饿？

[bluetortilla]

I can understand why France is 法，England (U.K.) 英, and America (U.S.) 美， but why is Russia 俄?

Edited November 11, 2013 at 07:04 AM by bluetortilla

[skylee]

It is 俄（羅斯）. The radical on the left is 亻.

[fanglu]

According to Baidu, it comes from Mongolian:

“俄罗斯”这个称呼是中国人通过较早接触俄罗斯人的蒙古人学来的，在蒙古语中很少有以辅音R开头的，而蒙古人在遇到这种情况的时候往往都要加上相应的元音O，因此“罗斯”在蒙古语便译为OROS，第一个音节为O。这也是中国元朝史籍中称为“斡罗斯”或“鄂罗斯”的原因。到了明朝，中俄联系中断，直到明末中俄才有直接接触，那时候中汉人便直译为“罗刹”。罗刹国这一称呼直到清初仍旧存在，比如康熙帝下令编纂的中俄交涉史料就定名为《平定罗刹方略》。但清朝的统治民族是满洲族，受蒙古族影响较深，故采取源于蒙古语的间接音译，在康熙以后统一称为“俄罗斯”并沿用至今，俄罗斯帝国简称沙俄。

[bluetortilla]

I need glasses, sorry. : (

 

Interesting that it's from Mongolian. Thanks.

 

Also, I wonder if 日本 came from the name that the Chinese called the islands, or if it is the way that the Japanese used to describe their land to the Chinese and it was translated into Chinese? Either way, the Chinese pronunciation stuck and became standard Japanese? (Nihon or Nippon is onyomi; Ni close to mi4 in Mandarin and another reading Jitsu close to jat6 in Cantonese, while Hon is not such a big leap from M. ben3 or C. bun2 )

 

If the latter is the case, it could mean the Japanese were quite good sailors well before the 6th C. CE, or it could even be from ancient legends from migrations from the mainland (migrations in the direction of sunrise).  

[muyongshi]

I could be wrong on this, but isn't Japan referred to as the land of the rising sun? 

 

Which, in looking at this wikipedia article I can see a possible phonetic element of 本 with the Nippon (I don't speak Japanese so no authoritative statement here) but more likely I see a literal meaning. 日 means sun and 本 can mean origin.

 

From the article:

 

 

Both Nippon and Nihon literally mean "the sun's origin", that is, where the sun originates,^[1]and are often translated as the Land of the Rising Sun. This nomenclature comes fromImperial correspondence with the Chinese Sui Dynasty and refers to Japan's eastward position relative to China.

[bluetortilla]

 

 

I could be wrong on this, but isn't Japan referred to as the land of the rising sun? 

 

This is the commonly used 'motto' for Japan, but the mythology is quite complicated. In modern times, the Japanese Emperor has been seen by some animistic Japanese as the direct descendent of Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess, and by extension the entire Japanese people as well. While this belief is held by very few Japanese today, it became a very real part of Japanese consciousness and compulsory education during the militarist era from the 20's until the end of WW2. 

 

Anyway, it's more that the Sun Goddess (as opposed to the sun being God in and of itself) is the Eve of the Japanese people; not that the land itself was created by the Sun Goddess herself (other Gods made the islands before that).

 

Well, perhaps that's all irrelevant, but your article seems to suggest that 日本 is a Chinese moniker, not a Japanese one. Over time it became fully absorbed into the Japanese language. Contrary to what one might think though, Japanese has always clearly denoted Chinese readings and Japanese readings into onyomi and kunyomi; every character carrying that sort of footnote so to speak. Even so, though everyone in Japan must know that the word Nippon is historically of Chinese origin it remains the most 'Japanese' of all Japanese words.

 

From the Chinese viewpoint, it sounds like the archipelago just happened to be the easternmost land they knew of. In that case "Land of the (rising) Sun" makes sense and the Sun Goddess Amaterasu Myth is just coincidental in the name for Japan. The Chinese could have just as well called it "The Land of the East" or "Land of the Dawn" after all. (North Korea retains that character btw, but I think it refers more to 'dynasty' than 'morning.' )

 

It suggests that perhaps the Japanese had long before forgotten their migratory routes and knew little of lands outside of Japan or beyond their costal waters.

[bluetortilla]

 

 

Which, in looking at this wikipedia article I can see a possible phonetic element of 本 with the Nippon (I don't speak Japanese so no authoritative statement here) but more likely I see a literal meaning. 日 means sun and 本 can mean origin.

 

It's extremely easy to look up a Chinese character's phonetic origin in any good Japanese dictionary (if you speak Japanese you almost always can tell anyway). You may not recognize the sound in modern Mandarin, but you can be sure that if it's onyomi the sound is of Chinese origin. Fortunately, the Japanese through the centuries have been meticulous about this and it makes for accessible and interesting study into ancient Chinese.

[sparrow]

@bluetortilla:

 

You can increase the text size by pressing CTRL and = together.

[bluetortilla]

@ Sparrow

 

Thanks. Of course we all have our default size, and mine is just fine for English and for characters for that matter. But with keyboard input it's easy sometimes to miss an off radical, though I know it looks like a big ugly spelling mistake with a weird semantic.

 

Maybe I should try to get off Pinyin input and go for trackpad! yikes