tattooed Haniwa statue, 4th-6th century, Kamiyasaku Tomb, Fukushima Prefecture. Liang ShuThe 635 CE Chinese chronicle Book of Liang (Liangshu, Chinese: 梁書) describes the Wa as a Japanese people apparently living in Kyūshū, governed by the Kingdom of Yamatai.As for the Wa, they call themselves posterity of the Grand Count (Tàibó). According to custom, the people are all tattooed (This could also mean "The commoners are all tattooed"). Their territory is over 12,000 li (1,500 kilometers) from our Daifang, roughly to the east of Guiji (modern Shaoxing (Zhejiang)). One must travel an incredible distance to get there. From Daifang to Wa, it is necessary to follow the coast and go beyond the Han Korean state to the south-east for about 500 kilometers, then for the first time cross a sea to a small island 75 kilometers away, then cross the sea again for 75 kilometers to the country of Miro (Chinese: 未盧國; Pinyin: Wèilú-guó, usually identified with modern Tosu city in Saga Prefecture, Japan). 50 kilometers to the southeast is the country of Ito (Chinese: 伊都國; Pinyin: Yīdū-guó). 10 kilometers to the southeast is the country of Nu (Chinese: 奴國; Pinyin: Nú-guó). 10 kilometers to the east is the country of Bumi (Chinese: 不彌國; Pinyin: Bùmí-guó). 20 days to the south by boat is the country of Touma (Chinese: 投馬國; Pinyin: Tóumǎ-guó). 10 days to the south by boat or one month by land is the country of Yamatai (Chinese: 邪馬臺國; Pinyin: Xiémǎtái-guó). There resides the King of the Wa people. Jin ShuThe 648 CE Jin shu or "Book of Jin
Zizhi TongjianThe 1084 CE Zizhi Tongjian was a universal history of China.
) The island of Wa (probably modern Kyūshū) is depicted below the island of Japan (日本國) and above the island of Greater Ryūkyū (大琉球) on the right-hand side of this 16th century Chinese world map, the Sihai Huayi Zongtu. See alsoReferences
External links
This article contains Japanese text. Without proper , you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of kanji or kana. Japanese 日本語 ..... Click the link for more information. Chinese or the Sinitic language(s) (汉语/漢語, Pinyin: Hànyǔ; 华语/華語, Huáyǔ; or 中文, Zhōngwén) can be considered a language or language family. ..... Click the link for more information. Japan is not the name used for their country by the Japanese themselves: it is an exonym. The Japanese names for Japan are Nippon (にっぽん) and Nihon (にほん). ..... Click the link for more information. Yamato (大和) may refer to: Japanese history
..... Click the link for more information. This page contains Chinese text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Chinese characters. A Chinese character or Han character (Simplified Chinese: ..... Click the link for more information. An exonym is a name for a place that is not used within that place by the local inhabitants, or a name for a people or language that is not used by the people or language to which it refers. The name used by the people or locals themselves is an endonym or autonym. ..... Click the link for more information. An exonym is a name for a place that is not used within that place by the local inhabitants, or a name for a people or language that is not used by the people or language to which it refers. The name used by the people or locals themselves is an endonym or autonym. ..... Click the link for more information. radical (from Latin radix, meaning "root") is the semantic root (i.e., portion bearing the meaning) of an inflected European word. Early Western sinologists borrowed this term to refer to the semantic component(s) of Chinese character (Hanzi). ..... Click the link for more information. Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone meaning 'sound, voice') is the study of the sounds of human speech. It is concerned with the actual properties of speech sounds (phones), and their production, audition and perception, while phonology, which ..... Click the link for more information. Bernhard Karlgren (1889 - 1978) was a Swedish sinologist, philologist, and the founder of Swedish sinology as a scholarly discipline. His full name was Klas Bernhard Johannes Karlgren, and he adopted the Chinese name traditional:高本漢 or ..... Click the link for more information. Seal script (Chinese: 篆文; pinyin: zhuànwén) is an ancient style of Chinese calligraphy. It evolved organically out of the Zhōu dynasty script (see bronze script), arising in the Warring State of Qin. ..... Click the link for more information. Bronzeware script (Chinese: 金文; pinyin: jīn wén or Chinese: 鐘鼎文; pinyin: zhōng dǐng wén) is a family of scripts found on Chinese bronzes such as zhong (bells) and ding (tripods), since bronze artifacts with Chinese characters span ..... Click the link for more information. Oracle bone script (Chinese: 甲骨文; Pinyin: jiǎgǔwén; literally "shell bone writing") refers to incised (or, rarely, brush-written) ancient Chinese characters found on oracle ..... Click the link for more information. This page contains Chinese text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Chinese characters. Standard Mandarin, also known as Modern Standard Chinese ..... Click the link for more information. This page contains Chinese text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Chinese characters. "Warring States" redirects here. ..... Click the link for more information. Wei (Chinese: 魏; Pinyin: Wèi) was a state during the Warring States Period in China. Its territory lay between the states of Qin and Qi and included modern areas in Henan, Hebei and Shanxi and ..... Click the link for more information. The Three Kingdoms era (Traditional Chinese: 三國; Simplified Chinese: 三国; Pinyin: Sānguo ..... Click the link for more information. Cao Wei (Chinese: 曹魏; Pinyin: Cáo Wèi; Wade-Giles: Ts'ao Wei) was one of the regimes that competed for control of China during the Three Kingdoms period. ..... Click the link for more information. ..... Click the link for more information. In linguistics, cognates are words that have a common origin. They may occur within a language, such as shirt and skirt as two English words descended from the Proto-Indo-European word *sker-, meaning "to cut". They may also occur across languages, e.g. ..... Click the link for more information. Variant Chinese characters are Chinese characters that can be used interchangeably. They are the same in pronunciation and meaning, but different in appearance. Some characters are interchangeable in all circumstances, while others are interchangeable only in some contexts ..... Click the link for more information. The five kings of Wa (倭の五王) are kings of Japan who sent envoys to China during the 5th century to strengthen the legitimacy of their claims to power by gaining the recognition of the Chinese emperor. Details about them are unknown. ..... Click the link for more information. In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme (a word) that consists of more than one other lexeme. An endocentric compound consists of a head, i.e. the categorical part that contains the basic meaning of the whole compound, and modifiers, which restrict this meaning. ..... Click the link for more information. There are many views as to what defines Japanese cuisine, as the everyday food of the Japanese people has diversified immensely over the past century or so. In Japan, the term "Japanese cuisine" (nihon ryōri, 日本料理 or washoku ..... Click the link for more information. This article is about traditional clothing in Japan. In addition to the traditional clothing described below, western-style clothing is commonly worn by both sexes. Japanese clothing is styled to fit the seasons; for instance in autumn people will wear clothes with fall colours and fall ..... Click the link for more information. ..... Click the link for more information.
Waka (和歌) or Yamato uta is a genre of Japanese poetry. Waka literally means Japanese poem in Japanese. ..... Click the link for more information. Washi (和紙) or Wagami is a type of paper made in Japan. Washi is commonly made using fibers from the bark of the gampi tree, the mitsumata shrub (Edgeworthia papyrifera), or the paper mulberry, but also can be made using bamboo, hemp, rice, and wheat. ..... Click the link for more information. Classical Chinese or Literary Chinese is a traditional style of written Chinese based on the grammar and vocabulary of ancient Chinese, making it different from any modern spoken form of Chinese. ..... Click the link for more information. Book of Songs (Arabic: Kitab al-Aghani) written by the 9th century Arab scholar Abu al-Faraj, see Kitab al-Aghani. Shi Jing (Traditional Chinese: 詩經 ..... Click the link for more information. This article is copied from an article on Wikipedia® - the free encyclopedia created and edited by online user community. The text was not checked or edited by anyone on our staff. Although the vast majority of the Wikipedia® encyclopedia articles provide accurate and timely information please do not assume the accuracy of any particular article. This article is distributed under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License. How to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit webmaster's page for free fun content. |
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