Possibilities from Ato to Zen: Part 1 of 4
Friday, July 6th, 2007
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In Urdu (the national language of Pakistan), the word kal means both “yesterday” and “tomorrow.” Context determines the intended meaning. In a similar way, the meaning of 後 slip-slides from compound to compound, as we can somewhat grasp from its assorted yomi:
GO, nochi: after, later
KŌ, ushi(ro): behind
ato: afterward, subsequent, later, back, rear, remainder, retro-
oku(reru): to be late, to lag behind, to fall back
I say “somewhat” because in one sense, all the definitions look like close cousins. But from another perspective, that’s not necessarily so.
Concepts of “after” and “behind” can be tricky in both Japanese and English. To explore this, let’s think of those words in a spatial sense first.
If someone is walking more slowly than you, you can say in English that he’s “behind” you, that he’s walking “after” you, or that he’s “in back.” No difference.
In Japanese, too, 後 can indicate that something or someone is bringing up the rear, as in these words:
| 後ろ (ushiro: rear) | rear |
| 後進 (kōshin: coming along behind, one’s juniors, one’s successors) |
behind + to proceed |
| 後車 (kōsha: rear car) | rear + car |
| 後部 (kōbu: back part, rear, stern) | rear + part |
But if you shift to a temporal focus, some fuzziness creeps into both languages. In English, if someone says, “Let’s move the deadline back,” it’s unclear whether the new deadline is earlier or later than the old one.
Let’s see how it is in Japanese—specifically, in terms of 後—by considering these words:
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Posted by Eve Kushner in Kanji Curiosity | 2 Comments »
