Crap, I'm still up
Sep. 28th, 2005 01:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
omorkaThis is a problem. However, I've been lying in bed for an hour and not getting any sleepier. So rather than ruminate incessantly lying down, I'll try spilling it here and see if that helps.
So a while back, I was having a minor bout of confusion over the fact that the Japanese word for "angel," tenshi, is not an English loanword. Are there native winged-beings in Japanese mythology? Does the term predate the advent of Christianity in Japan? If the answer to the latter two questions is "no," where does the term come from? It doesn't seem to be related to "messenger," the original root meaning of "angel."
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memeslayer, wileras, or anyone else who knows more Japanese than I do - what are the kanji for tenshi? And does the Chinese "Tien Shi," which apparently means something like "heavenly teacher," possibly have any relationship? I'm intrigued by the idea that it might be a loanword from Chinese, but I have no idea how to go about testing this hypothesis.
No, I have no idea why I'm obsessed with this word . . .
So a while back, I was having a minor bout of confusion over the fact that the Japanese word for "angel," tenshi, is not an English loanword. Are there native winged-beings in Japanese mythology? Does the term predate the advent of Christianity in Japan? If the answer to the latter two questions is "no," where does the term come from? It doesn't seem to be related to "messenger," the original root meaning of "angel."
memeslayer, wileras, or anyone else who knows more Japanese than I do - what are the kanji for tenshi? And does the Chinese "Tien Shi," which apparently means something like "heavenly teacher," possibly have any relationship? I'm intrigued by the idea that it might be a loanword from Chinese, but I have no idea how to go about testing this hypothesis.No, I have no idea why I'm obsessed with this word . . .
