Netsuke as a Window into Japanese loan Words

As I am working through the list of 23,000 words put out by the Scripps National Spelling Bee folk, all of which appear in Webster's Third New International ("Unabridged"), 85% of which will appear in the National Bee in May/June, I not only am glad to learn so many new concepts, but I have to stop several times to ask myself what makes a word an English-language word. And, when does it become an English word? To take some German-language examples: words like zeitgeist (1848) and zwieback (1894) have long been in English. Schadenfreude, which is capitalized in the OED, was also first attested in English long ago--in 1852. Then, we have the 20th century "borrowings"--Volkswagen (guess what? Volkswagen appears neither in the OED, the Unabridged or the Collegiate. I guess that doesn't make it an English word...). Well, maybe Volkswagen doesn't appear because it is a product name; volkslied came in, for example, in 1858. A few 20th century German terms coming into English are my two favorites: plunderbund (1902)--a cartel ("bund") of political or economic interests that really exist to "plunder" the people and Torschlusspanik (1963), a feeling of alarm usually experienced in middle age caused by the suspicions that life's opportunities have passed one by (lit. "panic at the shutting of the door"). But the Unabridged doesn't have Torschlusspanik, even though it has plunderbund. No dictionary yet has Treppenwitz, which I discuss here. So, who decides which words enter and when they enter? Possibly you can have a democratic view of language and say that when enough people start using a term (or enough influential people), the word becomes an English word.

Moving to Japanese Words

This issue became particulary acute for me today, however, when I ran across some Japanese words in the list noted above. Why, I thought, are some of these words "English" words and, more important, why are words allied to the meaning fields of these Japanese-English words not English words? Let's use the example of netsuke to illustrate the problem. A netsuke is, in traditional Japanese dress, a small piece of wood, ivory or other material, which may be decorated, and perforated for use as a toggle by which a purse, etc. could be attached to the belt of a kimono. The OED tells that netsuke was first attested in English in 1876: "These medicine boxes hold small pills...and are slung to the girdle by a Netsuke or toggle." Netsukes can assume all kinds of designs, such as shells or small animals/insects, and tons of pictures of them are on the Net.

The netsuke, we are informed, was invented in the 17th century to deal with the reality of Japanese clothes not having pockets. We, a "pocketed" culture, don't often think of what the world would be like without pockets. The Japanese solved the problem by hanging things from the kimono (which was first recognized as an English word in 1886). Well, you couldn't hang pipes, money, medications, etc. directly from the kimono, so you had to hang something from the kimono's sash which would enclose a box in which various articles could be kept. The thing that connected to/hung on the kimono sash was called the netsuke.

But when you think of it for a second, you have about five Japanese concepts/words that are implicated here. Let's march through them. You have the garment, a kimono. By the way, an alternative word for the kimono is a kosode--originally an undergarment which gradually became an outergarment after 1600. But we don't have kosode in English dictionaries. Well, let's proceed. The kimono/kosode was secured by a sash. This sash is known as the obi. Obi came into English in the 1820s, when the under sash (sita-obi) was distinguised from the upper sash (woewa-obi). Next, you have the netsuke, which will hang over the sash, with a chord dangling out of it. But this chord has a bead sliding over it, and that bead has a name, the ojime. Ojime appears in the OED but not the Unabridged. It is defined as "in Japanese traditional dress: a bead, often decorated, used as a sliding fastening device on the strings of a purse or pouch, or of an inro."

Ah, now we have the fifth necessary term--inro. For an inro is what is at the end of the beaded string. The OED says that the word inro was first attested in English as early as 1617; that is because the inro could exist independently of the netsuke. It simply was an "ornamental nest of boxes..." By the way, inro isn't in the Unabridged, but it does appear in the OED.

But the Japanese had another word for what might be at the end of the cord (ojime), a more generic term. That word is sagemono: "Literally a hanging object, such as an inro, purse, pouch, pipecase or other object suspended by a netsuke." But no English-language dictionary I checked has the word sagemono.

Complexities Develop

Well, we see how various of these words appear or don't appear in English-language dictionares. But then you can go to the wonderful website of the International Netsuke Society (I am not pulling your leg), and you have a glossary of lots of other terms that are essential to understand if you want to learn "netsuke culture." For example, a kagamibuta is a "special type of netsuke with a metal lid and bowl. Its literal meaning is mirror lid." Or, a kiseruzutsu is "a pipecase." A manju is a type of netsuke named after a popular bean paste confection in a round, flat shape. Or, to change the subject a bit, one could have a yatate hanging as a sagemono. A yatate is "a portable writing set, accommodating both a brush and the necessary writing ink."

Conclusion

None of these more specialized terms has made it yet into English. But they appear on the web, and most of thenm have many more Google "hits" than some of the English words that are used in the National Bee. Can the day be too far away when many of these Japanese words will come into English and be "fair game" at the spelling bee? Well, what is the solution to all this? Learn every major language in the world. But, not only that. Learn the language so well so that you will know the range of transliterations or of possible renderings of it into English. Then, maybe, will you be a really good speller/wordsmith. Until then, you just need to marvel at all the things that can be learned.

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