For a long time I wanted to write down various things that I found interesting, in the Japanese language. I just realized that this part of the forum would be perfect for a thread containing such notes, because on top of getting those notes finally written down, someone might have insight about them (that would be great!). So, to start, here are 3 notes, that I've had in mind for a long time:
泥 is mud, and 泥棒 a thief, but kanji-wise, a muddy stick. Is it some phonological coincidence, or was the term coined out of the utter disgust for theft that is so Japanese? Say, originally it was 盗暴 (thieving thug?), which would be とうぼう, and then, it's not so far, so to better express disgust they drifted from とう to どろ. Or something like that. Apparently 泥 can be also used alone to mean thief. This kind of reminds me the Russian word отстой (atstoy). Literally, it's something that remains, for example the precipitate of a chemical solution, but usually something that is stuck to something else, and so it's something rather dirty and unpleasant. Think about the fuel remaining on the surface of an empty tank, or whatever crass got stuck to dirty shoes. And then, someone vile can be called отстой.
I'm interested also in the homophones 誇り and 埃. Is it only a coincidence that reminds us that pride is futile because we all return to dust. It's a quote from the Bible, but it's not a particularly unique thought.
I find interesting the names of the fingers in various languages. In Japanese, there's the parent finger, the person-pointing finger, the middle finger, the medecine finger and the little finger. And here, I think about prehistoric men, looking at their body and trying to see some pattern, some meaning. And all fingers make sense, except for one. There's the big one, the pointing one, the middle one, and the small one that's perfect to stick into your ear, as the name indicates in several languages. But what do you do with the last one? Of course! If we can't relate it to anything visible, it is connected to all invisible forces around us! In many languages it's the finger that should carry the magical rings (rings are magical, see Tolkien who got his inspiration from medieval literature), that among others have the power to bond one's soul to another person, or it's the finger used to make potions magical. Russians are even more careful, it has no name (you don't want to bother the magical spirits which are connected to it), or more precisely, it is called "withoutname".
I actually was also interested in the third point and looked it up a while ago. I found an interesting explanation of some theories on a Japanese blog: http://rikejo-c.jp/archives/39...
In German a long line of people is called "Schlange" (snake) and I just noticed that the Japanese also call it 長蛇 (long snake). Sometimes one can find interesting similarities when comparing languages.
As for 泥棒, I don't know about the kanji choices, but I came across two theories concerning the word itself. - It might have been originally とりうばう (to take and steal). The あ+う combo had long been pronounced as おう and とりう was later constricted to とろ, thus creating とろぼう which eventually became どろぼう. - どろ might have been a sound change from どら (lazy). Considering the alternative writing 泥坊, it could have come from どら坊 (lazy monk) originally. (Not sure if どら棒 (lazy stick) makes as much sense in Japanese as the German "fauler Sack" (lazy bag).) It just occured to me that the Japanese "mud stick" may carry a meaning similar to the English "dirtbag" and the German "Drecksack". Although a dirtbag is not necessarily a thief, a thief is likely to be called a dirtbag.