The etymology of Nihon and Nippon

[Emoni]

Ignorance and disagreements are fine, silliness is horrifying. Either that previous post gets removed or I ask you nuke this whole thread, reason: No serious interest.
Be a buffoon all you want, but I am gone.
It's been fun.

Wow, way to say thank you to some replies and at least light hearted fun. Please, go get laid or something...

Silliness is horrifying? What world do you live in? One where murder and abuse is great fun had by all?

 

[Mycernius]

(A few will know what this means)

 

[JimmySeal]

Aha! Yet another large yellow bird. Coincidence? I think not.

This removes all doubt that my theory is correct. Now all I need to do is figure out what my theory is...

 

[Glenn]

It's not like he hasn't done this before.

The pronunciation of 窶愿ｺ窶怒 "Nihon".. is altered from the Chinese pronunciation "Riben". Mostly all of the words imported from Chinese to Japanese have undergone a change like this.

That's not quite right. Modern Mandarin Riben underwent its own sound changes. 窶愿ｺ窶怒 was originally hinomoto (sort of... see below), then later came to be read with its on-yomi. This has happened to other common words, where Japanese people see two kanji together, figure they should be read with their on-yomi, and we get two ways to read a word. If you use Japanese dictionaries enough you'll see what I'm talking about. You'll also see the historical kana spelling that would give a better idea of how they used to be pronounced, like 窶堋ｩ窶堙 for ﾂ静ｬ (but old ﾆ地ﾂ行 actually had a "p" initial, so it was "kapa"). A better example would be 窶｢ﾂｽ窶懌┐, which shows its old spelling of 窶堙鯛?堙｢窶堋､窶堙??堋､ (it change via palatalization and the au -> ô change). At any rate, using modern words in languages to show connections is a bad idea, because they aren't now what they were then (using modern words in one language with ancient words in another is also a bad idea).

Particularly regarding 窶怒, and kanji in general, their present forms have changed greatly from the original forms. If you want to know the origin of a character, you have to go to the source, which is oracle bone inscriptions in most cases, where 窶愿ｺ looked more like a circle with a dot in it, 窶拵 looked like a horse, ﾂ静ｬ a river, and so on, but then they changed their shape as they moved away from pictographs and more towards a writing system (the writing materials also had an influence). This is why you can know Chinese or Japanese well, and not be able to make out what a character is in oracle bone script (different from grass strokes, which presents its own difficulties). It gets more involved when you start looking at how they were pronounced 5000 years ago.

 

[Chidoriashi]

It's not like he hasn't done this before.
That's not quite right. Modern Mandarin Riben underwent its own sound changes. 日本 was originally hinomoto (sort of... see below), then later came to be read with its on-yomi. This has happened to other common words, where Japanese people see two kanji together, figure they should be read with their on-yomi, and we get two ways to read a word. If you use Japanese dictionaries enough you'll see what I'm talking about. You'll also see the historical kana spelling that would give a better idea of how they used to be pronounced, like かは for 川 (but old ハ行 actually had a "p" initial, so it was "kapa"). A better example would be 平等, which shows its old spelling of びやうどう (it change via palatalization and the au -> ô change). At any rate, using modern words in languages to show connections is a bad idea, because they aren't now what they were then (using modern words in one language with ancient words in another is also a bad idea).
Particularly regarding 本, and kanji in general, their present forms have changed greatly from the original forms. If you want to know the origin of a character, you have to go to the source, which is oracle bone inscriptions in most cases, where 日 looked more like a circle with a dot in it, 馬 looked like a horse, 川 a river, and so on, but then they changed their shape as they moved away from pictographs and more towards a writing system (the writing materials also had an influence). This is why you can know Chinese or Japanese well, and not be able to make out what a character is in oracle bone script (different from grass strokes, which presents its own difficulties). It gets more involved when you start looking at how they were pronounced 5000 years ago.

For sure the character has changed over time, I just did not feel like researching it that much. And I was just giving him stuff straight out of my dictionary. In any case, the theory is still bupkis.

 

[AJBryant]

Why do you want to insult bupkis?