Japanese Diary 16

[steepholm]

Some kanji combinations do seem to have the faintest hint of sexism built in:

家内 (inside house cf. "her indoors") = wife
嫡 (woman antique) = legal wife
姫 (woman slave) = princess
婆 (waves woman - ref. to wrinkles?) = old woman
婦 (woman broom apron) = lady

Word of the day: 弱肉強食 (jakunikukyoushoku): "strong meat weak eat" = "survival of the fittest", apparently.

Comments

[ashkitty]

LJ isn't loading for me today, so I respond here, instead! Only to note the similarity of the 'princess' one to the etymology of 'damsel', which derives from the Latin term for a young female slave and ends up taking on the connotation of a romantic heroine. It seems likely coincidental, as they're not even the same language family, but interesting in spite of (or maybe because of) that.

[steepholm]

Yes indeed. Great minds think alike, or, er, something...

[thistleingrey]

English and German, too, and not at the same times despite similarly borrowed origins for the terms ("dame" itself comes to mind). I am curious about the slave bit in Latin, though--doesn't "damsel" derive from "domina"?

For the past two days, LJ has been refusing first-in-a-while contacts, then loading immediately after I hit Refresh once. Baffling.

steepholm: is the princess word in your post "hime"? (I am guessing, but since the first graph recurs in the post and isn't 王, I guess the transliteration isn't "ōjo." Too ignorant, me.)

[steepholm]

I've had the same trouble with LJ - I've lost several comments that way.

Yes, it's "hime" - though 女 (woman) has more than one reading, so nothing is ever certain!

[jadelennox]

Yeah, I was thinking that etymologies often reveal such things. A quick trawl of the OED reveals:

Woman: Etymology: wife n. + man n.

Lady: Etymology: loaf n.1 + an otherwise unattested Old English *dīge, lit. ‘kneader’ (compare dey n.1) the same Germanic base as Gothic digan to knead (see dough n., and compare discussion at that entry).

vs

Lord: Etymology: Old English hláford , once hláfweard (Ps. civ. 17; Thorpe's ‘to hálf-wearde’ is a misprint: see note in Greek-Wülck.), repr. a prehistoric form *hlaiƀward- , < *hlaiƀ (Old English hláf ) bread, loaf n.1 + *ward (Old English weard ) keeper (see ward n.1). In its primary sense the word (which is absent from the other Germanic languages) denotes the head of a household in his relation to the servants and dependents who ‘eat his bread’ (compare Old English hláf-ǽta, lit. ‘bread-eater’, a servant)

Crone (same as old woman?): Etymology: ... more probably taken directly < Old Northern French carogne (Picard carone, Walloon coronie) ‘a cantankerous or mischievous woman’, cited by Littré from 14th cent.

Huh:

Virgin: Etymology: Anglo-Norman and Old French virgine, virgene, viergene, etc. (= Italian vergine, Spanish virgen, Portuguese virgem), Latin virginem, accusative of virgo maiden.

Which should be deeply reassuring to teenaged boys. Don't worry, lads, you're not virgins.
(Wife and girl: Origin obscure for both, which I guess happens with words that old. *g*)

[thistleingrey]

"Boy" is obscure, too, as I recall.

[steepholm]

I seem to remember that "girl" used to be unisex. And spelt "gril".

[sheenaghpugh]

Well, since "lady" came from hlaefdige, ie loaf-kneader, English isn't much better...

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I didn't know that - thanks!

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine was ranting most entertainingly once about her distaste for the term "distaff side," so I Googled it and found a case of "distaff side" being used of horses. The idea of mares spinning boggles the mind.

[nightspore.livejournal.com]

"strong meat weak eat" is great. And reminds me of Variety's second most famous headline: Sticks nix hick pix

[consonantia.livejournal.com]

強 is strong in Chinese, I think. And 弱 is weak.

[nightspore.livejournal.com]

Neat. And it inevitably reminds me of a Latin class fiasco, though it shouldn't: a student who hadn't prepared very well had to sight-read: "Vale, puella, iam Catullus obdurat" ("farewell, girl, now Catullus shows fortitude"), and was a little too literal: "Be strong girl, now Catullus is hard."

[consonantia.livejournal.com]

Hahahaha! :D

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Yes, I appear to have written the English the wrong way round. Should be: "Weak meat strong eat".

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

That one's both sexist and handist!

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I spoke to my Japanese teacher about 弱肉強食 last night, and she told me a story about a student who was asked to fill in the blanks (--肉--食), and turned it into "I eat a Korean barbecue". Truly, the ability to screw up respects no national boundaries.