Asian = Oriental, etc.

[Douglas G. Wilson]

 From Benjamin Barrett:

 From Benjamin Barrett:

> > As I stated in a separate message, I am dubious of the purported original
> > sense of "Nippon", and I think "Rising Sun" specifically and exactly as a
> > term for Japan has become common in Japan only recently ...

>Just a quick look at the Kojien dictionary indicates that the transformation
>from the native name of Yamato to Nihon/Nippon occurred in the Nara period
>(the eighth century). The entry says that the characters "big peace" (as
>today) were used for Yamato. In correspondence with China, the characters
>"sun origin" were used [as in Chinese], but the Japanese pronounced them as
>"Yamato." Somewhere along the way, the Yamato pronunciation got set aside
>and the (pseudo) Chinese readings of Nihon/Nippon came into currency.

As I stated in my earlier message, I don't doubt that "Nippon" =
"sun-origin" was first used by the 7th Century AD. It is usually said,
however, that it was invented by Japanese, not Chinese, and therefore I
wonder whether it really referred to the sunrise. "Rising sun" is so
standard in English and other languages that it's difficult to get around
the preconception (and indeed it may be genuine or partly so) -- e.g., it's
English speakers (and probably others) who refer to the Japanese flag
symbol as a "rising sun" when it's clearly just a sun-disk, not referred to
as "rising" in Japanese AFAIK.

Imagine meeting two isolated tribes in New Guinea. The western tribe says
"We call those people over to the east the 'sun origin people', because we
see the sun rise over their village." OK, sounds believable. But suppose
the western tribe adds "That eastern tribe's name 'sun origin people' was
invented by them, not by us." Well, then one might ask the eastern tribe
why this name was chosen. If the members of the eastern tribe were to say
"We're not sure, it's been our name for a long time, but -- by the way --
our Chief is directly descended from the Sun God" I think one might tend to
speculate that the 'sunrise'='east' etymology might be false.

"Nippon" = "Jih-ben" in modern Chinese does not mean "sunrise" or "rising
sun" AFAIK -- it means exactly "Japan". But I don't know what the sense of
this word might have been -- if any -- in the Chinese of 600-650 AD.

As for why the Japanese wanted to use a new name in their relations with
China ... I don't know for sure the evolution-chronology, but there is in
Japanese a character "wa" = "yamato" = "ancient Japan" (Nelson #475, Spahn
# 2a8.16) which is the same as the Chinese "wo" ('ancient' Chinese "wa"
according to Karlsen) glossed as "dwarf" by Wieger, and given in my
Chinese-English dictionary as "old name for Japan" with the example
"wo-k'ou" [modern Japanese "wakou" --DW] = "dwarf pirates" = "the Japs [sic
--DW]" ("ancient usage" says the book -- but not so ancient that I haven't
personally heard it cited by Chinese and Korean acquaintances in casual
conversation circa 1975). Japanese "wa" = "Japanese" is of course usually
represented by another character ("peace"/"harmony"). Relationships were
not always harmonious, and it's not hard to understand the Japanese
preferring to be known to the Chinese as "sun-origin people" (whatever the
etymology) rather than "dwarf people/pirates" or whatever other term of
opprobrium may have been used in the 7th Century.

-- Doug Wilson