| goes around, comes around |
[Nov. 23rd, 2013|09:09 am] |
 |
|
|
| Alnis Briedis, stuhlbs muhrtjis |
[Nov. 23rd, 2013|12:42 pm] |
Baka (馬鹿, ばか, or バカ) means "idiot", "stupid", "fool", "foolish" and is the most frequently used pejorative term in the Japanese language. This word baka has a long history, an uncertain etymology (possibly from Sanskrit or Classical Chinese), and linguistic complexities.
The modern Japanese writing system transcribes the insult baka "fool; idiot" as バカ in katakana, ばか in hiragana, or 馬鹿 (lit. "horse deer") in ateji phonetic kanji transcription; earlier ateji renderings included 莫迦, 母嫁, 馬嫁, or 破家.
First, the oldest hypothesis suggests that baka originated as a Chinese literary "allusion to a historical fool", the Qin Dynasty traitor Zhao Gao (d. 207 BCE). This etymology first appears in the (c. 1548) Unbo irohashu 運歩色葉集 dictionary, which glosses baka 馬鹿 as meaning "指鹿曰馬" "point at a deer and say horse". Namely, the Chinese idiom zhi lu wei ma 指鹿為馬 (lit. "point at a deer and call it a horse", Japanese shika o sashite uma to nasu) meaning "call a deer a horse; deliberate misrepresentation for ulterior purposes".
Second, the most linguistically sound etymology is that baka derives from a Sanskrit word meaning "fool". According to the Japanese linguist and lexicographer Shinmura Izuru, the Edo Period scholar Amano Sadakage 天野信景 (1663–1733) originally suggested that Japanese Buddhist priests coined the word baka "fool" from Sanskrit. Modern reference works give two possible Sanskrit sources for the word, moha (transcribed 慕何) "foolish" and mahallaka (摩訶羅) "stupid". Sanskrit moha मोह means "bewilderment, loss of consciousness, delusion, folly" and comes from the root muh "bewildered, perplexed, confused". Sanskrit mahallaka means "senile, feeble minded, stupid, decrepit" and comes from mūrkha मोह "dull, stupid, foolish, inexperienced; fool". |
|
|