Yamato-damashii - Lexicology

Lexicology

Yamato-damashii "Japan, Japanese" compounds Yamato (大和, lit. "great harmony") with damashii, which is the voiced rendaku pronunciation of tamashii (魂 "spirit; soul"). Both these kanji readings Yamato (大和) and damashii (魂) are native Japanese kun'yomi, while the Wakon (和魂 "Japanese spirit") reading is Sinitic on'yomi borrowed from Chinese Héhún (和魂).

Yamato is historically the second of three common Japanese endonyms (or autonyms) for 'Japan; Japanese'.

• Wa (倭 or 和) is Japan's oldest endonym and derives from the Han Dynasty Chinese exonym Wō 倭 "Japan, Japanese". This character 倭, which graphically combines the 亻 "human, person" radical and a wěi 委 "bend" phonetic, was usually pronounced wēi in Classical Chinese compounds like wēichí 倭遲 "winding, circuitous", but scholars have interpreted Wō 倭 "Japanese" as connoting either "submissive; docile" or "short; dwarf". In the 8th century, Japanese scribes replaced the pejorative Chinese character 倭 for Wa "Japan" with Wa 和 "harmony; peace".
• Yamato (大和, lit. "great harmony") is the oldest native name for "Japan". Daiwa and Taiwa (borrowed from Chinese dàhé 大和) are on'yomi readings. This name Yamato (大和) originally referred to "Yamato Province", around present-day Nara Prefecture, where Emperor Jimmu legendarily founded Japan. Common words with this prefix include Yamato-jidai (大和時代 "Yamato period", 250-710 CE), Yamato-minzoku (大和民族 "Yamato people; Japanese race"), and Yamato-e (大和絵 "traditional Japanese-style paintings").
• Nihon or Nippon (日本, lit. "sun's origin"; "Japan") is the normal modern endonym. Compared with the neutral pronunciation Nihon, Nippon has more nationalistic connotations.

In current Japanese usage, Wa 倭 is an archaic variant Chinese character for Wa 和, Yamato is a literary and historical term, and Nihon is the usual name for "Japan; Japanese".

Tamashii or tama (魂 "soul; spirit; ghost" or 霊 "spirit; soul") is Japanese kun'yomi, while kon or gon is Chinese on'yomi (from hún 魂). The Shinto-influenced semantics of Japanese tama/tamashii exceed customary English concepts of "spirit", "soul", or "ghost", besides the human soul, it also includes diverse spiritual forces found in nature. Roy Andrew Miller suggests that German Geist or French élan are better translations than English spirit or soul:

But finally we must conclude that nothing in any commonly used European language, including English, really does justice to Japanese tama. The spirit, soul, Geist, or élan to which the Japanese term has reference, whether it is the tama of Yamato-damashii or the tama of kotodama, is a vital and active entity that plays no part in any usual Western-language imagery or expression. We have no such word, and we make use of no imagery capitalizing upon the concepts that it employs; but the Japanese have, and they do. (1982:131)

Kotodama (言霊, lit. "word spirit", approximately "magic word") illustrate this traditional Japanese belief about tama(shii) energies. Kenkyūsha's New Japanese-English Dictionary (5th ed., 2003) gives kotodama translation equivalents and a revealing usage example: "ことだま【言霊】, the soul of language; the miraculous power of language . ̍ ⇨ 言霊の幸(さきわ)う国 Japan, "the land where the mysterious workings of language bring bliss"."

Yamato Nadeshiko (大和撫子, lit. "Japanese fringed pink") is a floral metaphor for "the idealized traditional Japanese woman". During World War II, ultra-nationalists popularized Yamato-nadeshiko as the female manifestation of Yamato-damashii.