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Sometimes it’s wonderful to find that the Japanese (or the Chinese before them) have coined a word for concepts that don’t exist in English. But occasionally I have the opposite feeling, as with this compound:

脱輪 (datsurin: wheel going off the road, usually into a ditch; wheel flying off its axle)     to take off + wheel

Why did they need to coin a word for these disasters? How often do they happen in Japan?!

Last week we investigated the way 輪 (RIN, wa) can mean “ring, circle, loop.” Now we’ll look at its other meanings, starting with “wheel.”

輪 as Representing a Wheel …

Wheel Power

At the link, you’ll find sentences in which 輪 means “wheel.”

Free-Wheeling Sentences with 輪 …

Here’s my favorite sentence of that type:

一輪車は車輪がーつしかありません。
Ichirinsha wa sharin ga hitotsu shika arimasen.
A unicycle has only one wheel.

Breakdown of the Kanji …

This sentence seems to contain its own inverse! If you take just 輪車は車輪, you find a palindrome! And if you remove hiragana from the sentence, you can find an even longer palindrome: 一輪車車輪ー. How cool is that?!

But … back to reality. The first compound is actually 一輪車 (ichirinsha), rather than 輪車. The word 一輪車 can mean either “unicycle” or “wheelbarrow”! I wonder what kind of confusion that causes. There’s a big difference between a unicycle race and a wheelbarrow race!

If that flusters you, here’s a nice bit of logic:

輪止め (wadome: brakes; wheel stops, wedges, blocks, parking curbs)     wheel + to stop

You can’t ask for much more clarity of thought. Brakes stop wheels!
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Last week we encountered this fun compound:

花環 (hanawa: wreath, garland)     flower + circle

The following version is actually much more common:

花輪 (hanawa: wreath, garland)     flower + circle

The second kanji has changed, but everything else remains the same: the yomi of hanawa, the meaning of “wreath, garland,” and the flower + circle breakdown.

Although 環 and 輪 look very different, both have the kun-yomi of wa, and both can mean “ring.” These similarities make them something like dead ringers!

Another Hanawa …

However, they’re not exactly alike. As we saw, 環 (KAN, wa) can have two meanings:

1. ring, circle, loop
2. to surround, encircle; around

Meanwhile, 輪 (RIN, wa) has the following meanings:

1. wheel, with the related meaning of “wheeled vehicle”
2. ring, circle, loop
3. periphery, outline

Originally, 輪 meant “wheel,” so it would make sense for us to investigate that side of this kanji’s personality first. But since we’re coming straight from a discussion of 環 as “ring, circle, loop,” let’s look at the same qualities in 輪 today, saving the free-wheeling parts of 輪 for next week. We’ll examine the “periphery, outline” meaning then, too.

Sample Sentences with 輪 as “Ring, Circle, Loop” …

Wa Wa Wa

It’s easy to remember the on-yomi of 輪 because RIN sounds like “ring”! But compounds in which 輪 means “ring” seem to feature the on-yomi only about half the time. Otherwise, the reading is the kun-yomi wa, as in a word you may already know:

指輪 (yubiwa: ring (worn on finger))     finger + ring

For More Body Parts Decorated with 輪 …

Here’s another fun wa word:

輪ゴム (wagomu: rubberband)     ring + rubber

What do you get if you turn a rubberband inside out? The inverse, ゴム輪, can still mean “rubberband,” but your inversion can also change the rubberband into a rubber tire!

ゴム輪 (gomuwa: rubber tire)     rubber + wheel

This has become an uncommon way to refer to tires, as they’re all made of rubber nowadays (rather than wood or iron, as in the past).

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Well, a promise is a promise. I told you that no matter how much 環 intimidated me, especially in the context of 環境 (kankyō: environment, situation), I would eventually return to this wild beast of a kanji and tame it.

Fortunately, 環 is not a bad-looking character. Let’s have a better look:

環

The radical, 王, is symmetrical, if slightly cramped and warped now that it’s been pushed off to the left. On the right-hand side, the top part makes a strong geometric statement, like a row of small windows. The 一 … well, who can find anything wrong with a horizontal line? And as for the bottom part, the only thing that bothers me is a tiny stroke that throws off the balance. If not for that one stroke, this component would be symmetrical, and the whole character would have nothing but local symmetries. But I’ll just think of that stroke as a freckle or a birthmark—something I should be able to overlook.

Henshall, of course, approaches these components with an eye to meaning, rather than beauty.

Henshall on the Etymology of 環 …

You’re Surrounded!

When we first saw 環境, I said the breakdown was to surround + situation. As an astute reader has since noted, Yahoo’s dictionary breaks down this compound as to surround + region with a clear boundary. Anyway, 環 can have two meanings:

1. ring, circle, loop
2. to surround, encircle; around

As “surround,” 環 doesn’t seem to involve itself in terribly interesting words. The only two I could find were these:
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Hey, it’s 08/08/08. Whether you come from a country where they put the year first, the month first, or the day first, it’s 08/08/08. (That is, unless you’re reading this in Japan, in which case it’s probably at least the 9th.)

How perfect that is for today’s discussion about boundaries! The shapes of both 0 and 8 enclose spaces, so these digits constitute boundaries of a sort. (A stupid joke comes to mind. What did the 0 say to the 8? The answer: “Hey, nice belt.” OK, you didn’t hear that from me.)

Last week, we looked at 境 (KYŌ, KEI, sakai), which can mean “boundary.” In the words we saw, 境 tended to refer to skinny lines dividing two entities. For instance, we ran across these garden-variety words for “boundary”:

境界 (kyōkai: boundary, border)     boundary + boundary

The second kanji appears in 世界 (sekai: world, world + world). An embellished version of 境界 is 境界線 (kyōkaisen: boundary line), where 線 means line.

境目 (sakaime: border, boundary line)     boundary + dividing line

Sometimes a boundary doesn’t bisect a space but rather encloses it. Think of a fence around a corral. Think of a ring around a rosy. (What’s a rosy? Oh, dear, I’ve found one theory, and it’s not good. But the explanatory text unexpectedly contains Japanese!) Such a boundary is probably much less important than the space it defines. That’s the sense with this word:

境内 (keidai: compound, grounds)     boundary + inside

Spahn says this refers to the grounds of a temple or shrine.

Strangely, the next word goes both ways. It can mean either “boundary” and “grounds,” but I doubt it refers to both at the same time:

境域 (kyōiki: boundary, border, precincts, grounds)
     boundary + region

Where Have I Seen 域? …

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In the last blog, we encountered the following words:

順境 (junkyō: favorable circumstances, prosperity)
     favorable + situation

環境 (kankyō: environment, situation)
     to surround + situation

Clearly, 境 (KYŌ, KEI, sakai: boundary, situation) is clamoring for a closer look. For starters, it might help to crank up the size:

境

Taken alone, 境 strikes me as a cute, perky kanji—perhaps a distant cousin of 意 (I: will, heart, mind). Given that 境 breaks down into recognizable, simple components (土, 立, 日, and 儿), it’s not at all unfriendly.

On the Etymology of 境 …

But when it appears in 環境, I feel nearly blinded by the profusion of small lines going every which way. I can never seem to recognize this daunting compound. However, it is an important word, one that I hear from time to time.

Sample Sentences with 環境 …

The Appeal of Boundaries

So it’s time to tame this beast! Once we develop a solid level of familiarity with these two characters and even an affectionate relationship with them, everything will change. We’ll take on 境 first, examining 環 in later blogs.

It’s actually quite easy to love 境. Its original meaning is “boundary,” and I find the idea of boundaries intriguing. Sometimes the thinnest of boundaries separates two massive and powerful entities. Think of human skin: all that it keeps in, and all that it keeps out. Think of a building and how its exterior wall (also called skin) shields us from whipping winds and lashing rainstorms. Think of the border between China and Russia. (They do share a border, right? Please tell me I didn’t just pull a McCain.)

Photo Credit: © Claudia Hering

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