New Japanese Era Name [Update: it's Reiwa (令和)]

They should get this up as a new vocab today.

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My husband’s family was not impressed. Everyone was just like “…Reiwa?”

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My girlfriend had a gut feeling it would be something in the ラ行, but had no suggestions for what it would be.

I personally would not have guessed they’d use 和 again as the second kanji so soon, but eh.

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As I understand from TV the 令 was never used before in era names, and the new name is from a Japanese source book (万葉集) instead of the usual Chinese one.

Wikipedia is quite fast …


No idea how it works exactly, but the sentence is 「 初春の 月にして、気淑く風ぎ、梅は鏡前の粉を披き、蘭は珮後の香を薫す。」, 令月 seems to mean “auspicious month”, so “auspicious peace”?

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April Fools?

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My heart still wishes it would have been タピオカ ! :sob:

https://news.nicovideo.jp/watch/nw5051064
( 渋谷のJK300人が新元号を大予想 3位に「嵐」 11位に「タピオカ」や「卍」)

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The new era name shall be … 雲故 (うんこ).

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The English version of the Wikipedia page says that ‘given the context, Reiwa can be best understood in English as “redolent harmony”’.

Fancy.

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I can’t remember the last time I felt redolent :slight_smile:

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Redolent is too close in meaning to “powerfully fragrant” to me…

Sadly, the image “redolent harmony” conjures up is a prettier way of saying “overwhelmingly perfumed harmony.” I guess it stinks!

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Apparently western news outlets have been getting it wrong. The Japanese government had to tell the embassies what the actual version in English is which is “Beautiful Harmony.” BBC was saying it was “Order” and some other sources were saying “Command.”

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That’s because that’s what it is when you don’t actually read the Kanji. A friend of mine recently overheard some of their co-workers expressing discomfort that the new era name is essentially “forced harmony.”

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Nice coat hanger. Very ordered in a harmonious, possibly even beautiful way.

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I found this Twitter thread on interpreting the new imperial era name interesting:

A thread on how to understand/translate Japan's brand new imperial era name "Reiwa" (令和).

To ordinary Japanese people at first glance (including many of my friends yesterday), the character 令 means "to order" or "to command" and 和 means "peace," "harmony," or "Japan" 1/

— Nick Kapur (@nick_kapur) April 1, 2019

https://twitter.com/nick_kapur/status/1112703951646937088

Edit: Looks like someone already posted this Twitter thread over on the other thread about this topic.

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Suddenly, this Australian real estate company gets a lot of Japanese customers

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Hah. I was gonna make a comment about why would Japanese people add the .au, until I tried it with just .com and discovered the internet adds the .au all on its own.

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I really wanna know how people do this kind of stuff

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REIWA (the Australian organization) owns reiwa.com, which they’ve set up to redirect to reiwa.com.au, although Chrome will auto-fill (or, “aggressively suggest,” as I’d like to say) the .au for you right at the last second if you try to go to just .com.

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:joy: Japanese era names, a 1300-year-old tradition ruined by internet domain names :joy:

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