As I continue to pick up new Japanese vocab from day to day, despite the fact I'm going home in just over a week and took my Japanese final today (so I'm completely done with the class), there are many times where I realize the literal meaning of words and phrases and it just fills me absolute joy and love for my chosen target language.
There are many examples of this, but I wanted to cover a few here that really stand out to me.
One of the big ones is the word for "future," 未来 (mirai). The kanji show us that this word literally means, "that which has not yet come," which for some reason really makes me happy to think about. I mean, yeah, that's a pretty good basic summary of exactly what the future is, but for some reason it just seems to have such a positive and hopeful feeling to it, in my opinion.
Something else that I find fascinating is the way the concepts of liking and loving friends/family/objects differ from English, too. In Japanese, when you like/love something, it's not actually an act you're carrying out, but a state of being you apply to the direct object. (In other words, it's not a verb, it's an adjective.) When you say you like something, what you're actually saying is "This thing is liked." "This thing is loved." It isn't something that you do. It's a state of being that you apply to that person or thing. They exist in a state of being liked or loved.
In contrast, the emotion of deep love (both romantic or just deep devotion) is actually a verb that literally means "to do love" in the same sense you "do homework" or "do" any other action. It's an action that you're consciously doing--and sure enough, the verb tense you use when you tell someone you love them is the present participle-equivalent tense. You don't say "I do love you" (in the sense of only doing it on occasion) or "I will love you," you say "I am doing love of you." "I am in a state of actively performing the act of loving you." That, to me, is also incredibly beautiful.
Something that also enchants me is how often you find words that have equivalent or nearly-equivalent meanings to their English counterparts despite having been in the language since basically forever. Obviously, since humans use language to communicate and there are standard human-experience things that need to be communicated regardless of where or when you are, this is going to happen, but it's still interesting to me whenever I notice places where it does happen. There's a word for "but," a word for "however," a particle that works sort of like saying "even though" in the middle of sentence. You could argue that only one would really be needed, but they're all there. And I find that really cool.
Another one of the aspects of the Japanese language/cultural thought that I've noticed and absolutely adore with all my heart is the names of the different bullet train services. The slowest bullet train service is the Kodama, which means "spirit(s)." Since, typically, live spirits can only move at the speed of the bodies carrying them (and dead spirits that are still around in legends and such are usually tethered to just one place), this makes sense. The second slowest is the Sakura, or "cherry blossom(s)." Cherry blossoms really don't move that quickly when they fall from trees, so this also makes sense.
But the kicker, for me, at least, is with the two fastest services. The second fastest bullet train service is the Hikari, which means "light." We all know that theoretically, light is the absolute fastest thing in the universe. So what could possibly move faster than light? What goes so quickly that it's relegated light to second place?
The answer is, to me at least, shockingly beautiful. The fastest bullet train service is the Nozomi--"Hope." In the Japanese estimation, Hope is the only thing that travels even faster than light. And if that isn't one of the most beautiful thoughts you've heard all day, then I don't know what to tell you.
So yeah. Words are beautiful and amazing and intricate and incredible and I love and treasure and adore them more than I could ever find ways to honestly express in any language, though Japanese comes close.
単語が愛しています。Tango ga aishiteimasu. I am actively performing the act of loving words.
Man, I really wish I didn't have to leave.
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