Months of the Year

When first learning how to say the date in Japanese it can seem strange that the months of the year are just given numbers. In English we do that for years and days of the month, but for some reason feel that months should have their own special names, even though we often use numbers as an abbreviation. In Japanese the number is the official name so August is simply 8月 (hachi-gatsu).

However, when the Chinese lunar calendar was used in Japan each of the months had its own special name as well as the number. Most of the names are quite poetic and fit in well with the four seasons, but have dropped out of use. As the lunar calendar begins in the middle of February, they're often a month or so out of synch with the weather in the solar calendar, although a few survive in idioms and as alternatives to the more standard numbering system.

睦月　むつき Mutsuki 1月 January
There are a couple of possible explanations for this name. 睦 means 'harmonious' or 'friendly', so it was the month to be friendly, greeting people as part of the New Year. Alternatively it could be from 元月 もとつき (mototsuki, origin/base month) as it is the first month of the year, and the pronunciation changed over time from mototsuki to mutsuki.

如月　きさらぎ　Kisaragi 2月 February
February is a cold month, so you need to wear another layer of clothes, hence the name 衣更着. 衣 ki(nu) is clothes or cloth, 更 sara means 'even more' and 着  is the ki of kimono, literally 'a thing for wearing'. So 'clothes and even more clothes'.

弥生　やよい Yayoi 3月 March
The month when the grass at last 弥 ya grows 生 oi again. The Yayoi period, between approximately the third century B.C. to the third century A.D., is named after an area in Tokyo called Yayoi where an earthenware pot from the era was discovered in 1884.

卯月　うづき Uzuki 4月 April
The month when 卯の花 unohana blooms.



皐月　さつき Satsuki 5月 May
Satsuki is still quite widely used in idioms, although usually written as 五月.
五月晴れ Satsuki-bare Fine weather in May
五月雨 Satsuki-ame Rain in early summer
五月闇 Satsuki-yami Gloomy weather during the rainy season

This is because, as the lunar year starts a month later, 皐月 was the month of the rainy season. However, as its association with being the 5th month of the year haven't been lost, the words are often used to refer to the weather in May. The month isn't names after the rains, though, and sa is an old word for ploughing, or is short for 早苗 sanae 'early shoots'. Clearly agriculture was more of a concern than the weather!

In the film となりのトトロ (Tonari no Totoro), the two girls are called Satsuki and Mei, both named after this month.

水無月　みなづき Minazuki 6月 June
The kanji mean no water (水 + 無), but the na was originally no, so it was 'the month of water' rather than 'no water month'. The kanji for 'not' was just used for its sound. This doesn't mean rainwater, as the rainy season was the previous month in the lunar calendar. Instead, this is referring to the filling of paddy fields.

There is an alternative theory that it refers to the fact that this is the month after the rainy season in the lunar calendar, so it really is (relatively) 'without water', but given that the name of previous month isn't related to rain, as explanations go, it doesn't hold much water.

文月　ふみづき Fumizuki 7月 July
Fumi means letter or writings, and one likely explanation is that this is the month of Tanabata when people write their wishes or poems on strips of paper called 短冊 tanzaku.

葉月　はづき Hazuki 8月 August
The month of leaves (葉 ha), as it's the start of Autumn

長月　ながつき Nagatsuki 9月 September
One explanation is that this is the month when the nights start getting longer 長.

神無月　かんなづき Kannazuki 10月 October
The kanji means no gods (神 + 無). There is a folk etymology that all the gods of Japan would go to Izumo in Shimane prefecture during October, so there would be no gods anywhere else. However, as with Minazuki, the na is probably no, giving 'the gods' month'; the harvest is in so this is the month for celebration, with parades and giving thanks to the gods.

霜月　しもつき Shimozuki 11月 November
The month of frost (霜 shimo).

師走　しわす Shiwasu 12月 December
The kanji mean 師 teacher and 走 run. The end of the year is very busy for Buddhist priests. A likely origin could be 師馳す　shi +hasu. Hasu or haseru in modern Japanese, means to run or hurry.

Open sesame!

The tale of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves is world famous, so it's no surprise that it's just as well known in Japan. What did surprise me, for some reason, is the translation of 'Open Sesame!'.
開けゴマ (ひらけごま)
Literally, 'Open! Sesame'. Perhaps because it's a magic word, it hadn't occurred to me that 'sesame' would be literally translated.

However, ごま lends itself to some other Japanese phrases that don't translate quite as literally.

へそのゴマ
Literally 'navel sesame', an interesting way of describing belly-button fluff. Perhaps I'm weird, but it doesn't remind me much of sesame.

ごま塩ノイズ 
Sesame and salt noise: black and white noise. A common condiment is ground black sesame with salt, and it does look quite like static noise on a television, albeit more static than static noise, which, ironically, isn't actually static. The katakana word ノイズ means specifically 'random noise' rather than loud sounds in general.

ごますり or ごまをする
Grinding sesame: idle flattery. The verb here is する 'to grind; to rub'. Not to be confused with する 'to do', it conjugates normally, so the polite form is すります, not します. The grinding is specifically with a mortar and pestle, and the ground sesame sticks to everything it comes into contact with. Therefore, and this is a stretch, it means trying to 'stick' to everybody, hence flatter. This has led to a gesture for flattery: rubbing one hand against the other as though grinding sesame.

ごまふ　(胡麻斑)
'sesame freckled' is used in the names of flora and fauna to mean black spotted or speckled. The spotted seal is 胡麻斑海豹 ごまふあざらし, the kanji meaning a sesame spotted sea leopard.

ごまかす 
To deceive. Actually, this may or may not be sesame related. When written in kanji, these days it's usually written as 誤魔化す misunderstand + magic + -ise (verb forming ending, as in socialise), but this is 'ateji', with kanji used only for their sounds. One theory is that it comes from 護摩 ごま, a Buddhist cedar stick burning ceremony, with a verb ending かす. The ashes from this would be sold, but often you'd be more likely to be getting burnt garden waste from the not-so-devout ash salesman. So 'are you cedar-sticking me?' came to mean 'deceive'. The other explanation does involve sesame. 護摩菓子 (ごまかし), is sesame flavoured sweets, in this case referring particularly to an Edo period (1603-1868) cake called 胡麻胴乱 (ごまどうらん). This was hollow inside, so looked considerably much more substantial than reality. Therefore, 'sesame-caking' was outright deception.

The more interesting etymologies have come from http://gogen-allguide.com/.

Loofahs

As loofahs are often used for washing in a similar manner as a sponge, many people don't release that in fact it's a vegetable. They can be eaten, but after ripening the fruit can be boiled to remove the flesh, leaving the familiar wiry form. In Japan, the source of loofahs is well known. However, the origins of the Japanese name are rather convoluted.

The fruit first arrived in Japan during the Edo period, and due to it's fibrous nature it was known as 糸瓜: thread gourd. いとうり became shortened to とうり, and this name was current for a while. The modern word is へちま, which is derived from the older form.

In order to explain how, we have to take a bit of a diversion.

In modern Japanese, the kana is ordered in あいうえお order. It's a nice, straightforward way of systematically ordering the characters. However, formerly a more poetic order was favoured.

The いろは poem uses each kana once, and at the same time including some rather esoteric Buddhist philosophy.

The important part is in the first two lines of this poem.
いろはにほへと
ちりぬるを

A loofah is とうり, a 'と gourd'. と is between へ and ち in いろは order. 間 means 'space' or 'between', so へちま means between へ and ち. Therefore (?) とうり is へちま. This probably started life as a riddle, but for some reason it caught on as the actual name for a loofah, to the point where とうり isn't even a word for it any more. But the original name lives on: へちま is still written in kanji as 糸瓜.

Peace, harmony and all things Japanese

The character 和 has the meaning 'peace' or 'harmony' such as in words like 平和 and 和音, but it is also used to mean 'Japanese'. Do the Japanese really think of Japan as being that harmonious? Is 和食 a more peaceful cuisine than 洋食? And anybody who's ever used one will tell you that a 和式 toilet does not instil a feeling of one with the world.

In fact, this use of 和 is similar to the use of 英 for English and the UK. 英 can mean 'hero', but the UK 英国 (hero + country) is no more a heroic nation than France 仏国 (Buddha + country) is a Buddhist one. Chinese uses similar sounding characters for transliterating foreign words. So England approximates to 英吉利, and the first character is then used as a form of abbreviation.

Often Japan is represented by the character 日 from 日本. So, the Anglo-Japanese Alliance was 日英同盟, using a single character to represent each country. However, a Japanese English dictionary is usually a 和英辞典.

'Wa' is what China originally called the people of Japan. It was written with the kanji 倭, and there was some controversy over possible hidden meanings. The character consists of 人 (person) with 委 (entrust, give over). 委 provides a phonetic component, but also represents a woman 女 gathering rice or grain 禾, with an extended meaning of 'bent over', as one is when harvesting by hand. In addition, it is very similar to the character 矮, meaning dwarf, and 倭 itself can also mean 'diminutive' when used in names of pygmy animals such as 'pygmy hippo'. It's arguable whether the meaning was originally derogatory, but being ambiguously offensive doesn't really make it any easier to take. So pretty early on, during the 8th century (the Heian period) the homophone 和 supplanted 倭 to mean Japan. 倭 is still used occasionally instead of 和 with no change in meaning, or implication.

The older name for the country, Yamato, became one of the kun readings of 和 and 倭, although it's more usually written as 大和.

Historically, Japan has had as much inner strife as any other country with a reasonably long history, and the use of 和 was not to indicate that Japan was more peaceful. The choice was more to avoid a possible insult, rather than cultural arrogance.

Regular vowel movements

Previously, I mentioned how there is a pattern in the way numbers are formed in Japanese, with only changes in vowels between related numbers. However, although it is unusual to find such a relation in numbers, the phenomenon is very common in natural languages.

Just to recap, one hito and two huta, share a common root in h_t_. Three and six are both m_, and four and eight are both y_. Change the vowel to double the number. In modern Japanese such vowel changes are rare, but their former importance in the language is still very clearly evident.

Transitive verbs and intransitive verbs often show this relation, although there is no regular pattern for all verbs. I'll talk about these in more detail another time.
あげる　ageru (to raise) : あがる agaru (to rise)
しめる　shimeru (to close something) : しまる shimaru (to close by itself)

There are some common nouns that change in a few compounds. Many of the compounds have been absorbed to the point that they are considered as words in their own right.

• 瞼 mabuta = 目 me + 蓋 futa
• 手綱 tazuna = 手 te + 綱 tsuna
• 杯 sakazuki = 酒 sake + つき tsuki
• 風見鶏　kazamidori = 風 kaze + 見 mi + 鶏 tori
• 爪楊枝 tsumayōji = 爪 tsume + 楊枝 yōji
• 木陰 kokage = 木 ki + 陰 kage
• 炎 honoo = 火 hi + の + 穂 ho

These seem quite random at first, but closer inspection reveals two groups.
A final e mutates into an a, and a final i mutates into an o.

me ⇒ ma
te ⇒ ta
sake ⇒ saka
kaze ⇒ kaza
tsume ⇒ tsuma

hi ⇒ ho
ki ⇒ ko

Clearly it isn't a random change, but it's far from universal. 毛 ke never forms compounds as ka*, 血 chi never mutates to to, and 竹 take is never taka. The rule that determined how vowels alter in compounds is dead, but its spirit lives on in daily vocabulary.

Once the change has become established, it is then only a small step for the modified form to take on a new meaning. For example 魚, now normally read as さかな. The common reading used to be うお, and さかな was written 酒菜 (sake + vegetables) meaning something eaten with sake. Now the original meaning has been lost completely, a process which was made all the easier by the change in the vowel.

By way of comparison, Proto-Indoeuropean, the language from which most European languages originated, modified words through vowel mutation, and relics of this system are still found in English as so-called irregular plurals and verbs.

So, for plurals:
mouse ⇒　mice (both have the form m_s)
foot ⇒ feet (both have the form f_t)

and verb tenses:
sing ⇒ sang ⇒ sung (a common s_ng root)

Also, there are related words that come from a common source: sit, seat, set. All have the common s_t root.

Now the pattern in the Japanese numbers doesn't seem quite so strange. In both modern English and modern Japanese, new words are usually made by adding a suffix or prefix. The lack of living examples of vowel mutation means that it is not obvious how the process took place, so we shove the words that have resisted the new rules into a category we call 'irregular', forgetting that these were once the regular forms.

In the same way, the rule that determined the significance of the vowel changes in the numbers 1-10 died hundreds, possibly thousands of years ago, but its been passed on through the generations as a hidden message from ancient history.