Boundaries and the Spaces They Define: Part 2
Friday, August 8th, 2008
| Quick Links Welcome to Kanji Curiosity | The Basics | Glossary |
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.
|
“Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn. They teach you there’s a boundary line to music. But, man, there’s no boundary line to art.” —Charlie Parker (1920–1955), U.S. jazz musician |
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
Posted by Eve Kushner in Kanji Curiosity | 5 Comments »
