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and 〔David Blake Willis and Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu: (''Transcultural Japan: At the Borderlands of Race, Gender and Identity,'' ), p. 272: "“Wajin,” which is written with Chinese characters that can also be read “Yamato no hito” (Yamato person)".〕 are names for the dominant native ethnic group of Japan. It is a term that came to be used around the late 19th century to distinguish the settlers of mainland Japan from other minority ethnic groups who have settled the peripheral areas of Japan, such as the Ainu, Ryukyuans, Nivkh, Oroks, as well as Koreans, Taiwanese, and Taiwanese aborigines who were incorporated into the Empire of Japan in the early 20th century. The name was applied to the Imperial House of Japan or "Yamato Court" that existed in Japan in the 4th century, and was originally the name of the region where the Yamato people first settled in Yamato Province (modern-day Nara Prefecture). Generations of Japanese historians, linguists, and archeologists have debated whether the word is related to the earlier . The Yamato clan set up Japan's first and only dynasty. ==Etymology== ''Wo'' or ''Yamato'' were the names early China used to refer to an ethnic group living in Japan around the time of the Three Kingdoms Period. Chinese, Korean, and Japanese scribes regularly wrote ''Wa'' or ''Yamato'' with one and the same Chinese character 倭 until the 8th century, when the Japanese found fault with it, replacing it with 和 "harmony, peace, balance". Retroactively, this character was adopted in Japan to refer to the country itself, often combined with the character 大, literally meaning "Great", similar to Great Britain, so as to write the preexisting name ''Yamato'' (大和) (e.g., such as 大清帝國 “Great Qing Empire”, 大英帝國 “Greater British Empire”). The pronunciation ''Yamato'' cannot be formed from the sounds of its constituent characters; it is speculated to originally refer to a place in Japan meaning "Mountain Gate" (山戸). The historical province of Yamato (now Nara Prefecture in central Honshu) borders Yamashiro Province (now the southern part of Kyōto Prefecture), whose name is likewise etymologically obscure; however, the names of both provinces appear to contain the Japonic etymon ''yama'', usually meaning "mountain(s)" (but sometimes having a meaning closer to "forest," especially in some Ryukyuan languages). Some other pairs of historical provinces of Japan exhibit similar sharing of one etymological element, such as Kazusa (< *''Kami-tu-Fusa'', "Upper Fusa") and Shimōsa (< *''Simo-Fusa'', "Lower Fusa") or Kōzuke (< *''Kami-tu-Ke'', "Upper Ke") and Shimotsuke (< *''Simo-tu-Ke'', "Lower Ke"). In these latter cases, the pairs of provinces with similar names are thought to have been created through the subdivision of an earlier single province in prehistoric or protohistoric times. Although the etymological origins of Wa remain uncertain, Chinese historical texts recorded an ancient people residing in the Japanese archipelago, named something like *ʼWâ or *ʼWər 倭. Carr (1992:9–10) surveys prevalent proposals for Wa's etymology ranging from feasible (transcribing Japanese first-person pronouns ''waga'' 我が "my; our" and ''ware'' 我 "I; we; oneself") to shameful (writing Japanese ''Wa'' as 倭 implying "dwarf"), and summarizes interpretations for *ʼWâ "Japanese" into variations on two etymologies: "behaviorally 'submissive' or physically 'short'." The first "submissive; obedient" explanation began with the (121 CE) Shuowen Jiezi dictionary. It defines 倭 as ''shùnmào'' 順皃 "obedient/submissive/docile appearance", graphically explains the "person; human' radical with a ''wěi'' 委 "bent" phonetic, and quotes the above Shi Jing poem. "Conceivably, when Chinese first met Japanese," Carr (1992:9) suggests "they transcribed Wa as *ʼWâ 'bent back' signifying 'compliant' bowing/obeisance. Bowing is noted in early historical references to Japan." Examples include "Respect is shown by squatting" (Hou Han Shu, tr. Tsunoda 1951:2), and "they either squat or kneel, with both hands on the ground. This is the way they show respect." (Wei Zhi, tr. Tsunoda 1951:13). Koji Nakayama interprets ''wēi'' 逶 "winding" as "very far away" and euphemistically translates ''Wō'' 倭 as "separated from the continent." The second etymology of ''wō'' 倭 meaning "dwarf (variety of an animal or plant species), midget, little people" has possible cognates in ''ǎi'' 矮 "low, short (of stature)", ''wō'' 踒 "strain; sprain; bent legs", and ''wò'' 臥 "lie down; crouch; sit (animals and birds)". Early Chinese dynastic histories refer to a ''Zhūrúguó'' 侏儒國 "pygmy/dwarf country" located south of Japan, associated with possibly Okinawa Island or the Ryukyu Islands. Carr cites the historical precedence of construing Wa as "submissive people" and the "Country of Dwarfs" legend as evidence that the "little people" etymology was a secondary development. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Yamato people」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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