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112-573: Defunct Defunct Yamato-damashii ( 大和魂 , "Yamato/Japanese spirit") or Yamato-gokoro ( 大和心 , "Japanese heart/mind") is a Japanese language term for the cultural values and characteristics of the Japanese people . The phrase was coined in the Heian period to describe the indigenous Japanese 'spirit' or cultural values as opposed to cultural values of foreign nations such as those identified through contact with Tang dynasty China . Later,

224-513: A Weltgeist as animating principle immanent to the universe became dominant in German thought due to the influence of Goethe , in the later part of the 18th century. Already in the poetical language of Johann Ulrich von König (d. 1745), the Weltgeist appears as the active, masculine principle opposite the feminine principle of Nature . Weltgeist in the sense of Goethe comes close to being

336-538: A fashion or fad which prescribes what is acceptable or tasteful, e.g. in the field of architecture . Hegel in Phenomenology of the Spirit (1807) uses both Weltgeist and Volksgeist but prefers the phrase Geist der Zeiten "spirit of the times" over the compound Zeitgeist . Hegel believed that culture and art reflected its time. Thus, he argued that it would be impossible to produce classical art in

448-559: A pure vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length, and a lexically significant pitch-accent . Word order is normally subject–object–verb with particles marking the grammatical function of words, and sentence structure is topic–comment . Sentence-final particles are used to add emotional or emphatic impact, or form questions. Nouns have no grammatical number or gender , and there are no articles . Verbs are conjugated , primarily for tense and voice , but not person . Japanese adjectives are also conjugated. Japanese has

560-637: A benefit from the in-group to the out-group) means "[I/we] explained [it] to [him/her/them]". Such beneficiary auxiliary verbs thus serve a function comparable to that of pronouns and prepositions in Indo-European languages to indicate the actor and the recipient of an action. Japanese "pronouns" also function differently from most modern Indo-European pronouns (and more like nouns) in that they can take modifiers as any other noun may. For instance, one does not say in English: The amazed he ran down

672-594: A complex system of honorifics , with verb forms and vocabulary to indicate the relative status of the speaker, the listener, and persons mentioned. The Japanese writing system combines Chinese characters , known as kanji ( 漢字 , ' Han characters') , with two unique syllabaries (or moraic scripts) derived by the Japanese from the more complex Chinese characters: hiragana ( ひらがな or 平仮名 , 'simple characters') and katakana ( カタカナ or 片仮名 , 'partial characters'). Latin script ( rōmaji ローマ字 )

784-719: A disparaging term for a person of Japanese birth or descent." Michael Carr argues that Yamato-damashii (1994:280-1) "significantly differs from everyday racist slurs because it is not an overt insult, it is the opposite: an ethnic adulation. It belongs to a special category of benedictions such as Manifest Destiny or Chosen People that imply national, racial, or ethnic self-conceit." Carr lexicographically analyzed Yamato-damashii definitions among modern general-purpose Japanese dictionaries from four publishers, namely, Daijisen (Shōgakukan, 1986), Daijirin (Sanseidō, 1988), Nihongo Daijiten (Kōdansha, 1989), and Kōjien (Iwanami, 1991). For instance, this definition from

896-414: A distinct language of its own that has absorbed various aspects from neighboring languages. Japanese has five vowels, and vowel length is phonemic, with each having both a short and a long version. Elongated vowels are usually denoted with a line over the vowel (a macron ) in rōmaji , a repeated vowel character in hiragana , or a chōonpu succeeding the vowel in katakana . /u/ ( listen )

1008-419: A glide /j/ and either the first part of a geminate consonant ( っ / ッ , represented as Q) or a moraic nasal in the coda ( ん / ン , represented as N). The nasal is sensitive to its phonetic environment and assimilates to the following phoneme, with pronunciations including [ɴ, m, n, ɲ, ŋ, ɰ̃] . Onset-glide clusters only occur at the start of syllables but clusters across syllables are allowed as long as

1120-484: A listener depending on the listener's relative social position and the degree of familiarity between the speaker and the listener. When used in different social relationships, the same word may have positive (intimate or respectful) or negative (distant or disrespectful) connotations. Japanese often use titles of the person referred to where pronouns would be used in English. For example, when speaking to one's teacher, it

1232-682: A philosophical or spiritual sense of "world-spirit" or "world-soul" ( anima mundi, spiritus universi ) in the sense of Panentheism , a spiritual essence permeating all of nature, or the active principle animating the universe, including the physical sense, such as the attraction between magnet and iron or between Moon and tide . This idea of Weltgeist in the sense of anima mundi became very influential in 18th-century German philosophy. In philosophical contexts, der Geist on its own could refer to this concept, as in Christian Thomasius , Versuch vom Wesen des Geistes (1709). Belief in

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1344-425: A principle which allows Hegel to reread the history of philosophy as culminating in his philosophy of history. Weltgeist ("world-spirit") is older than the 18th century, at first (16th century) in the sense of "secularism, impiety, irreligiosity" ( spiritus mundi ), in the 17th century also personalised in the sense of "man of the world", "mundane or secular person". Also from the 17th century, Weltgeist acquired

1456-494: A qualitative contrast between Japanese and Chinese spirit was elicited from the term. Edo period writers and samurai used it to augment and support the Bushido concept of honor and valor. English translations of Yamato-damashii include the "Japanese spirit", "Japanese soul", "Yamato spirit", and "The Soul of Old Japan". Lafcadio Hearn mentions the latter in connection with Shinto . For this national type of moral character

1568-421: A revealing usage example: " ことだま【言霊】 , the soul [spirit] of language; the miraculous power of language [a phrase, a spell]. ̍ ⇨ 言霊の幸(さきわ)う国 Japan, "the land where the mysterious workings of language bring bliss"." Yamato nadeshiko ( 大和撫子 , "Japanese fringed pink ") is a floral metaphor for "the idealized traditional Japanese woman". During World War II, ultra-nationalists popularized Yamato-nadeshiko as

1680-408: A sentence need not be stated and pronouns may be omitted if they can be inferred from context. In the example above, hana ga nagai would mean "[their] noses are long", while nagai by itself would mean "[they] are long." A single verb can be a complete sentence: Yatta! ( やった! ) "[I / we / they / etc] did [it]!". In addition, since adjectives can form the predicate in a Japanese sentence (below),

1792-428: A single adjective can be a complete sentence: Urayamashii! ( 羨ましい! ) "[I'm] jealous [about it]!". While the language has some words that are typically translated as pronouns, these are not used as frequently as pronouns in some Indo-European languages, and function differently. In some cases, Japanese relies on special verb forms and auxiliary verbs to indicate the direction of benefit of an action: "down" to indicate

1904-823: A solid foundation of book-learning this 'Japanese spirit' of which one hears so much is not of any great use in the world." [Tales of] Times Now Past (20) "He did not have the slightest knowledge of the Japanese spirit." 2. (term used in ultra-nationalistic ideology of recent times) characteristic mentality of the Japanese race/people. Consciousness/awareness of being a Japanese person. (tr. Carr 1994:288) Collectively, these four definitions provide insights into what Yamato-damashii means in current Japanese usage. They all distinguish two basic meanings: ① "A Japanese practical ability; opposed to Chinese scholarship" and ② "A traditional (bushido/nationalistic) concept of death-defying valor". When two or more definitions use identical terminology, it suggests consensus on semantics. For instance, while

2016-442: A synonym of God and can be attributed agency and will. Herder , who tended to prefer the form Weltengeist (as it were "spirit of worlds"), pushes this to the point of composing prayers addressed to this world-spirit: The term was notably embraced by Hegel and his followers in the early 19th century. For the 19th century, the term as used by Hegel (1807) became prevalent, less in the sense of an animating principle of nature or

2128-624: Is compressed rather than protruded , or simply unrounded. Some Japanese consonants have several allophones , which may give the impression of a larger inventory of sounds. However, some of these allophones have since become phonemic. For example, in the Japanese language up to and including the first half of the 20th century, the phonemic sequence /ti/ was palatalized and realized phonetically as [tɕi] , approximately chi ( listen ) ; however, now [ti] and [tɕi] are distinct, as evidenced by words like tī [tiː] "Western-style tea" and chii [tɕii] "social status". The "r" of

2240-440: Is a contraction of Yamato-damashii . The Konjaku Monogatarishū (circa 1120) first uses it describing a burglar who murdered a nattering scholar of Chinese classical law. "Although Kiyohara no Yoshizumi (清原善澄) had admirable learning, he is said to have died in this childish way because he did not have the slightest knowledge of the Japanese spirit" (tr. Carr 1994:283). For centuries after its use by Heian authors Yamato-damashii

2352-463: Is a misunderstanding from not having learned about it." (tr. Carr 1994:284). Second, Wakon-kansai (和魂漢才 "Japanese spirit and Chinese scholarship") occurs in the Kanke ikai (菅家遺戒 "Sugawara's dying instructions"). Third, Wakon-yōsai (和魂洋才 "Japanese spirit and Western techniques") was created by Yoshikawa Tadayasu (吉川忠安) in his Kaika sakuron (開化策論 , "Questions and Themes on Progress", 1867). Following

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2464-570: Is also a central concept in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 's 1807 The Phenomenology of Spirit ( Phänomenologie des Geistes ). Notable compounds, all associated with Hegel's view of world history of the late 18th century, include Weltgeist ( German: [ˈvɛltˌɡaɪ̯st] , "world-spirit"), Volksgeist "national spirit" and Zeitgeist "spirit of the age". German Geist (masculine gender: der Geist ) continues Old High German geist , attested as

2576-448: Is also seen in o-medetō "congratulations", from medetaku ). Late Middle Japanese has the first loanwords from European languages – now-common words borrowed into Japanese in this period include pan ("bread") and tabako ("tobacco", now "cigarette"), both from Portuguese . Modern Japanese is considered to begin with the Edo period (which spanned from 1603 to 1867). Since Old Japanese,

2688-527: Is also used in a limited fashion (such as for imported acronyms) in Japanese writing. The numeral system uses mostly Arabic numerals , but also traditional Chinese numerals . Proto-Japonic , the common ancestor of the Japanese and Ryukyuan languages , is thought to have been brought to Japan by settlers coming from the Korean peninsula sometime in the early- to mid-4th century BC (the Yayoi period ), replacing

2800-442: Is an archaic variant Chinese character for Wa 和, Yamato is a literary and historical term, and Nihon is the usual name for "Japan; Japanese". Tamashii or tama (魂 "soul; spirit; ghost" or 霊 "spirit; soul") is Japanese kun'yomi , while kon or gon is Chinese on'yomi (from hún 魂 ). The Shinto -influenced semantics of Japanese tama / tamashii exceed customary English concepts of "spirit", "soul", or "ghost", besides

2912-515: Is apparently not recognized as a reference to Hegel by the reviewer in Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen , who notes it disapprovingly, as one of Kayserling's "bad jokes" ( schlechte Witze ). The phrase became widely associated with Hegel later in the 19th century. Defunct Defunct Volksgeist or Nationalgeist refers to a "spirit" of an individual people ( Volk ) , its "national spirit" or "national character". The term Nationalgeist

3024-440: Is appropriate to use sensei ( 先生 , "teacher"), but inappropriate to use anata . This is because anata is used to refer to people of equal or lower status, and one's teacher has higher status. Japanese nouns have no grammatical number, gender or article aspect. The noun hon ( 本 ) may refer to a single book or several books; hito ( 人 ) can mean "person" or "people", and ki ( 木 ) can be "tree" or "trees". Where number

3136-701: Is associated with comedy (see Kansai dialect ). Dialects of Tōhoku and North Kantō are associated with typical farmers. The Ryūkyūan languages, spoken in Okinawa and the Amami Islands (administratively part of Kagoshima ), are distinct enough to be considered a separate branch of the Japonic family; not only is each language unintelligible to Japanese speakers, but most are unintelligible to those who speak other Ryūkyūan languages. However, in contrast to linguists, many ordinary Japanese people tend to consider

3248-466: Is better documentation of Late Middle Japanese phonology than for previous forms (for instance, the Arte da Lingoa de Iapam ). Among other sound changes, the sequence /au/ merges to /ɔː/ , in contrast with /oː/ ; /p/ is reintroduced from Chinese; and /we/ merges with /je/ . Some forms rather more familiar to Modern Japanese speakers begin to appear – the continuative ending - te begins to reduce onto

3360-458: Is characteristic of, and unique to, the Japanese people. It also refers to a practical, "real life" ability and intelligence that is in contrast with scholarship and knowledge acquired through formal education. It is a term used to express such ideas as the essential purity and resolute spirit of the Japanese people, the wish for the peace and security of the nation, and the possession of a strong spirit and emotion that will meet any challenge, even at

3472-563: Is commonly used in Nihonjinron discussions and sports media. It is the motto for the international Purebred mixed martial arts school headed by Japanese-American Enson Inoue . Synthesis comes to an end only when antithesis ceases to appear. For many centuries Japan found its most significant antithesis in China. During the last century and a half the West has been the antithetical term in

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3584-509: Is correlated with the sex of the speaker and the social situation in which they are spoken: men and women alike in a formal situation generally refer to themselves as watashi ( 私 , literally "private") or watakushi (also 私 , hyper-polite form), while men in rougher or intimate conversation are much more likely to use the word ore ( 俺 "oneself", "myself") or boku . Similarly, different words such as anata , kimi , and omae ( お前 , more formally 御前 "the one before me") may refer to

3696-545: Is from these developments that certain German compounds containing -geist have been loaned into English, such as Zeitgeist . German Geist in this particular sense of "mind, wit, erudition; intangible essence, spirit" has no precise English-language equivalent, for which reason translators sometimes retain Geist as a German loanword. There is a second word for ghost in German: das Gespenst (neutral gender). Der Geist

3808-417: Is important, it can be indicated by providing a quantity (often with a counter word ) or (rarely) by adding a suffix, or sometimes by duplication (e.g. 人人 , hitobito , usually written with an iteration mark as 人々 ). Words for people are usually understood as singular. Thus Tanaka-san usually means Mx Tanaka . Words that refer to people and animals can be made to indicate a group of individuals through

3920-755: Is less common. In terms of mutual intelligibility , a survey in 1967 found that the four most unintelligible dialects (excluding Ryūkyūan languages and Tōhoku dialects ) to students from Greater Tokyo were the Kiso dialect (in the deep mountains of Nagano Prefecture ), the Himi dialect (in Toyama Prefecture ), the Kagoshima dialect and the Maniwa dialect (in Okayama Prefecture ). The survey

4032-420: Is often called a topic-prominent language , which means it has a strong tendency to indicate the topic separately from the subject, and that the two do not always coincide. The sentence Zō wa hana ga nagai ( 象は鼻が長い ) literally means, "As for elephant(s), (the) nose(s) (is/are) long". The topic is zō "elephant", and the subject is hana "nose". Japanese grammar tends toward brevity; the subject or object of

4144-498: Is preserved in words such as matsuge ("eyelash", lit. "hair of the eye"); modern mieru ("to be visible") and kikoeru ("to be audible") retain a mediopassive suffix - yu(ru) ( kikoyu → kikoyuru (the attributive form, which slowly replaced the plain form starting in the late Heian period) → kikoeru (all verbs with the shimo-nidan conjugation pattern underwent this same shift in Early Modern Japanese )); and

4256-563: Is the tama of Yamato-damashii or the tama of kotodama , is a vital and active entity that plays no part in any usual Western-language imagery or expression. We have no such word, and we make use of no imagery capitalizing upon the concepts that it employs; but the Japanese have, and they do. (1982:131) Kotodama ( 言霊 , "word spirit", approximately " magic word ") illustrate this traditional Japanese belief about tama(shii) energies. Kenkyūsha's New Japanese-English Dictionary (5th ed., 2003) gives kotodama translation equivalents and

4368-569: Is the voiced rendaku pronunciation of tamashii ( 魂 "spirit; soul"). Both these kanji ( Chinese characters used in Japan) readings Yamato (大和) and damashii (魂) are native Japanese kun'yomi , while the Wakon (和魂 "Japanese spirit") reading is Sinitic on'yomi borrowed from Chinese Héhún (和魂). Yamato is historically the second of three common Japanese endonyms (or autonyms) for 'Japan; Japanese'. In current Japanese usage, Wa 倭

4480-402: Is the version of Japanese discussed in this article. Formerly, standard Japanese in writing ( 文語 , bungo , "literary language") was different from colloquial language ( 口語 , kōgo ) . The two systems have different rules of grammar and some variance in vocabulary. Bungo was the main method of writing Japanese until about 1900; since then kōgo gradually extended its influence and

4592-471: Is used for the present and the future. For verbs that represent an ongoing process, the -te iru form indicates a continuous (or progressive) aspect , similar to the suffix ing in English. For others that represent a change of state, the -te iru form indicates a perfect aspect. For example, kite iru means "They have come (and are still here)", but tabete iru means "They are eating". Questions (both with an interrogative pronoun and yes/no questions) have

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4704-458: Is used in the 1760s by Justus Möser and by Johann Gottfried Herder . The term Nation at this time is used in the sense of natio "nation, ethnic group, race", mostly replaced by the term Volk after 1800. In the early 19th century, the term Volksgeist was used by Friedrich Carl von Savigny in order to express the "popular" sense of justice . Savigniy explicitly referred to the concept of an esprit des nations used by Voltaire . and of

4816-512: Is used slightly more often to refer to a ghost (in the sense of flying white creature) than das Gespenst . The corresponding adjectives are gespenstisch ("ghostly", "spooky") and gespensterhaft ("ghost-like"). A Gespenst is described in German as spukender Totengeist , a "spooking ghost of the dead". The adjectives geistig and geistlich on the other hand, can not be used to describe something spooky, as geistig means "mental", and geistlich means either "spiritual" or refers to employees of

4928-424: Is when there is a fund of Chinese learning ( zae 才) that the Japanese spirit ( yamato-damashii 大和魂) is respected in the world. ( Murasaki Shikibu , The Tale of Genji tr. Edward Seidensticker , 1976, 1:362) Each man, according to Motoori Norinaga (who wrote a Commentary of The Tale of Genji ), has at his birth a "true heart" a " magokoro " (the term magokokoro is itself almost an onomatopoeia since kokoro,

5040-405: Is why some linguists do not classify Japanese "pronouns" as pronouns, but rather as referential nouns, much like Spanish usted (contracted from vuestra merced , "your ( majestic plural ) grace") or Portuguese você (from vossa mercê ). Japanese personal pronouns are generally used only in situations requiring special emphasis as to who is doing what to whom. The choice of words used as pronouns

5152-694: The Japanese diaspora worldwide. The Japonic family also includes the Ryukyuan languages and the variously classified Hachijō language . There have been many attempts to group the Japonic languages with other families such as the Ainu , Austronesian , Koreanic , and the now-discredited Altaic , but none of these proposals have gained any widespread acceptance. Little is known of the language's prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from

5264-462: The Japonic language family, which also includes the Ryukyuan languages spoken in the Ryukyu Islands . As these closely related languages are commonly treated as dialects of the same language, Japanese is sometimes called a language isolate . According to Martine Irma Robbeets , Japanese has been subject to more attempts to show its relation to other languages than any other language in

5376-496: The Nihongo daijiten qualifies Yamato-damashii as a characteristic that is to sareta (とされた "assumed, supposed; alleged'"), whereas the other three define it as a matter of fact. Carr concludes (1994:290), "Believing that all individuals of any race or nationality share certain "spiritual" characteristics is at best overgeneralization, or at worst racism." Some monolingual English dictionaries enter Yamato or Yamato-e , but only

5488-479: The Oxford English Dictionary enters Yamato-damashii . Yamato (ja'mato) [Jap., = 'Japan'] 1 . The style or school of art in Japan which culminated in the 12th and 13th centuries and dealt with Japanese subjects in a distinctively Japanese (rather than Chinese) way. Usu. as Yamato-e ( †-we ) [ e picture]; also – ryū [- ryū style, orig. stream, school]. … 2 . Yamato-damashii :

5600-514: The Philippines , and various Pacific islands, locals in those countries learned Japanese as the language of the empire. As a result, many elderly people in these countries can still speak Japanese. Japanese emigrant communities (the largest of which are to be found in Brazil , with 1.4 million to 1.5 million Japanese immigrants and descendants, according to Brazilian IBGE data, more than

5712-738: The United States (notably in Hawaii , where 16.7% of the population has Japanese ancestry, and California ), and the Philippines (particularly in Davao Region and the Province of Laguna ). Japanese has no official status in Japan, but is the de facto national language of the country. There is a form of the language considered standard : hyōjungo ( 標準語 ) , meaning "standard Japanese", or kyōtsūgo ( 共通語 ) , "common language", or even "Tokyo dialect" at times. The meanings of

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5824-463: The Weltgeist ("world spirit") is not an actual object or a transcendent, godlike thing, but a means of philosophizing about history. Weltgeist is effected in history through the mediation of various Volksgeister ("national spirits"), the great men of history, such as Napoleon , are the " concrete universal ". This has led some to claim that Hegel favored the great man theory , although his philosophy of history , in particular concerning

5936-806: The de facto standard Japanese had been the Kansai dialect , especially that of Kyoto . However, during the Edo period, Edo (now Tokyo) developed into the largest city in Japan, and the Edo-area dialect became standard Japanese. Since the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853, the flow of loanwords from European languages has increased significantly. The period since 1945 has seen many words borrowed from other languages—such as German, Portuguese and English. Many English loan words especially relate to technology—for example, pasokon (short for "personal computer"), intānetto ("internet"), and kamera ("camera"). Due to

6048-567: The esprit général invoked by Montesquieu . Hegel uses the term in his Lectures on the Philosophy of History . Based on the Hegelian use of the term, Wilhelm Wundt , Moritz Lazarus and Heymann Steinthal in the mid-19th-century established the field of Völkerpsychologie ("psychology of nations"). In Germany the concept of Volksgeist has developed and changed its meaning through eras and fields. The most important examples are: In

6160-448: The standard dialect moved from the Kansai region to the Edo region (modern Tokyo ) in the Early Modern Japanese period (early 17th century–mid 19th century). Following the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853, the flow of loanwords from European languages increased significantly, and words from English roots have proliferated. Japanese is an agglutinative , mora -timed language with relatively simple phonotactics ,

6272-527: The 1.2 million of the United States ) sometimes employ Japanese as their primary language. Approximately 12% of Hawaii residents speak Japanese, with an estimated 12.6% of the population of Japanese ancestry in 2008. Japanese emigrants can also be found in Peru , Argentina , Australia (especially in the eastern states), Canada (especially in Vancouver , where 1.4% of the population has Japanese ancestry),

6384-417: The 1867 Meiji Restoration . First, the modernization Nihon-damashii ( 日本魂 ) was fashioned by Kyokutei Bakin , a famous samurai author of Gesaku . His Chinsetsu Yumiharizuki ("The Crescent Moon", 1811) quotes Minamoto no Tametomo discussing seppuku rituals: "I admit that a person who does not care about dying when on the verge of death may superficially have the Japanese spirit, but I think this

6496-455: The 18th century, under the influence of French esprit . In this sense it became extremely productive in the German language of the 18th century in general as well as in 18th-century German philosophy. Geist could now refer to the quality of intellectual brilliance, to wit, innovation, erudition, etc. It is also in this time that the adjectival distinction of geistlich "spiritual, pertaining to religion" vs. geistig "intellectual, pertaining to

6608-414: The 3rd century AD recorded a few Japanese words, but substantial Old Japanese texts did not appear until the 8th century. From the Heian period (794–1185), extensive waves of Sino-Japanese vocabulary entered the language, affecting the phonology of Early Middle Japanese . Late Middle Japanese (1185–1600) saw extensive grammatical changes and the first appearance of European loanwords . The basis of

6720-486: The Japanese language is of particular interest, ranging between an apical central tap and a lateral approximant . The "g" is also notable; unless it starts a sentence, it may be pronounced [ ŋ ] , in the Kanto prestige dialect and in other eastern dialects. The phonotactics of Japanese are relatively simple. The syllable structure is (C)(G)V(C), that is, a core vowel surrounded by an optional onset consonant,

6832-540: The Japanese spirit" and Yamato-gokoro " 大和心 the Japanese spirit; the Japanese sensibility." The online Encyclopedia of Shinto (linked below, note the pronunciation file) comprehensively defines Yamato-damashii . Literally, "Japanese spirit"; Yamato damashii is also written 大和魂. This term is often contrasted with "Chinese Learning" ( karasae ), that is, knowledge and scholarship imported into Japan from China. Yamato damashii refers to an inherent faculty of common-sense wisdom, resourcefulness, and prudent judgment that

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6944-648: The Japanese spirit. … (v. 3, 2002) The OED gives three usage examples, starting with Yamato-damashi (1942, Royal Air Force Journal , "He will be filled with what is called yamato damashi [sic] or the pure spirit of Japan.") and Yamato-damashii (1957, Encyclopædia Britannica ). Note that the 1904 Hearn quotation above antedates this 1942 citation. Most Japanese-English dictionaries literally translate Yamato-damashii as "the Japanese spirit". For instance, Kenkyūsha's New Japanese-English Dictionary (5th ed., 2003) enters Yamato " やまと 【大和】 Yamato; (old) Japan" along with 14 subentries, including Yamato-damashii " 大和魂

7056-551: The Japanese victories in the First Sino-Japanese War and Russo-Japanese War , nationalists made Wakon-yōsai into a catchphrase for modernization and militarization , and developed Yamato-damashii into what Miller (1982:13) calls "the official rallying cry for the Japanese armed forces in World War II ." In the present day, Yamato-damashii is historically associated with Japanese nationalism , but

7168-534: The Middle English period, but its broader meaning is preserved well into the early modern period. The German noun much like English spirit could refer to spooks or ghostly apparitions of the dead, to the religious concept, as in the Holy Spirit, as well as to the "spirit of wine", i.e., ethanol . However, its special meaning of " mind , intellect " never shared by English ghost is acquired only in

7280-736: The Old Japanese sections are written in Man'yōgana , which uses kanji for their phonetic as well as semantic values. Based on the Man'yōgana system, Old Japanese can be reconstructed as having 88 distinct morae . Texts written with Man'yōgana use two different sets of kanji for each of the morae now pronounced き (ki), ひ (hi), み (mi), け (ke), へ (he), め (me), こ (ko), そ (so), と (to), の (no), も (mo), よ (yo) and ろ (ro). (The Kojiki has 88, but all later texts have 87. The distinction between mo 1 and mo 2 apparently

7392-488: The Ryūkyūan languages as dialects of Japanese. The imperial court also seems to have spoken an unusual variant of the Japanese of the time, most likely the spoken form of Classical Japanese , a writing style that was prevalent during the Heian period , but began to decline during the late Meiji period . The Ryūkyūan languages are classified by UNESCO as 'endangered', as young people mostly use Japanese and cannot understand

7504-543: The addition of a collective suffix (a noun suffix that indicates a group), such as -tachi , but this is not a true plural: the meaning is closer to the English phrase "and company". A group described as Tanaka-san-tachi may include people not named Tanaka. Some Japanese nouns are effectively plural, such as hitobito "people" and wareware "we/us", while the word tomodachi "friend" is considered singular, although plural in form. Verbs are conjugated to show tenses, of which there are two: past and present (or non-past) which

7616-470: The age" or "spirit of the times") similarly to Weltgeist describes an invisible agent or force dominating the characteristics of a given epoch in world history . The term is now mostly associated with Hegel , contrasting with Hegel's use of Volksgeist "national spirit" and Weltgeist "world-spirit", but its coinage and popularization precedes Hegel, and is mostly due to Herder and Goethe . The term as used contemporarily may more pragmatically refer to

7728-532: The bellicose weight or ideological timbre that it later assumed in pre-war modern Japan. It first occurs in the Otome ( 乙女 ) section of The Tale of Genji (Chapter 21), as a native virtue that flourishes best, not as a contrast to foreign civilization but, rather precisely, when it is grounded on a solid basis in Chinese learning. Thus we read: No, the safe thing is to give him a good, solid fund of knowledge. It

7840-499: The church. Geisterhaft would also mean, like gespensterhaft , "ghost-like". While "spook" means der Spuk (male gender), the adjective of this word is only used in its English form, spooky . The more common German adjective would be gruselig , deriving from der Grusel ( das ist gruselig , colloquially: das ist spooky , meaning "that is spooky"). Geist is a central concept in Hegel 's philosophy. According to most interpretations,

7952-467: The city on reconnaissance. It is indeed a wonderful sensation to see such an individual, who, concentrated here at a single point, astride a horse, reaches out over the world and masters it. The letter was not published in Hegel's time, but the expression was attributed to Hegel anecdotally, appearing in print from 1859. It is used without attribution by Meyer Kayserling in his Sephardim (1859:103), and

8064-549: The definitions describe a seishin (精神 "mind; mentality; spirit; soul; genius"). Specifically a "Japanese spirit" with kakan (果敢 "boldness; courage; daring; determination"), yūmō (勇猛 "bravery; valor; intrepidness; daring"), and shinmei o mo oshimanai (身命をも惜しまない "without regard for one's life"), especially when koto ni atatte (事に当たって "facing a vital matter; in case of crisis"). Purity is mentioned with seijo (清浄 "purity; cleanliness") and isagiyoi (潔い "pure; clean; honorable; gallant; brave"). Within this dictionary sample, only

8176-458: The dialectic, and as always it has been in that "other" that Japan has sought its own image, peering anxiously for signs of its own identity into the mirror of the rest of the world. After the challenge of Western technology has been successfully met, one wonders what will be left that is "alien," besides the very fact that the historically necessary "other" is lacking. In that case, "Japanese spirit" (Yamato-damashii) will find itself face to face with

8288-640: The dictionaries split on whether meaning ① refers to Nihon-minzoku (日本民族 "Japanese race/people/nation") or Nihon-jin (日本人 "Japanese person/people"), all four say the nationalistic meaning ② refers to Nihon-minzoku . For meaning ①, the most salient word (used seven times) is koyū (固有 "inherent; innate; characteristic; special quality"). This sense is defined as a noryoku (能力 "ability, capability; competency") or chie (知恵 "wisdom; insight; intelligence"), which pertains to jisseikatsujōno (実生活上 "real life; everyday/practical reality') or jitsumutekina (実務的な "actual things, practical experience"). For meaning ②, all

8400-578: The effect of changing Japanese into a mora-timed language. Late Middle Japanese covers the years from 1185 to 1600, and is normally divided into two sections, roughly equivalent to the Kamakura period and the Muromachi period , respectively. The later forms of Late Middle Japanese are the first to be described by non-native sources, in this case the Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries; and thus there

8512-473: The expense of one's own life. Yamato damashii is synonymous with Yamato gokoro (lit. "Japanese heart"). Japanese language Japanese ( 日本語 , Nihongo , [ɲihoŋɡo] ) is the principal language of the Japonic language family spoken by the Japanese people . It has around 123 million speakers, primarily in Japan , the only country where it is the national language , and within

8624-642: The female manifestation of Yamato-damashii . The record of Yamato-damashii dates back one millennium to the Heian period (794–1185) of Japanese history. Chinese culture and Chinese language were highly influential during the previous short Nara period . Yamato-gokoro (大和心 "Japanese heart; Japanese mind" is the closest synonym of Yamato-damashii . The Heian poet Akazome Emon first used Yamato-gokoro in her Goshūi Wakashū (後拾遺和歌集 "Later Collection of Waka Gleanings," 1086). Since Wa 和 commonly abbreviates Yamato 大和 "Japan; Japanese", 和魂 (also read Wakon )

8736-609: The genitive particle ga remains in intentionally archaic speech. Early Middle Japanese is the Japanese of the Heian period , from 794 to 1185. It formed the basis for the literary standard of Classical Japanese , which remained in common use until the early 20th century. During this time, Japanese underwent numerous phonological developments, in many cases instigated by an influx of Chinese loanwords . These included phonemic length distinction for both consonants and vowels , palatal consonants (e.g. kya ) and labial consonant clusters (e.g. kwa ), and closed syllables . This had

8848-544: The heart, expresses these "beats of the heart") whose ancient Japanese literature is the most faithful expression. This sentiment expresses the Yamato gokoro (大和心, "Japanese heart") as opposed to the Kara gokoro ("superficial level of consciousness cluttered with masculine things, intellectually astute but full of pretension"). Yamato-damashii "Japan, Japanese" compounds Yamato ( 大和 , "great harmony") with damashii , which

8960-541: The historian of anthropology George W. Stocking, Jr. , "… one may trace the later American anthropological idea of culture back through Bastian's Volkergedanken and the folk psychologist's Volksgeister to Wilhelm von Humboldt's Nationalcharakter – and behind that, although not without a paradoxical and portentous residue of conceptual and ideological ambiguity, to the Herderian ideal of Volksgeist." The compound Zeitgeist ( / ˈ z aɪ t ɡ aɪ s t / ;, "spirit of

9072-434: The human soul, it also includes diverse spiritual forces found in nature. Roy Andrew Miller suggests that German Geist or French élan are better translations than English spirit or soul : But finally we must conclude that nothing in any commonly used European language, including English, really does justice to Japanese tama . The spirit, soul, Geist , or élan to which the Japanese term has reference, whether it

9184-458: The languages of the original Jōmon inhabitants, including the ancestor of the modern Ainu language . Because writing had yet to be introduced from China, there is no direct evidence, and anything that can be discerned about this period must be based on internal reconstruction from Old Japanese , or comparison with the Ryukyuan languages and Japanese dialects . The Chinese writing system

9296-449: The languages. Okinawan Japanese is a variant of Standard Japanese influenced by the Ryūkyūan languages, and is the primary dialect spoken among young people in the Ryukyu Islands . Modern Japanese has become prevalent nationwide (including the Ryūkyū islands) due to education , mass media , and an increase in mobility within Japan, as well as economic integration. Japanese is a member of

9408-427: The large quantity of English loanwords, modern Japanese has developed a distinction between [tɕi] and [ti] , and [dʑi] and [di] , with the latter in each pair only found in loanwords. Although Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, it has also been spoken outside of the country. Before and during World War II , through Japanese annexation of Taiwan and Korea , as well as partial occupation of China ,

9520-598: The literary field, Schlegel and the Brothers Grimm ; in the history of cultures, Herder ; in the history of the State or political history, Hegel ; in the field of law, Savigny ; and in the field of psychology Wundt . This means that the concept is ambiguous. Furthermore it is not limited to Romanticism as it is commonly known. The concept of was also influential in American cultural anthropology. According to

9632-529: The mind" begins to be made. Reference to spooks or ghosts is made by the adjective geisterhaft "ghostly, spectral". Numerous compounds are formed in the 18th to 19th centuries, some of them loan translations of French expressions, such as Geistesgegenwart = présence d'esprit ("mental presence, acuity"), Geistesabwesenheit = absence d’esprit ("mental absence, distraction"), geisteskrank "mentally ill", geistreich "witty, intellectually brilliant", geistlos "unintelligent, unimaginative, vacuous" etc. It

9744-424: The modern world, as modernity is essentially a "free and ethical culture". The term has also been used more widely in the sense of an intellectual or aesthetic fashion or fad . For example, Charles Darwin 's 1859 proposition that evolution occurs by natural selection has been cited as a case of the zeitgeist of the epoch, an idea "whose time had come", seeing that his contemporary, Alfred Russel Wallace ,

9856-496: The most frightening "other" of all – its lack – at which point opposition must cease or else feed upon itself. (1986:52-3) Racially and ethnically offensive words are problematic for dictionaries. Lexicographers and publishers have editorial policies for treating ethnic slurs and insults. For example, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed., 2000) defines Jap as " Offensive Slang . Used as

9968-425: The only strict rule of word order is that the verb must be placed at the end of a sentence (possibly followed by sentence-end particles). This is because Japanese sentence elements are marked with particles that identify their grammatical functions. The basic sentence structure is topic–comment . For example, Kochira wa Tanaka-san desu ( こちらは田中さんです ). kochira ("this") is the topic of the sentence, indicated by

10080-470: The out-group gives a benefit to the in-group, and "up" to indicate the in-group gives a benefit to the out-group. Here, the in-group includes the speaker and the out-group does not, and their boundary depends on context. For example, oshiete moratta ( 教えてもらった ) (literally, "explaining got" with a benefit from the out-group to the in-group) means "[he/she/they] explained [it] to [me/us]". Similarly, oshiete ageta ( 教えてあげた ) (literally, "explaining gave" with

10192-415: The particle wa . The verb desu is a copula , commonly translated as "to be" or "it is" (though there are other verbs that can be translated as "to be"), though technically it holds no meaning and is used to give a sentence 'politeness'. As a phrase, Tanaka-san desu is the comment. This sentence literally translates to "As for this person, (it) is Mx Tanaka." Thus Japanese, like many other Asian languages,

10304-705: The popular Daijirin dictionary gives the kanji 大和魂, modern and historical kana spellings, two meanings, synonyms, and usage examples from Japanese literature . やまとだましい［―だましひ］4 【《大和》魂】①大和心。和魂。（漢学を学んで得た知識に対して）日本人固有の実務・世事などを処理する能力・知恵をいう。「才(ざえ)を本としてこそ、―の世に用ゐらるる方も強う侍らめ〔出典： 源氏（乙女）〕」 「露、―無かりける者にて〔出典： 今昔 二十〕」②( 近世以降の国粋思想の中で用いられた語)日本民族固有の精神。日本人としての意識。 yamato ... -damashii , -damashiFi "type 4" [accent on da ] 【《大和》魂】1. yamato-gokoro . wakon . (in contrast to knowledge obtained from studying Chinese classics) Japanese people's characteristic ability or wisdom/intelligence for managing/treating actual things and worldly affairs. The Tale of Genji (The Maiden [chapter]) "Without

10416-481: The proposed larger Altaic family, or to various Southeast Asian languages , especially Austronesian . None of these proposals have gained wide acceptance (and the Altaic family itself is now considered controversial). As it stands, only the link to Ryukyuan has wide support. Other theories view the Japanese language as an early creole language formed through inputs from at least two distinct language groups, or as

10528-431: The role of the " universal state" ( Universalstaat , which means a universal "order" or "statute" rather than " state "), and of an "End of History" is much more complex. For Hegel, the great hero is unwittingly utilized by Geist or absolute spirit , by a "ruse of reason" as he puts it, and is irrelevant to history once his historic mission is accomplished; he is thus subjected to the teleological principle of history,

10640-459: The same structure as affirmative sentences, but with intonation rising at the end. In the formal register, the question particle -ka is added. For example, ii desu ( いいです ) "It is OK" becomes ii desu-ka ( いいですか。 ) "Is it OK?". In a more informal tone sometimes the particle -no ( の ) is added instead to show a personal interest of the speaker: Dōshite konai-no? "Why aren't (you) coming?". Some simple queries are formed simply by mentioning

10752-817: The state as at the time the constitution was written, many of the elders participating in the process had been educated in Japanese during the South Seas Mandate over the island shown by the 1958 census of the Trust Territory of the Pacific that found that 89% of Palauans born between 1914 and 1933 could speak and read Japanese, but as of the 2005 Palau census there were no residents of Angaur that spoke Japanese at home. Japanese dialects typically differ in terms of pitch accent , inflectional morphology , vocabulary , and particle usage. Some even differ in vowel and consonant inventories, although this

10864-481: The street. (grammatically incorrect insertion of a pronoun) But one can grammatically say essentially the same thing in Japanese: 驚いた彼は道を走っていった。 Transliteration: Odoroita kare wa michi o hashitte itta. (grammatically correct) This is partly because these words evolved from regular nouns, such as kimi "you" ( 君 "lord"), anata "you" ( あなた "that side, yonder"), and boku "I" ( 僕 "servant"). This

10976-534: The topic with an interrogative intonation to call for the hearer's attention: Kore wa? "(What about) this?"; O-namae wa? ( お名前は？ ) "(What's your) name?". Negatives are formed by inflecting the verb. For example, Pan o taberu ( パンを食べる。 ) "I will eat bread" or "I eat bread" becomes Pan o tabenai ( パンを食べない。 ) "I will not eat bread" or "I do not eat bread". Plain negative forms are i -adjectives (see below) and inflect as such, e.g. Pan o tabenakatta ( パンを食べなかった。 ) "I did not eat bread". Geist Geist

11088-485: The translation of Latin spiritus . It is the direct cognate of English ghost , from a West Germanic gaistaz . Its derivation from a PIE root g̑heis- "to be agitated, frightened" suggests that the Germanic word originally referred to frightening (c.f. English ghastly ) apparitions or ghosts , and may also have carried the connotation of "ecstatic agitation, furor " related to the cult of Germanic Mercury . As

11200-548: The translation of biblical Latin spiritus (Greek πνεῦμα) " spirit, breath " the Germanic word acquires a Christian meaning from an early time, notably in reference to the Holy Spirit (Old English sē hālga gāst "the Holy Ghost", OHG ther heilago geist , Modern German der Heilige Geist ). Poltergeist (Noisy/Disruptive Geist) is a common interchangeable term. The English word is in competition with Latinate spirit from

11312-419: The two consonants are the moraic nasal followed by a homorganic consonant. Japanese also includes a pitch accent , which is not represented in moraic writing; for example [haꜜ.ɕi] ("chopsticks") and [ha.ɕiꜜ] ("bridge") are both spelled はし ( hashi ) , and are only differentiated by the tone contour. Japanese word order is classified as subject–object–verb . Unlike many Indo-European languages ,

11424-577: The two methods were both used in writing until the 1940s. Bungo still has some relevance for historians, literary scholars, and lawyers (many Japanese laws that survived World War II are still written in bungo , although there are ongoing efforts to modernize their language). Kōgo is the dominant method of both speaking and writing Japanese today, although bungo grammar and vocabulary are occasionally used in modern Japanese for effect. The 1982 state constitution of Angaur , Palau , names Japanese along with Palauan and English as an official language of

11536-480: The two terms (''hyōjungo'' and ''kyōtsūgo'') are almost the same. Hyōjungo or kyōtsūgo is a conception that forms the counterpart of dialect. This normative language was born after the Meiji Restoration ( 明治維新 , meiji ishin , 1868) from the language spoken in the higher-class areas of Tokyo (see Yamanote ). Hyōjungo is taught in schools and used on television and in official communications. It

11648-521: The universe but as the invisible force advancing world history : Hegel's description of Napoleon as "the world-soul on horseback" ( die Weltseele zu Pferde ) became proverbial. The phrase is a shortened paraphrase of Hegel's words in a letter written on 13 October 1806, the day before the Battle of Jena , to his friend Friedrich Immanuel Niethammer : I saw the Emperor – this world-soul – riding out of

11760-407: The verb (e.g. yonde for earlier yomite ), the -k- in the final mora of adjectives drops out ( shiroi for earlier shiroki ); and some forms exist where modern standard Japanese has retained the earlier form (e.g. hayaku > hayau > hayɔɔ , where modern Japanese just has hayaku , though the alternative form is preserved in the standard greeting o-hayō gozaimasu "good morning"; this ending

11872-548: The world. Since Japanese first gained the consideration of linguists in the late 19th century, attempts have been made to show its genealogical relation to languages or language families such as Ainu , Korean , Chinese , Tibeto-Burman , Uralic , Altaic (or Ural-Altaic ), Austroasiatic , Austronesian and Dravidian . At the fringe, some linguists have even suggested a link to Indo-European languages , including Greek , or to Sumerian . Main modern theories try to link Japanese either to northern Asian languages, like Korean or

11984-539: Was based on 12- to 20-second-long recordings of 135 to 244 phonemes , which 42 students listened to and translated word-for-word. The listeners were all Keio University students who grew up in the Kanto region . There are some language islands in mountain villages or isolated islands such as Hachijō-jima island , whose dialects are descended from Eastern Old Japanese . Dialects of the Kansai region are spoken or known by many Japanese, and Osaka dialect in particular

12096-680: Was imported to Japan from Baekje around the start of the fifth century, alongside Buddhism. The earliest texts were written in Classical Chinese , although some of these were likely intended to be read as Japanese using the kanbun method, and show influences of Japanese grammar such as Japanese word order. The earliest text, the Kojiki , dates to the early eighth century, and was written entirely in Chinese characters, which are used to represent, at different times, Chinese, kanbun , and Old Japanese. As in other texts from this period,

12208-456: Was invented the name Yamato-damashi (or Yamato-gokoro ), — the Soul of Yamato (or Heart of Yamato), — the appellation of the old province of Yamato, seat of the early emperors, being figuratively used for the entire country. We might correctly, though less literally, interpret the expression Yamato-damashi as "The Soul of Old Japan". (1904:177) Originally Yamato-damashii did not bear

12320-474: Was lost immediately following its composition.) This set of morae shrank to 67 in Early Middle Japanese , though some were added through Chinese influence. Man'yōgana also has a symbol for /je/ , which merges with /e/ before the end of the period. Several fossilizations of Old Japanese grammatical elements remain in the modern language – the genitive particle tsu (superseded by modern no )

12432-684: Was outlining similar models during the same period. Similarly, intellectual fashions such as the emergence of logical positivism in the 1920s, leading to a focus on behaviorism and blank-slatism over the following decades, and later, during the 1950s to 1960s, the shift from behaviorism to post-modernism and critical theory can be argued to be an expression of the intellectual or academic "zeitgeist". Zeitgeist in more recent usage has been used by Forsyth (2009) in reference to his "theory of leadership " and in other publications describing models of business or industry. Malcolm Gladwell argued in his book Outliers that entrepreneurs who succeeded in

12544-611: Was rarely recorded until the late Edo period (1600–1868). One Kamakura-period exception is the Gukanshō history (ca. 1220), which uses Yamato-damashii (和魂) in praising the character of child Emperor Toba (r. 1107–1123). Still, he had the personality of (his uncle) Fujiwara no Kinzane (藤原公実) characterized by Chinese learning and followed in the footsteps of (his ancestor) Sugawara no Michizane , but Toba had even more Japanese spirit than either of them. (adapted from Carr 1994:283) Three new "Japanese spirit" phrases originated around

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