about japan national flag

jim83 · 17 May 2004

a sun in the white paper , that is japan national flag

while i see it , i would laugh,

before , chinese think him is the centre of world , so give name zhongguo,

japan think he is the east of china , and where the sun rise . so got the name ｎｉｐｐｏｎ．

ｔｈｅｙａｌｌｄｏｎｔｋｎｏｗｔｈｅｗｏｒｌｄｉｓｒｏｕｎｄ

all stupid

about israel national anthem
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..............................................................

the mystery song of israel national anthem , it is very worth to listen .
from the national song ,you could find the mood of a country or nation .
it is a very good experience to hear the israel national anthem , you could find it in microsoft encarta.

enisten : i never belong to a country

Mandylion · 17 May 2004

jim83 said:
before , chinese think him is the centre of world , so give name zhongguo,

japan think he is the east of china , and where the sun rise . so got the name ｎｉｐｐｏｎ．

By "he" I guess you mean Prince Shotoku Taishi. If that is so, you might be half right. There is a theory that the Prince coined the name "Nippon" to mean "the place from which the sun rises." But this is not that he was saying Japan was better. He was saying that his kingdom was to the east of China.

The other theory is that "Japan" comes from a Dutch mispronounciation of a Chinese word. Check here for more info.

I fail to see how either theory paints Japan as self centered as your post seems to claim.

You want to talk about self-centerness, less talk about the characters used to write China / 中国. Seems to me China would like to be though of as the center of all things...

I'm sorry Jim83, you have exhausted my patience.

Hiroshi66 · 17 May 2004

Jim83, you are getting on my nerves. All your post clearly have an anti-Japan ring to it, and now you are making fun of the flag. Well, if you don't like Japan, why are you here?

Keiichi · 17 May 2004

Hiroshi66 said:
Jim83, you are getting on my nerves. All your post clearly have an anti-Japan ring to it, and now you are making fun of the flag. Well, if you don't like Japan, why are you here?

Yes, that's exactly what I was going to say. Always something to do with anti-Japan and China related. It's really getting on my nerves also.

Glenn · 17 May 2004

Well, worry no more, for he hath been banished from these fora. I say it's about time; I can't believe it took this long.

Glenn · 17 May 2004

Mandylion said:
The other theory is that "Japan" comes from a Dutch mispronounciation of a Chinese word. Check here for more info.

Thank you for that link, Mandylion. One thing that I found interesting (aside from the way we may have gotten "Japan") is that the author says "The designation 'place from where the sun rises' translates into Chinese characters which can be read either as 'Nippon' or 'Nihon.'" This is something that I've been curious about for a while, but never did look into any further. According to my knowlege, "nihon" really isn't a valid reading based on the readings of the kanji. These are the readings that I learned for 日: ニチ、ジツ、ひ、か; and the readings that I learned for 本: ホン、もと. So if we take the first readings of the respective kanji, we should get にっぽん, due to the euphonic change rules. Now, in order to get にほん we would need ニ as a possible reading for 日, but that isn't the case. So from where does this come?

I did a little looking on a site that I thought would have the answer, but all I could find was this message:Re: How do you write Japan. It also offers some different information as to how the name came about. If anyone has an explanation or a link to one for how にほん came to be a reading, I would be highly appreciative.

Keiichi · 17 May 2004

Here looks like one explanation:
Homework Help and Textbook Solutions | bartleby

Glenn · 17 May 2004

Thank you for the link, Keiichi; it was very interesting. However, it still didn't quite answer my question, and it confused me a bit (what does that asterisk next to Ni-pon-gu mean, anyway?). I can understand how "Nipon-gu" would go to "Nihon," but what I still don't understand is why it was ever "Nipon" in the first place. It just doesn't seem consistent for there to not be a glottal stop in the word, because it is in so many other words that are just like it.

Grandpa Frank · 17 May 2004

Ohhh Noooo !!!!!

Glenn said:
Well, worry no more, for he hath been banished from these fora. I say it's about time; I can't believe it took this long.

What, no jim83 to torment my life & soul??? What will I do now for my masochistic desires to be mentally tortured?? For those of you who have seen MAD TV,
there is a skit with a little Asian woman who drives people nuts. I always assumed this must be Jim's mom!!
I guess I have to be honest and say(if it's true that he's banned)I won't miss him; and besides, you know another Jim type is waiting in the wings to take his place!!

Frank

PS - I DON'T THINK HE HAS BEEN BANNED, JUST ON THE "ONE MORE TIME" LIST !!

:?

Hiroshi66 · 18 May 2004

Well, finally. He seemed to be quite the Japan hater. All his posts were putting down Japan and revering China. Not that that's wrong, but I think he meant to go to the China Reference web site. (is there one?)

Anyways, glad this discussion isn't wasted. In August, I spent the whole month researching on whether Nippon or Nihon was used more. From my research, Nippon is the official name for Japan. Nowadays, most people use Nihon. I'm not sure though.

I know that the word Japan derived from Marco Polo's Gipangu, which he heard about from visiting Japan. In China, today, apparently, as one Chinese person told me, Japan is called Japon. I'm not sure though.

kirei_na_me · 18 May 2004

Yeah, we get some Japan haters from time to time. He wasn't the first, and I'm sure he won't be the last.

bossel · 18 May 2004

Glenn said:
(what does that asterisk next to Ni-pon-gu mean, anyway?)

In linguistics this asterisk in front of a word usually indicates that it is actually extrapolated (historically reconstructed) or sometimes it indicates non-standard usage.

Since I don't know so much about Japanese linguistics, that's all I can say about it.

Hiroshi66 said:
In China, today, apparently, as one Chinese person told me, Japan is called Japon. I'm not sure though.

Japon is French, I think.
The Chinese name I learned is Riben (ri4 ben3), in Chinese characters 日本.

Gaki · 18 May 2004

Mandylion said:
You want to talk about self-centerness, less talk about the characters used to write China / 中国. Seems to me China would like to be though of as the center of all things...

I think the term 中国 (middle kingdom) derived from the fact that in Asia, China basically sits in the middle.

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/asia_pol00.jpg

I suppose in the days when exploration was only possible by boats/ships/foot/horse, the Ancient Chinese thought that China was the middle of the world.

Dream Time · 18 May 2004

no

the Chinese named their country 'Middle Kingdom' because they thought China sits in the center of the world.

I think it has nothing to do with the Chinese wants to be center of everything

Mandylion · 18 May 2004

Dream Time said:
no

the Chinese named their country 'Middle Kingdom' because they thought China sits in the center of the world.

I think it has nothing to do with the Chinese wants to be center of everything

Yes, I know China doesn't wnat to be the center of everything, but I was just throwing some mud back at Jim83. No offense to anyone else intended - apologies if I did.

(note to self - funny, I thought I locked this thread - oh well, turned out okay... )

PS to Gaki - I like large hooters as much as the next guy, but could you please bring your sig picture down to the regulation 300 X 100 (width X height)? Thanks

Gaki · 19 May 2004

Mandylion said:
PS to Gaki - I like large hooters as much as the next guy, but could you please bring your sig picture down to the regulation 300 X 100 (width X height)? Thanks

Done, although i think they looked better BIG!

Glenn · 19 May 2004

In case any of you are interested, I asked the question about 日本 on the Teach Yourself Japanese message board, and this was the response. However, that still leaves me with these questions, for which I am currently awaiting an answer. I'll keep you up to date if you like, or you can follow the thread here.

Mandylion · 19 May 2004

(thanks Gaki, they did look nicer big, but, 300X100, thems 'da rules)

Hiroshi66 · 23 May 2004

Nippon also was used in a quite nationalistic fervor, especially during the Age of Authoritarian Imperialism (1935 - 1945), where the word Nippon was one of the most important words in the Japanese vocabulary. The word Japan, in businesses and newspapers was banned.

For example, in 1943, the Imperial Rule Assistance Association (the militarist, fascist, extreme nationalist, and authoritarian party that was the only legal party from the late 1930s until 1945) ordered "The Japan Times" to change their names to "The Nippon Times". Such is an example.

about japan national flag

jim83

Kouhai

Mandylion

Omnipotence personified

Hiroshi66

先輩

Keiichi

Hi

Glenn

一切皆苦

Glenn

一切皆苦

Keiichi

Hi

Glenn

一切皆苦

Grandpa Frank

Sempai

Hiroshi66

先輩

kirei_na_me

Where I'm Supposed to Be

bossel

後輩

Gaki

Emperor Gakihito

Dream Time

後輩

Mandylion

Omnipotence personified

Gaki

Emperor Gakihito

Glenn

一切皆苦

Mandylion

Omnipotence personified

Hiroshi66

先輩

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