The longest word in the Japanese language is 虎が人を噛もうとするときのうなり声。 (pronounced: toragahitowokamoutosurutokinounarinow), which literally means "the growl a tiger makes when it's about to bite someone". This word's made up of 17 syllables and 37 letters in total.
The longest word in the Japanese language is 虎が人を噛もうとするときのうなり声。 (pronounced: toragahitowokamoutosurutokinounarinow), which literally means "the growl a tiger makes when it's about to bite someone". This word's made up of 17 syllables and 37 letters in total.
Source: Google
This made me curious. It's obviously not a “word” by any of the usual definitions of the term “word” I know (there is more than one), but a simple phrase whose meaning is a sum of it's parts. And it's easy to build an arbitrarily long phrases like that. Just add your favourite adjective in front of 虎 to extend it. The counts also seem wrong: this particular way to spell it uses 17 characters, but it has 19 syllables and 20 morae. No idea where does the number 37 come from. But, more importantly, why is this particular phrase cited by Google and some other sites with AI-generated content?
Apparently it is sometimes said to be a kun'yomi reading of 猇 (⿰犭虎) and an answer to a trick question how to read that obscure kanji. Now, this actually makes some sense! While on'yomi are basically words borrowed from Chinese languages, kun'yomi are “translations” of Chinese words into Japanese and sometimes multi-word phrases like that get mixed with them. The phrase 虎が人を噛もうとする時の唸り声 appears to be a translation of Chinese definition of 猇 given in Yupian as 虎欲齧人聲也.
Some other examples of similar “readings” that are listed in renshuu dictionary and other online sources would be 譫 with as うるさくしゃべる urusaku shaberu (talk noisily) or 朎 with つきのうつくしいひかり tsuki no utsukushii hikari (beautiful moonlight).
So I think I'm willing to accept this as a very special kind of a “word.” But is the 虎が(…)唸り声 the longest one? Well, no.
The kanji 閄 is said to be read as 物陰から急に飛び出して人を驚かせるときに発する声monokage kara kyū ni tobidashite hito wo odorokaseru toki ni hassuru koe. This has 33 kana letters, 30 syllables, and 31 morae, so it's definitely longer than 虎が(…)唸り声. I think this particular phrasing was popularised by the Vocaloid song なんだかとっても！いいかんじ which is made of various kinds of weird and questionable kanji readings. And it got famous enough to get it's own article on Japanese Wikipedia which explains that ものかげからきゅうにとびだしてひとをおどろかせるときにはっするこえ is not a kun'yomi at all and the phrase just explains the kanji meaning in the dictionary. But, well, that's exactly the same as with the tiger's growl.
