4 ms·

"Emperor" is a Latin title (through Old French). Whatever martial implorations might simply not exist in Japanese. English isn't the universal language, its se

by Bayart 5y ago

"Emperor" is a Latin title (through Old French). Whatever martial implorations might simply not exist in Japanese. English isn't the universal language, its semantics aren't enough to describe all of humanity's reality.

dustintrex 5y ago
天皇 is literally "heavenly king", and the full Japanese WW2 war cry was 天皇陛下万歳 Tennou heika banzai, "May the Emperor live ten thousand years". So yes, the implications are pretty martial, although the Emperors themselves don't sully themselves with actual fighting.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  Yeah, and “For king and country!” Is not? I’m not sure what you are trying to say. Obviously war cries are going to be, well, martial. I don’t see anyone shouting that now, and even if they did there wouldn’t be any martial connotations.
  - dustintrex 5y ago
    GP was suggesting that emperor/天皇 may not have martial connotations in Japan, I'm pointing out that it does. As a perhaps better example, Japan's official name is now the bland State of Japan 日本国, and the old Great Japanese Empire 大日本帝国 sounds positively jingoistic. And FWIW, it's not particularly hard to find fringe groups in Tokyo that proclaim their devotion to the Emperor from black vans equipped with loudspeakers.
- Bayart 5y ago
  >So yes, the implications are pretty martial The implications of these terms are spiritual, cosmogonic and social. I don't see what's martial about calling the big guy heavenly king or to wish "ten thousand years", all the more so that the later is a Chinese stock phrase and Japan imported their governance model part and parcel. If the Australian army went to war at the cries of "Vegemite or death !", would you say Vegemite has martial implications ?
denton-scratch 5y ago
"Emperor" is an English word, referring to the ruler of an empire. It is derived from the Latin title "imperator" (meaning commander; same root as the word "imperative"). The Old French connection is interesting - thanks. I guess most English words derived from Latin arrived via Old French. But this doesn't shed any light on why the Japanese Emperor is called an emperor in English. He's called an emperor because he rules an empire. As I understand it, the emperor of Japan ruled over a number of subordinate, regional rulers, right up until the late 19th C. I understand "emperor" to mean a person who rules over kings, which is what the Emperor of Japan did. Why do I need to get involved with Japanese semantics, when the word we are discussing is an English word, being used correctly to refer to a ruler over kings? So if we're speaking of a ruler over kings, how's that different from the Emperor Napoleon, or the Empress of India? Ruling over kings implies dominating the armies of those kings (a king with no army is known as an "exile"). You can't maintain an empire without at least threatening martial force. Nearly all emperors have been fighting men - either to establish the empire, or to maintain it. Emperors with no army get deposed, or the empire disintegrates.
- numpad0 5y ago
  I had to look up when did the Japanese monarchy lost its own military capacity - it was the aftermath of Jōkyū Disturbance(1221). Kamakura shogunate defeated force of a retired emperor and began disarming the Kyoto royal court(government). Since then, and through Meiji Restoration(1867) that transferred shogunate control back to Kyoto then to Meiji Government in Tokyo City, the pre-modern formal government in Kyoto remained a puppet of military shogunates and later democratic governments. "The emperor of Japan ruled over a number of subordinate" is technically correct but it's mere matter of formality, or it could be said that formality had been their point of existence for along time. They've been out of the game for long time, not even around invention of gunpowder, but around the emergence of curved Japanese swords.
  - denton-scratch 5y ago
    Thank you for this; I think I will look-up some Japanese history tomorrow (so far, I've been pulling factoids out of my fundamental orifice, a practice that HNers will reliably pull me up on).

by Bayart 5y ago

dustintrex 5y ago

天皇 is literally "heavenly king", and the full Japanese WW2 war cry was 天皇陛下万歳 Tennou heika banzai, "May the Emperor live ten thousand years". So yes, the implications are pretty martial, although the Emperors themselves don't sully themselves with actual fighting.

Aeolun 5y ago
Yeah, and “For king and country!” Is not? I’m not sure what you are trying to say. Obviously war cries are going to be, well, martial. I don’t see anyone shouting that now, and even if they did there wouldn’t be any martial connotations.
- dustintrex 5y ago
  GP was suggesting that emperor/天皇 may not have martial connotations in Japan, I'm pointing out that it does. As a perhaps better example, Japan's official name is now the bland State of Japan 日本国, and the old Great Japanese Empire 大日本帝国 sounds positively jingoistic. And FWIW, it's not particularly hard to find fringe groups in Tokyo that proclaim their devotion to the Emperor from black vans equipped with loudspeakers.
Bayart 5y ago
>So yes, the implications are pretty martial The implications of these terms are spiritual, cosmogonic and social. I don't see what's martial about calling the big guy heavenly king or to wish "ten thousand years", all the more so that the later is a Chinese stock phrase and Japan imported their governance model part and parcel. If the Australian army went to war at the cries of "Vegemite or death !", would you say Vegemite has martial implications ?

denton-scratch 5y ago

"Emperor" is an English word, referring to the ruler of an empire. It is derived from the Latin title "imperator" (meaning commander; same root as the word "imperative"). The Old French connection is interesting - thanks. I guess most English words derived from Latin arrived via Old French. But this doesn't shed any light on why the Japanese Emperor is called an emperor in English. He's called an emperor because he rules an empire. As I understand it, the emperor of Japan ruled over a number of subordinate, regional rulers, right up until the late 19th C. I understand "emperor" to mean a person who rules over kings, which is what the Emperor of Japan did. Why do I need to get involved with Japanese semantics, when the word we are discussing is an English word, being used correctly to refer to a ruler over kings? So if we're speaking of a ruler over kings, how's that different from the Emperor Napoleon, or the Empress of India? Ruling over kings implies dominating the armies of those kings (a king with no army is known as an "exile"). You can't maintain an empire without at least threatening martial force. Nearly all emperors have been fighting men - either to establish the empire, or to maintain it. Emperors with no army get deposed, or the empire disintegrates.

numpad0 5y ago
I had to look up when did the Japanese monarchy lost its own military capacity - it was the aftermath of Jōkyū Disturbance(1221). Kamakura shogunate defeated force of a retired emperor and began disarming the Kyoto royal court(government). Since then, and through Meiji Restoration(1867) that transferred shogunate control back to Kyoto then to Meiji Government in Tokyo City, the pre-modern formal government in Kyoto remained a puppet of military shogunates and later democratic governments. "The emperor of Japan ruled over a number of subordinate" is technically correct but it's mere matter of formality, or it could be said that formality had been their point of existence for along time. They've been out of the game for long time, not even around invention of gunpowder, but around the emergence of curved Japanese swords.
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  Thank you for this; I think I will look-up some Japanese history tomorrow (so far, I've been pulling factoids out of my fundamental orifice, a practice that HNers will reliably pull me up on).