Lexical Background
Rakugo was originally known as karukuchi (軽口?). The oldest appearance of the kanji which refers specifically to this type of performance dates back to 1787, but at the time the characters themselves (落し噺) were normally read as otoshibanashi (falling discourse).
In the middle of the Meiji period (1868–1912) the expression rakugo first started being used, and it came into common usage only in the Shōwa period (1926–1989).
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