Thread: yawara
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Old 12-15-2002, 12:54 AM   #6
Peter Goldsbury
 
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Dojo: Hiroshima Kokusai Dojo
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Quote:
Thomas Groendal (thomasgroendal) wrote:
Although yaware is definitely a reading of the kanji for soft, I highly doubt most Japanese would know what this word means if you just *threw it out* into a casual conversation...
Well, I put the question to my teacher in my weekly kanji lesson. We were having supper and his wife was also there. The question led to a great deal of discussion and the immediate reaction was that 'yawara' was another word for judo, and then, after a little more reflection, jujutsu. They cited the song 'Yawara', sung by the singer Misora Hibari, which was popular 20 or 30 years ago. They also mentioned the fictional character Sugata Sanshiro, created by Tsuneo Tomita and supposedly modelled on Jigoro Kano. There is no real connection between the two, except for the popular image of Sugata going to the dojo with his keikogi slung over his shoulder. Later on, the dictionaries came out and we saw that the explanation for 'yawara' varied from 'soft', as in yawaraka(i), to 'judo'/'jujutsu' in general monolingual dictionaries, with both being given as the first meaning according to the dictionary. Kanji dictionaries like Morohashi and the Kadokawa Daijiden, all give the first meaning as 'soft'.

There is another character for the concept, ˜a‚ç, found in the verb 'yawarageru' (to soften). This, of course is the same character as in wa (˜a) Yamato (‘å˜a).

Best regards,

P A Goldsbury
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