Hibakusha

[Benjamin Barrett]

In ADS list message 5915, 17 April 2000, Barry Popik mentions that he sees the word "hibakusha" all over Hiroshima Peace Park. He also notes that it's not in the OED, and it still is not. (http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0004C&L=ADS-L&P=R928&I=-3&d=No+Match%3BMatch%3BMatches)

Because the anniversaries of the Nagasaki and Hiroshima atomic bombings are upon us, the word is in the news right now. In an article in the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/in-a-switch-japans-a-bomb-survivors-turn-against-nuclear-energy/2011/08/04/gIQALjBzvI_story.html) dated yesterday, Chico Harlan uses the word without italics, but does describe the meaning:

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But most of the bombing survivors, known as hibakusha, have long had a far more complex, and often positive, view of nuclear power — which partly explains why Japan now has reactors along almost every rural swath of its shoreline, 54 in all, accounting for about 30 percent of the national power supply.
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Outside of Google Books, the earliest citation I can find on Google is June 1977, when the magazine Penthouse ran a story titled "The HIbakusha Gallery" by Edward Bryant. (See http://www.wonderclub.com/magazines/adult_magazine_single_page.php?magid=penthouse&u=PENT197706.) In the years after that, my manual searching on Google showed there is a scattering of hits each year, until 2001 when the number of hits suddenly increases dramatically. 

The earliest Google Books citation I see is 1961: "Children of the ashes: the story of a rebirth" by Robert Jungk (http://books.google.com/books?id=vIA1AAAAIAAJ&q=hibakusha&dq=hibakusha&hl=en&ei=17E9TuGPLeOLsQLtjoHCBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA)

Italics are used, indicated here by underscores:
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...the Japanese began to think less about the 'cold-hearted Americans' and more about their own failure to do anything to ameliorate the suffering of the _hibakusha_. (page 278)

Yet now, in Hiroshima, the foundation stone had been laid for a new hospital to care for the atomic sick. (Incidentally, not a single _hibakusha_ had been invited to attend this ceremony.) (page 288)
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An earlier hit in 1953 reveals the word spelled in capitals, but it is in Japanese and translated as "atomic bomb survivors" (http://books.google.com/books?id=JqITAQAAMAAJ&q=hibakusha&dq=hibakusha&hl=en&ei=17E9TuGPLeOLsQLtjoHCBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAQ).

"Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary" (known as "The Green Goddess"), fourth edition, 1974 (impressed 1993), has hibaku as a headword and hibakusha listed under it: "a victim of an atomic air raid."

The "New Shogakukan Random House English-Japanese Dictionary", second edition, 1994, gives a citation of 1970 for hibakusha.

Benjamin Barrett
Seattle, WA 
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