Japanese Language Trivia of the Day:

Picked some of these up from my friends over at Lang-8, which I highly recommend for your Japanese writing practice (thanks for introducing me to it, Clay).

I was writing about movies and was at a loss for the right word to describe Paul Newman's character in Cool Hand Luke, and in trying to find it, I came up with all sorts of words that are close... so today, we've got all kinds of good vocab for describing people who don't fit in.

• 人外 (にんがい; ningai): outcast, usually because of being a law-breaker*


• のけ者 (のけもの; nokemono)：odd man out; pariah


• よそ者 (よそもの; yosomono): outsider, because of being from somewhere foreign; newcomer


• 食み出し者 (はみだしもの; hamidashimono): someone who sticks out; misfit

There are two more related terms that I want to include, that for me, elevate this post from "Themed Vocab" to "Trivia."

一匹狼
いっぴきおおかみ
ippiki ookami

I think this constitutes a 三字熟語, and was suggested by someone who was correcting my Lang-8 journal. It translates perfectly into English as "lone wolf." And just as in English, an internet search reveals three pretty distinct categories of usage:

1. Used to describe the behavioral patterns of actual wolves.
2. Used to describe fictional characters, particularly in movies, television, video games, or manga (一匹狼 comes up in relation to the movies Cool Hand Luke, Pirates of the Caribbean, Spy Game, Bullitt, Shoot 'Em Up, and Hitman, just to name a few).
3. Used by people on blogs or SNSs to describe themselves (hmmmm...)

The other one I want to include is something that I came across forever ago through random Kanji-jisho browsing and it might be one way that you end up an 一匹狼.

村八分
むらはちぶ
murahachibu

This term means "village ostracism," and it's fascinating when you read about the way it was applied in Japan during the Edo period, often associated with society under Tokugawa**. By popular interpretation, the Kanji it's spelled with ("village, eight, parts") refer to the idea that an ostracized family (entire families suffered for the failure of one person to abide by community rules or regulations) were denied eight of the ten privileges associated with village life, these being: coming-of-age ceremonies, weddings, memorial services, as well as assistance with births, sickness, floods, travel, building and repairs. They were still granted assistance when it came to fire and funerals, but they were not allowed to take part in any community meetings or celebrations, and other villagers were forbidden to greet them.

The kind of offenses that people could commit that might bring about such treatment varied, but sometimes they were kicked out of the village before their offensive nature could draw the attention of officials, which might mean trouble for the whole town. To prevent this, the people were cast out (these kinds of outcasts were called 非人（ひにん）***), and they were sometimes forced to live in special villages for such outcasts called 部落; buraku.

Incidences of 村八分 still occurred occasionally; there were scattered reports up until 1952, but one of the more interesting pieces of information I came across was an incident of 村八分 that happened in Niigata in 2004! Apparently, in the town of Sekigawa, some of the community leaders were upset with a local household whose members hadn't done enough to help out with the preparations and clean up for a local fishing contest, and so he incited 11 other townspeople to help ostracize this family. What did they do? They discontinued garbage collection and prohibited the family from picking local edible wild plants. The family sued, and ended up winning a decision of 2,200,000 yen for their trouble!

Notes:

• 一匹狼 is surprisingly NOT used in the original Japanese title of the manga series "Lone Wolf and Cub"


• 村八 is a common name for bars, pubs, and izakayas in Japan. There's a chain of izakayas that uses that name in Kyuushuu.


• If you want to grammar it, 村八分 takes 「にする」 or 「に遭う」 after it.


• You can read all about 村八分 in English or in Japanese.


• Don't ever call yourself a "lone wolf" in ANY language. It's not cool.

* Be careful using this word. The same Kanji can be read じんがい, which means "inhuman treatment." Don't mix them up!
** Tokugawa is referenced to indicated time period and not association with Tokugawa rule. 村八分 was a local practice, undertaken by influential community members who didn't necessarily wield any official government or military power.
***Thanks to Lane for correcting my kanji in the comments below.

犬猿の仲: Part Two (There are 3 Kinds of People, and They All Have Cuckoos)

For anyone who's learning a foreign language, and who's doing so by immersion, you know that the route to learning is by no means a straight-forward one. You learn by meandering down long, weird side roads, and what you started looking for is not necessarily what you get. With that in mind, please forgive me a lengthy post. I hope that, like me, you find it full of interesting information, must-know phrases, and, as always, impress-your-friends-and-family trivia.

So, remember when we looked at the phrase　犬猿の仲？At the time, I couldn't find any explanations that rang true enough to satisfy me (nor have I yet; this post will not provide that satisfaction). Why are dogs and monkeys so hostile towards each other? Despite having already posted it up on the site, I kept bringing it up to Japanese people: kokugo-senseis, eikawa-students, taxi drivers, anyone who might know something. And one guy (a taxi driver) told me that he heard that the phrase originated from the rivalry between two important figures in Japanese history: Akechi Mitsuhide and Toyotomi Hideyoshi.　According to the taxi driver, Akechi's nickname was 犬 and Hideyoshi's was サル; according to others, 犬猿の仲 predates these two in history, and they were nicknamed BECAUSE of the phrase.

Akechi Mitsuhide is famous for being 三日天下： the three day king. While this qualifies as a yo-ji-juku-go, it's not really used except to refer to him. He was a general under Oda Nobunaga, but because of various political intrigues that involved the murder of Mitsuhide's mother, Mitsuhide betrayed Nobunaga, forcing him to commit seppuku at Honno-ji in 1582.

Oda Nobunaga had been a very famous daimyo, leading campaign after campaign until he had conquered and unified over one third of Japan. He inspired fierce loyalty in many of his followers, namely the aforementioned Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu (yes, THE Tokugawa), who raced to avenge Nobunaga's death. Toyotomi was the one to defeat Akechi at the Battle of Yamazaki. Akechi had retained military power for only three days.

Toyotomi went on to unify the rest of Japan, but upon his death the nation split into warring factions once more.

Japan only finally unified after Tokugawa Ieyasu won the battle of Sekigahara in 1600, was declared shogun by Emperor Go-Yozei in 1603, and established the Tokugawa shogunate, which essentially ruled Japan for 250 years.

If you're reading this blog, it's safe to assume that you have some interest in things Japanese, and therefore probably knew most of that, or at least have heard the names. What was new to me was the fact that Japanese people have a system of classifying personalities based on these figures. I was told that this is the kind of thing that Japanese learners "really should know."

According to the system, everyone is one of 3 types of people: Oda type, Toyotomi type, or Tokugawa type. You can tell which one you are by how you would relate to birds, specifically, the cuckoo, or ホトトギス.

Oda Type: 鳴くぬなら、殺してしまう.
If the cuckoo doesn't sing, let's kill it.

Toyotomi Type: 鳴くぬなら、鳴かせてみよう。
If the cuckoo doesn't sing, let's MAKE it sing.

Tokugawa Type: 鳴くぬなら、鳴くまで待とう。
If the cuckoo doesn't sing, let's wait until it does.

So the Oda type is brash and aggressive, and acts hastily. It's important to note that the Toyotomi type is not seen as forceful or demanding, but rather as someone who takes on challenges, a problem solver. And the Tokugawa type is patient. Which one are you? If you've made it all the way through this post, you just might be the Tokugawa type...

Post script: 鳴くぬなら、is the way the phrase is said. It's means the same as 鳴かないなら, it's just an archaic form. Don't use it to grammar anything else. Yes, I just used 'grammar' as a verb.