In Pokémon Gold and Silver the town you start in was originally going to be called Silent Hill. They changed it to New Bark Town because they thought Silent Hill would be too scary for young kids
Some corrections: - Aomori does literally mean ‘blue forest’, but in old Japanese (and still in some circumstances today), ‘blue’ meant ‘green’, especially the lush verdant green of plants and forests. So it really means ‘green forest’. - ‘Hokkaido’ may be rooted in Ainu language, but the name and its meaning was decided by the Meiji government. Swapping the first two characters to make it ‘Kaihokudo’ was also an idea floated. - The kanji for ‘Saitama’ seems to be arbitrary, with the ‘sai’ formerly being a different character read ‘saki’, meaning ‘good luck’. The ‘tama’ refers to the ancient magatama jewellery, which is depicted on the Saitama flag. - ‘Tokyo’ and ‘Kyoto’ are not inverse of each other, as written more accurately they are ‘Toukyou’ and ‘Kyouto’. The ‘to’ of Tokyo is long, while the one of Kyoto is short, and these differences matter in Japanese. - The ‘waka’ of ‘Wakayama’ doesn’t just mean ‘serene poetry’, but refers to a specific type of Japanese poetry called ‘waka’. ‘Wa’ can mean ‘serene’, but it can also mean ‘Japan; Japanese’.
Thanks, I was about to make that point - the Japanese word "midori" for green is a very recent usage. My understanding is that historically there weren't separate words for blue and green. As someone else mentioned, green traffic lights in Japan are the bluest shade of green that they could achieve, and when the light goes green, the Japanese say that it goes "ao" which we interpret as "blue" but actually includes both blue and green. I can't comprehend why the Japanese didn't have different words for the blue of the sky and the green of trees or fresh growing rice paddies, but apparently it's not the only case of language colour blindness in the world. Maybe there was a high rate of blue-green colour-blindness in Japan in the past?
@@theharper1 In Celtic languages there is some variation of a word “glas” which includes the colors of green in nature and blue in the ocean and sky, even sometimes grey is used with the word. So this makes me think there is no such thing as the color-blindness you are thinking. Gwyrdh is the word used for unnatural greens in the Cornish language, which is related to welsh.
@@wotislife2410 interesting! I wasn't entirely serious about population level colour blindness; it's unlikely although I'd be curious to know what the frequency of colour blindness is in China, where Japan inherited it's written language from.
Actually most of the video is totally wrong and the author did no research beyond looking at the meanings of the kanji. Wakayama doesn't come from 和歌, those are just the characters assigned to a name that already existed. Shizuoka doesn't mean "silent hill", the name is taken from a mountain called 賤機山 (Shizuhatayama). Notice how the kanji 静 isn't part of it. It's ateji. There are many many errors like this in the video.
14:50 Just an fyi that the words "Tokyo" and "Kyoto" are only inverts of each other in English, as the "To" in Tokyo (東) is pronounced with a long vowel sound "tō(とう)", whereas the "To" in Kyoto (都) is pronouced with a short vowel sound "to(と)"
@@matercan5649 And Tokyo Metropolis is 東京都, in which case the 都 means metropolis. Funnily both 京 and 都 can mean capital, so you could also read Kyoto as Capital Capital.
It may also be of intererst to note that, over in China, Beijing 北京 means 'northern capital' and Nanjing 南京 means 'southern capital'. Even though the pronunciation is completely different, the same kanji 京 has the meaning of 'capital'.
Is important to notice that the full name of Tokyo in Japanese is Tokyo-to (東京都), Tokyo Metropolis in English. And Kyoto is 京都. So, the difference is just the addition of one kanji 東 that means east.
So by this, technically if Kyoto would become the capital again, it won't get a a title in Japanese such as Tokyo Prefecture being Tokyo-To, but just Kyoto as Kyoto's "To" is the "To" of Tokyo-To
@@philinator71It's a spelling error caused by the inability to express Japanese long vowels in English; it might be better to write Tou-kyou (Eastern capital) and Kyou-to (Capital Metropolis).
I would like to add that at the time when "Aomori" was named, and still today to an extent, "Ao" doesn't ONLY mean blue, but "cool colored". This is why green traffic lights in Japan are to this day called "Ao lights", "Blue lights", even though they are clearly green.
The Japanese only began to use the word "green" (緑, spells as midori) as a distinct color after the WW2. Until now some Japanese still use ao for both green and blue. I learned this after I saw a grocery store having blue apple (青りんご) on sale lol
And also 海 (Kai, means sea) in 北海道 (Hokkaido) which is a euphemism of the 蝦夷 (Kai), a Sino-Japanese word for "Ezo", which is derived from the Nivkh word "Qoy" refers to Ainu people.
Ezo is a term for a region or people, not a derogatory term. I would like to know the nationality of the people who are perpetrating these lies. Are they British?
The term used to refer to the people from Eastern Japan, including Tokyo, and their self-designation is "Emishi." "Ezo" is a modern or scholarly reading of "Emishi." The origin of "Emishi" is unclear, but it is thought to have a positive connotation, as it was used as a name for aristocrats in the Kansai region, similar to the southern ethnic group "Hayato." In addition to this, the Ainu, who belong to the Okhotsk culture, lived in Hokkaido and referred to the region as "Ainu Mosiri." @@mbrusyda9437
I appreciate you making this video but I think it would have been nice to include the prefecture type. I noticed you wrote "Hokkaidō" (北海道) as "Hokkai" (北海). In Japanese, you cannot do that with Hokkaido. With the other prefectures, you can. Having said that, most prefectures are "ken" (県). Kyōto and Ōsaka are both "fu" (府) while Tōkyō is the only "to" (都). I wanna touch on this because Kyōto means "Capital Capital". Tōkyō is Eastern Capital. Tōkyō is not the inverse of Kyōto. Kyōto has to and Tōkyō has tō. Because of the prefecture name "to", however, it can be read as "Tōkyōto" (東京都), which literally means "Eastern Kyōto". That's a little fun fact that very few people know most likely
It’s important to note that many of these prefectures likely had their kanji changed to make their written names more “lucky”, but unfortunately at the cost of their names making full sense. 滋賀、奈良、神奈川 I believe are all examples of this.
Prefecture names and famous cities Hokkaido Region ・Hokkaido（Sapporo City, Hakodate City） Tohoku Region ・Aomori（Aomori City, Hatinohe City） ・Iwate （Morioka City, Oshu City） ・Akita（Akita City, Daisen City） ・Miyagi（Sendai City, Ishinomaki City） ・Yamagata（Yamagata City, Tsuruoka City） ・Fukushima（Fukushima City, Iwaki City, Koriyama City） Kanto region ・Ibaraki（Mito City, Tsukuba City） ・Totigi（Utsunomiya City, Nikko City） ・Gunnma（Maebashi City, Takasaki City） ・Saitama（Saitama City, Kumagaya City, Kawaguchi City, Kasukabe City） ・Chiba（Chiba City, Funabashi City, Urayasu City） ・Tokyo（23 wards of tokyo, Hachioji City, Machida City, Tama City） ・Kanagawa（Yokohama City, Kawasaki City, Sagamihara City, Yokosuka City） Chubu region 〇Koshinetsu region ・Niigata（Niigata City, Nagaoka City, Joetsu City） ・Nagano（Nagano City, Matsumoto City） ・Yamanasi（Kofu City, Kai City, Minami-Alps City） 〇Hokuriku region ・Toyama（Toyama City） ・Isikawa（Kanazawa City） ・Fukui（Fukui City） 〇Tokai region ・Shizuoka（Shizuoka City, Hamamatsu City） ・Aichi（Nagoya City, Toyota City, Okazaki City） ・Gifu（Gifu City, Shirakawa Village） ・Mie（Yokkaichi City, Tsu City, Suzuka City） Kansai Region（Kinki） ・Osaka（Osaka City, Sakai City, Higashiosaka City, Suita City） ・Kyoto（Kyoto City, Uji City, Maizuru City） ・Hyogo（Kobe City, Himeji City, Nishinomiya City, Amagasaki City） ・Shiga（Otsu City, Kusatsu City, Hikone City） ・Nara（Nara city, Totsukawa village） ・Wakayama（Wakayama City, Shirahama Town） Chugoku Region 〇Sanninn Region ・Tottori（Tottori City, Yonago City） ・Simane（Matsue City, Izumo City） 〇Sanyo Region ・Okayama（Okayama City, Kurashiki City） ・Hiroshima（Hiroshima City, Aki-Takata City） ・Yamaguchi（Yamaguchi City, Shimonoseki City） Shikoku Region ・Tokusima（Tokushima City） ・Kagawa（Takamatsu City） ・Ehime（Matsuyama City） ・Kouti（Kochi City） Kyushu Region ・Fukuoka（Fukuoka City, Kitakyushu City） ・Saga（Saga City, Karatsu City） ・Nagasaki（Nagasaki City, Sasebo City） ・Kumamoto（Kumamoto City, Yatsushiro City） ・Miyazaki（Miyazaki City, Miyakonojo City） ・Kagosima（Kagoshima City, Kirishima City） Okinawa（Naha city, Uruma city）
Did you know? The stunning city of Hiroshima gets its name from a fascinating natural phenomenon! The Ota River's sediment deposits formed a delta that looked like beautiful islands floating in the sea, giving rise to the name "Hiroshima." 🌊🏝 Isn't nature amazing? 🌟
I wonder where you got your information because the actual etymology of Kumamoto and many others are on the internet. Kumamoto used to be written 隈本 instead of 熊本, meaning "the base of a nook in the river" referring to the position of Kumamoto Castle in relation to Tsuboi River. Kato Kiyomasa changed the kanji character after his expeditions in Korea to make the name cooler, basically
Yes, most of the origins presented in this video are based on the extremely false assumption that the etymology of a place name is reflected in the kanji used to write it. I have no idea why he thought it was a good idea to post this video.
Kumamoto（熊本） was originally written as Kumamoto（隈本）, and there is a theory that Kiyomasa Kato disliked the kanji character “kuma（隈）” because it was made up of kozatohen（阝） + awe (畏＝おそれる), and decided to use “kuma（熊）". There are also various theories about the origin of the word “Kumamoto,” such as that it is an ancient word meaning “ku” (swamp or marsh) + “ma” (marshland under a cliff). I don't know if Kiyomasa Kato liked bears. lol I haven't seen all of them yet, but I was curious so I commented!
Aomori could also be 'green forest' because traditionally the color 'blue' as it means in English didn't exist on its own and Ao was more a mix of blue and green. You still see this when referencing stop lights, they say aoi instead of midori (which is the word for green).
Me!!! I can't wait to find my late wife and meet a random beautiful girl that really looks like my late wife. But i have to deal with a certain monsters. Especially that one monster with the silly pyramid on their hand!!
The 道 in 北海道 isn't part of the actual name, it's the administrative division: 都道府県. They all get translated as "prefecture" into English. What's odd is that while all other prefecture names need the 都・府・県 added to their names, Hokkaido's 道 ended up becoming part of its name while simultaneously functioning as the administrative division.
Puerto Rico please! 🇵🇷 The island is so small, so many people do not know that it is a US territory since the 50's and it would be a wonderful treat. Please!! I love your channel! ❤❤❤❤
Puerto Rico has been a colony of the US since 1898. It became a "commonwealth" in 1952. And yes it would be a treat to see a video about the municipalities.
そもそも同じ「prefecture」でも、「都」「道」「府」「県」で4種類に分類されることって知られているのかな？ 東京は「都」、大阪と京都は「府」だから、TokyoとKyotoは音の逆転とかではないんだけど… Did you know that Japanese prefectures are classified into "to", "dō", "fu", and "ken"? The correct names for Tokyo and Kyoto are Tokyo-to and Kyoto-fu.
That etimology of Saitama might make sense back then, because at the time the area which was the formerly know as Tokyo City (The current 23 wards) are actually the sea and thus making Saitama having a coast Keep in mind that prior to 1943, Tokyo was also a urban prefecture just like Kyoto and Osaka with the current 23 wards was originally Tokyo City (Tokyo-Shi) just like with Osaka and Kyoto both having Osaka City and Kyoto City If we count with the former Japanese empire territories prior to 1945, the provinces in current-day Korea are also counted as circuits, with the current Gyeonggi Province of Korea which was the then-Keijo Province (Keijo-do) being the largest. And also Taiwan was split into prefectures as well. The circuits in Korea and prefectures in Taiwan were kept after both got independence from Japan.
"Aomori" can also translated as "green forest" since the word "ao" can be translated as a color within the blue-green spectrum. It's one of the famous examples of languages that don't distinguish between blue and green colors. I think Tom Scott once discusse this phenomenon in one of his videos.
Great video! As someone who lives in Shikoku, I also wanted to just add a couple of fun things! The name “Shikoku” means four countries. In the past, the island of Shikoku was divided into four countries. One of these prefectures was called Iyo, which is modern day Ehime prefecture. There are still many reminders of this old name! Many stations are still called Iyo- and then the station name. There is even a local dialect here called “Iyo-ben”!
14:55 Tokyo is not just the inverse of Kyoto. As you even touched on in this video, the kanji and meaning of the names are different, though what wasn't touched on is that they would actually romanise differently too. If you were to faithfully write their names using romaji, they would be Kyouto (京都) and Toukyou (東京). Those extra "u"s are extremely important. They share the same Kyou (京, capital), but the 都 (to) in 京都 (kyoutou) is the part that means metropolis, city, or capital. It would be accurate to translate it as "capital capital", following a common language device in Japanese wherein a word or name takes two kanji of the same or similar meaning to make one word or name. The 東 (tou) of 東京 (Toukyou) means, quite simply, East. The full name means "east capital". This difference between 都 (to) and 東 (tou) is very important
The thing about names like Nara and Saga (奈良、佐賀) is they're ateji kanji, meaning the kanji were chosen for phonetics rather than meaning. I haven't directly researched it, but I think in the early time when Japan was adapting Chinese, for place names, they chose a large selection of characters. These became known as hentaigana (変体仮名) and selected of those characters evolved to become hiragana. If you look at an older map like the Kuniezu (国絵図) or Keichō Nihon sōzu (慶長日本総図), you'll find a large number of places with the same kanji and sounds matching them.
Nicely done. I'd like to see you do something similar with the Canadian provinces. Some of them are obvious like, Nova Scotta, while others may not be so obvious.
Even as a Japanese, many of these origins are new to me! I never really thought about what these names mean, great video👍 Just one pronunciation tip, “h” and “j” are pronounced in the English way, instead of “silent” or “h” respectively.
@@L17_8 - Did you hear about the Yakuza members who converted to Christianity? If not, you should look them up; they're super crazy but incredible stories.
The Japanese font displayed in this video is a Chinese font. Kanji characters came from China, but there are different written forms of Kanji characters that represent the same meaning. For example, if “font” were written as “fönt,” it would be readable, but it would feel strange.
A great one. I would like to add a note that to my understanding, Gifu was named by Oda Nobunaga himself when he took over the castle. It's name is refer to Chou Dynasty of ancient China, the originate of the dynasty is from 岐山. Your explanation is so close to that, but miss who is the great person, and why. Oda Nobunaga implied that he would start his regime from this place, just like the Chou Dynasty.
Overall, you read these names rather nicely. Sure, someone native or someone like Metatron might point at wrong things, but you did very nice. You only fumbled at longer names. Stuff like Tsutsui Sadatsugu. Shorter versions like Shima Sakon, you read just fine. Thank you for making this. UK version would be nice.
I'm just happy they incorporated the region of Kaga into Ishikawa prefecture as, in Spanish (and probably in Portuguese, you tell me), Kaga sounds like the word in Spanish for "take a shit!"
@@L17_8 He first had to exist, also please explain to me why a spanish/latin origin name was used for a african jew? I'll be waiting a long time while you think about why you worship a man clearly from eastern europe instead of the short dark skinned jewish man that your book of fables, that insisted he lived and died with no direct knowledge. Please answer those simple questions without I was told and it's in the book. Let see how that goes for you. Rome wrote the bibble you know? Yeah rome wrote it to control the people.. It seems to have worked don't cha know.
Hokkaido's name is Japanese in origin. It used to be called Ezo or Watarishima by the Japanese and only after the Restoration did it come to be called Hokkaido. The Ainu called the island "Aynu Mosir" (or "Ainu Moshiri" if you use the Japanese-influenced spelling), which means "land of the humans". As far as I know, "big" and "human" in the Ainu language are "poro" and "aynu/kur" respectively About Okinawa, the name probably comes from how the Okinawans called their own lands, since the first mention of a name for the southern islands is "Wokinaha", written with kanji different from the modern 沖縄. It's also called Uchinaa in Okinawan but written with the same kanji as in the Japanese language. Also, Okinawa refers only to the largest and most populous island, which is the origin of the prefecture's name
Nara is the name of the mountain that separated Nara and Kyoto. Kyoto was known as Yama-ushiro (山背), as in Yamashiro no Ooe no Ō (山背大兄王), that is the “rear of the mountain”. 😅
I teach English in Japan and one of my activities is a prefecture quiz. I give hints about prefectures including English meanings of prefecture and capital kanji. I was curious if any we had any differences. Saitama I found didn’t mean sacred jewel like the kanji suggests but my findings was land in the back of the wet land. I’m not entirely convinced it’s right. Most of them are the same. Some of yours were the same meaning just reworded to sound better.
Please check you facts. The Kanji combination for Kyoto is NOT the inward of Tokyo. While kyou 京 (meaning capital) is the same Kanji in both, the "To" in Tokyo is 東 (meaning East) and the "To" in Kyoto is 都 (meaning capital, same as 京).
Osaka came from the fact that it was supposed to be 小阪(kosaka) meaning small city, but the emperor there felt that since they were the capital second (before Tokyo, after Kyoto), they feel like they should be known as one of the capitals (lol) so they chose 大阪(Oosaka), meaning big city, instead.
2:00 I couldn’t help but laugh out loud (and every Greek with me)! Sakurada has a very different meaning in Greek, (separated in two words "σα κουράδα" and the "d" pronounced like a "th in this") namely, it means literally "like a turd" 😂 and figuratively it means a lazy person or a coward.
Ōsaka (大阪 - Oo-saka): 大 (Ō/Oo) - big/large 阪 (Saka) - hill/slope 大阪 - big hill/large slope Tōkyō (東京 - Toukyou): 東 (Tō/Tou) - east 京 (Kyō/Kyou) - capital 東京 - eastern capital Kyōto (京都 - Kyouto): 京 (Kyō/Kyou) - capital 都 (To, a short form reading of Toshi) - city (in the case of Tokyo, this Kanji also means metropolis; for example 東京都 - Tōkyō-to/Toukyou-to) 京都 - capital city
I have kind of a special question. I know that there are two dog breeds whose name are Akita Inu and Chiba Inu. Are those two dogs related to the prefectures ? Or doesn’t it have any specific link ? Thank you ! 🙂
Good pronunciation, just remember there aren’t soft consonants in Japanese so Gifu is pronounced Ghi-foo not ji-foo. And for Oita, while 分 does mean part, it also originally meant field so 大分 means big field more than big part
The places Gifu refers to are not legendary, but real locations in China. The mountain Qi (Gi) was the place of origin of the Zhou dynasty. Fu refers to Qufu, the city where Confucius was from.
The system definetly needs to be updated a bit, hokaido has a large land area and population then Shikoku but is one single administrative divison while shikoku is four
10:44 奈Na” has no meaning as a word❌ "奈Na" has meanings such as the fruit that grows on a large tree, abundance, elegance, strength, vitality, and life. There are various theories, but the word 奈Na in 奈良Nara has the meaning of tidying up plants and leveling fields.
If you’re going to do UK regions, I’d suggest doing the counties. Because there aren’t that many regions, and they’re all simple; like Southeast England.
The explanation is too literal... If you read the phonetic alphabets as they are, it's almost always different from the original meaning. Hokkaido, for example, was named as North based on the fact that Hokkaido is a "do"(states), meaning the Great Road, which was an ancient division of the Eastern world, and Shikoku was called Nankaido(South Ocean Road), Kyushu was called Saikaido(West Ocean Road), and Shiga to Shizuoka and Tokyo was called Tokaido(East Ocean Road). This is called Goki-shchido (five capital provincies and seven states) in ancient times and Goki-hachido (five capital provincies and eight states) in modern times.
Hate to say, but you've got it wrong. You are decoding kanji characters used for place names, but those names could go back to before installing the writing system. For example, "Gunma"(5:14) was originally called "Kuruma". Ancient officials chose somewhat similar sounding Chinese characters, 群(gun) and 馬(ma), but probably they are used only phonemically. I can't blame you because even most Japanese don't understand this.
You also need to remember that a lot of prefectures are named after a city within it, that's why the names are not 100% descriptive for the entire prefecture.
⚠️Why is Hokkaido(北海道) is NOT 県 [KEN] (=prefecture)? In the early Meiji Era(1869), Hokkaido was indeed Hokkai circuit (circuit = 道 [Do]). After some time, Hokkaido was divided into three prefectures (Hakodate, Sapporo, and Nemuro pref.) which caused confusion. Therefore, the government established a new Hokkaido Government Office(北海道庁) and merged those three prefectures into a local government called Hokkaido. At that time, the word Hokkaido(北海道), which originally included the kanji character for 道 [Do](= circuit) the administrative unit, became the place name. Therefore, unlike other prefectures, only Hokkaido is written in full as Hokkaido and not abbreviated as Hokkai. This is because there is no fatality named Hokkai.
Also, although Hokkaido is not a prefecture by law, it is not too much to say that there is no difference between Hokkaido and other prefectures. It is translated into English as "prefecture" because it has the same status as a prefecture, just with a different name.
Incidentally, Osaka and Kyoto are now specially called 府 [FU] (=prefecture). Because they are historically important cities. (東京都(Tokyo Metropolitan) used to be 東京府(Tokyo Prefecture) as well until 1943.) Osaka is a city of commerce, while Kyoto is historically important because it was the capital of Japan and home to the emperor for over 1000 years. However, 府 and 県 are completely equivalent. The 府 were only given the title of prefectures as honorary city titles.
The name Germany is older than the Germans themselves. It's first appearance is attested in Tacitus's book Germania in AD 98. Japan is derived from the Wu or Min Chinese pronunciation of the Kanji characters used for Nippon/Nihon. Imagine if the world used the Spanish name for the USA (De Los Estados Unidos de America): technically, it's correct even if not exactly correct.
Basically, each prefecture has a capital city, and special cases like Osaka/Kyoto/Tokyo can be technically thought of like Washington DC which is a zone for the city, except they have a say in their national elections unlike DC.
The Ryukyu Islands have been Okinawa Prefecture since the Ryukyu Kingdom was dismantled after coming under Japanese possession. It should be noted, however, that from 1945 to 1972 they had a different designation and government organization under the U.S. military occupation, and that the northern part is called the Amami Islands and belongs to Kagoshima Prefecture. As for the Kuril(Chishima=Thousand Islands) Islands, Russia occupies the entirety of the Kuril Islands, and although Japan claims that the four southern islands belong to Hokkaido, that claim is not internationally accepted and they are not included on maps.
@@Inunaki_Doraemon The Hoppo ryodo( the four southern islands) are an inherent part of Japan. They are internationally guaranteed by the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951. They are only effectively controlled by Russia. 北方領土は日本の固有の領土であり、ロシアが実効支配しているだけです。このことは国際的にも1951年のサンフランシスコ平和条約で保証されています。
![Noob To Max With DRAGON REWORK In Blox Fruits [FULL MOVIE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnBMOinoOvA/mqdefault.jpg)
*Which countries' region/province/state names should I do a video on next?*
Maybe something on Mexico's states name etymology
Poland, Czechia, Ukraine or something from Eastern Europe
Chinese or Korean provinces
Singapore
@@General.Knowledge Venezuela
Absolutely love the fact that Shizuoka literally means Silent Hill
In Pokémon Gold and Silver the town you start in was originally going to be called Silent Hill. They changed it to New Bark Town because they thought Silent Hill would be too scary for young kids
I live in Silent Hill！！
Shizuoka is famous for Mt.Fuji！
these names are so funny once translated.
It would be like if the next British horror franchise was 'Nottingham' or something
And this is where Silent Hill came from. The development team translated all prefectures into english then found the neat one.
Im japanese. We call silent hill 静岡(shizuoka) on the intenet.
Those Prefect flags are very iconic. Almost timeless designs.
Agreed, super cool!
Many of them use abstract designs based upon their Kanji characters.
@@petergray2712And their significant geographic aspects and others, too.
Some corrections:
- Aomori does literally mean ‘blue forest’, but in old Japanese (and still in some circumstances today), ‘blue’ meant ‘green’, especially the lush verdant green of plants and forests. So it really means ‘green forest’.
- ‘Hokkaido’ may be rooted in Ainu language, but the name and its meaning was decided by the Meiji government. Swapping the first two characters to make it ‘Kaihokudo’ was also an idea floated.
- The kanji for ‘Saitama’ seems to be arbitrary, with the ‘sai’ formerly being a different character read ‘saki’, meaning ‘good luck’. The ‘tama’ refers to the ancient magatama jewellery, which is depicted on the Saitama flag.
- ‘Tokyo’ and ‘Kyoto’ are not inverse of each other, as written more accurately they are ‘Toukyou’ and ‘Kyouto’. The ‘to’ of Tokyo is long, while the one of Kyoto is short, and these differences matter in Japanese.
- The ‘waka’ of ‘Wakayama’ doesn’t just mean ‘serene poetry’, but refers to a specific type of Japanese poetry called ‘waka’. ‘Wa’ can mean ‘serene’, but it can also mean ‘Japan; Japanese’.
Thanks, I was about to make that point - the Japanese word "midori" for green is a very recent usage. My understanding is that historically there weren't separate words for blue and green. As someone else mentioned, green traffic lights in Japan are the bluest shade of green that they could achieve, and when the light goes green, the Japanese say that it goes "ao" which we interpret as "blue" but actually includes both blue and green. I can't comprehend why the Japanese didn't have different words for the blue of the sky and the green of trees or fresh growing rice paddies, but apparently it's not the only case of language colour blindness in the world. Maybe there was a high rate of blue-green colour-blindness in Japan in the past?
@@theharper1 In Celtic languages there is some variation of a word “glas” which includes the colors of green in nature and blue in the ocean and sky, even sometimes grey is used with the word. So this makes me think there is no such thing as the color-blindness you are thinking. Gwyrdh is the word used for unnatural greens in the Cornish language, which is related to welsh.
@@wotislife2410 interesting! I wasn't entirely serious about population level colour blindness; it's unlikely although I'd be curious to know what the frequency of colour blindness is in China, where Japan inherited it's written language from.
Actually most of the video is totally wrong and the author did no research beyond looking at the meanings of the kanji. Wakayama doesn't come from 和歌, those are just the characters assigned to a name that already existed. Shizuoka doesn't mean "silent hill", the name is taken from a mountain called 賤機山 (Shizuhatayama). Notice how the kanji 静 isn't part of it. It's ateji. There are many many errors like this in the video.
14:50 Just an fyi that the words "Tokyo" and "Kyoto" are only inverts of each other in English, as the "To" in Tokyo (東) is pronounced with a long vowel sound "tō(とう)", whereas the "To" in Kyoto (都) is pronouced with a short vowel sound "to(と)"
but the 京 in both is the same, which both mean capital. 東京 means east capital and 京都 means capital town.
@@matercan5649 And Tokyo Metropolis is 東京都, in which case the 都 means metropolis. Funnily both 京 and 都 can mean capital, so you could also read Kyoto as Capital Capital.
@@KanpekiJanさらに面白いことに京都府の「府」も首都を意味するので、京都府をCapital Capital Capital と読むこともできます。
It may also be of intererst to note that, over in China, Beijing 北京 means 'northern capital' and Nanjing 南京 means 'southern capital'. Even though the pronunciation is completely different, the same kanji 京 has the meaning of 'capital'.
@@なり-e3vといえば、東京都府は「east capital capital capital」って読むことも出来るねw
Is important to notice that the full name of Tokyo in Japanese is Tokyo-to (東京都), Tokyo Metropolis in English. And Kyoto is 京都. So, the difference is just the addition of one kanji 東 that means east.
Thanks!
I find it interesting how Tokyo is just Kyoto but switched.
So by this, technically if Kyoto would become the capital again, it won't get a a title in Japanese such as Tokyo Prefecture being Tokyo-To, but just Kyoto as Kyoto's "To" is the "To" of Tokyo-To
@@philinator71that is only in english. In japanese the o sound on to in tokyo is long but in kyoto it is short
@@philinator71It's a spelling error caused by the inability to express Japanese long vowels in English; it might be better to write Tou-kyou (Eastern capital) and Kyou-to (Capital Metropolis).
I would like to add that at the time when "Aomori" was named, and still today to an extent, "Ao" doesn't ONLY mean blue, but "cool colored". This is why green traffic lights in Japan are to this day called "Ao lights", "Blue lights", even though they are clearly green.
Except that green traffic lights in Japan are a very blue shade of green, nothing like the bright lime green used in other countries. 🙂
The Japanese only began to use the word "green" (緑, spells as midori) as a distinct color after the WW2. Until now some Japanese still use ao for both green and blue. I learned this after I saw a grocery store having blue apple (青りんご) on sale lol
It can mean both blue and green
@@matzekatze7500 Yes, and that is because it is archaic and comes from a time before color complexity was necessary in daily speech.
Hokkaido’s original name was titled Ezo before the Japanese incorporated it into the Empire around 1870.
Ezo meant “land of barbarians”.
And also 海 (Kai, means sea) in 北海道 (Hokkaido) which is a euphemism of the 蝦夷 (Kai), a Sino-Japanese word for "Ezo", which is derived from the Nivkh word "Qoy" refers to Ainu people.
What do you mean by original? As in, the people originally living there called themselves barbarian?
Ezo is a term for a region or people, not a derogatory term. I would like to know the nationality of the people who are perpetrating these lies. Are they British?
The term used to refer to the people from Eastern Japan, including Tokyo, and their self-designation is "Emishi." "Ezo" is a modern or scholarly reading of "Emishi." The origin of "Emishi" is unclear, but it is thought to have a positive connotation, as it was used as a name for aristocrats in the Kansai region, similar to the southern ethnic group "Hayato."
In addition to this, the Ainu, who belong to the Okhotsk culture, lived in Hokkaido and referred to the region as "Ainu Mosiri."
@@mbrusyda9437
英語でデマを否定するコメント書くと自動削除されるから、日本語で書く。東京を含む東日本から北の人々を指す言葉、そして彼らの自称は 「エミシ 」である。 「エゾ」は「エミシ」の現代的な学術的読み方である。 「エミシ」の語源は不明だが、九州の民族「ハヤト」と同様、西国の貴族の名前としても使われていたことから、ポジティブなイメージがあると推察される。
以上は全て日本人の話だ。それとは別に、北海道にはオホーツクの民族であるアイヌもいる。彼らは北海道を「アイヌシモリ」と呼んでいた。
@@mbrusyda9437
I appreciate you making this video but I think it would have been nice to include the prefecture type. I noticed you wrote "Hokkaidō" (北海道) as "Hokkai" (北海). In Japanese, you cannot do that with Hokkaido. With the other prefectures, you can. Having said that, most prefectures are "ken" (県). Kyōto and Ōsaka are both "fu" (府) while Tōkyō is the only "to" (都). I wanna touch on this because Kyōto means "Capital Capital". Tōkyō is Eastern Capital. Tōkyō is not the inverse of Kyōto. Kyōto has to and Tōkyō has tō. Because of the prefecture name "to", however, it can be read as "Tōkyōto" (東京都), which literally means "Eastern Kyōto". That's a little fun fact that very few people know most likely
It’s important to note that many of these prefectures likely had their kanji changed to make their written names more “lucky”, but unfortunately at the cost of their names making full sense. 滋賀、奈良、神奈川 I believe are all examples of this.
Prefecture names and famous cities
Hokkaido Region
・Hokkaido（Sapporo City, Hakodate City）
Tohoku Region
・Aomori（Aomori City, Hatinohe City）
・Iwate （Morioka City, Oshu City）
・Akita（Akita City, Daisen City）
・Miyagi（Sendai City, Ishinomaki City）
・Yamagata（Yamagata City, Tsuruoka City）
・Fukushima（Fukushima City, Iwaki City, Koriyama City）
Kanto region
・Ibaraki（Mito City, Tsukuba City）
・Totigi（Utsunomiya City, Nikko City）
・Gunnma（Maebashi City, Takasaki City）
・Saitama（Saitama City, Kumagaya City, Kawaguchi City, Kasukabe City）
・Chiba（Chiba City, Funabashi City, Urayasu City）
・Tokyo（23 wards of tokyo, Hachioji City, Machida City, Tama City）
・Kanagawa（Yokohama City, Kawasaki City, Sagamihara City, Yokosuka City）
Chubu region
〇Koshinetsu region
・Niigata（Niigata City, Nagaoka City, Joetsu City）
・Nagano（Nagano City, Matsumoto City）
・Yamanasi（Kofu City, Kai City, Minami-Alps City）
〇Hokuriku region
・Toyama（Toyama City）
・Isikawa（Kanazawa City）
・Fukui（Fukui City）
〇Tokai region
・Shizuoka（Shizuoka City, Hamamatsu City）
・Aichi（Nagoya City, Toyota City, Okazaki City）
・Gifu（Gifu City, Shirakawa Village）
・Mie（Yokkaichi City, Tsu City, Suzuka City）
Kansai Region（Kinki）
・Osaka（Osaka City, Sakai City, Higashiosaka City, Suita City）
・Kyoto（Kyoto City, Uji City, Maizuru City）
・Hyogo（Kobe City, Himeji City, Nishinomiya City, Amagasaki City）
・Shiga（Otsu City, Kusatsu City, Hikone City）
・Nara（Nara city, Totsukawa village）
・Wakayama（Wakayama City, Shirahama Town）
Chugoku Region
〇Sanninn Region
・Tottori（Tottori City, Yonago City）
・Simane（Matsue City, Izumo City）
〇Sanyo Region
・Okayama（Okayama City, Kurashiki City）
・Hiroshima（Hiroshima City, Aki-Takata City）
・Yamaguchi（Yamaguchi City, Shimonoseki City）
Shikoku Region
・Tokusima（Tokushima City）
・Kagawa（Takamatsu City）
・Ehime（Matsuyama City）
・Kouti（Kochi City）
Kyushu Region
・Fukuoka（Fukuoka City, Kitakyushu City）
・Saga（Saga City, Karatsu City）
・Nagasaki（Nagasaki City, Sasebo City）
・Kumamoto（Kumamoto City, Yatsushiro City）
・Miyazaki（Miyazaki City, Miyakonojo City）
・Kagosima（Kagoshima City, Kirishima City）
Okinawa（Naha city, Uruma city）
Did you know? The stunning city of Hiroshima gets its name from a fascinating natural phenomenon! The Ota River's sediment deposits formed a delta that looked like beautiful islands floating in the sea, giving rise to the name "Hiroshima." 🌊🏝 Isn't nature amazing? 🌟
"Ah yes redesigning subdivision, the thing we hadn't do since the Heian era." - Emperor Meiji
Ah yes, a Sukuna reference, haven’t heard that since 2 hours ago
I think you did well with the pronunciations. I also like the provincial flags, they are all super cool. 😛
Thanks! I agree, the flags are incredible.
I wonder where you got your information because the actual etymology of Kumamoto and many others are on the internet. Kumamoto used to be written 隈本 instead of 熊本, meaning "the base of a nook in the river" referring to the position of Kumamoto Castle in relation to Tsuboi River. Kato Kiyomasa changed the kanji character after his expeditions in Korea to make the name cooler, basically
Yes, most of the origins presented in this video are based on the extremely false assumption that the etymology of a place name is reflected in the kanji used to write it. I have no idea why he thought it was a good idea to post this video.
Kumamoto（熊本） was originally written as Kumamoto（隈本）, and there is a theory that Kiyomasa Kato disliked the kanji character “kuma（隈）” because it was made up of kozatohen（阝） + awe (畏＝おそれる), and decided to use “kuma（熊）".
There are also various theories about the origin of the word “Kumamoto,” such as that it is an ancient word meaning “ku” (swamp or marsh) + “ma” (marshland under a cliff). I don't know if Kiyomasa Kato liked bears. lol
I haven't seen all of them yet, but I was curious so I commented!
Aomori could also be 'green forest' because traditionally the color 'blue' as it means in English didn't exist on its own and Ao was more a mix of blue and green. You still see this when referencing stop lights, they say aoi instead of midori (which is the word for green).
Excellent. graphics, history and research. Thank you
Some can say that Shizuoka means Silent Hill in English...
Anyone wants to go there?
me
Ilive in Shizuoka.
Shizuoka is famous for Mt.Fuji and green tea.
Shizuoka is a good place, so please visit it.
Me!!! I can't wait to find my late wife and meet a random beautiful girl that really looks like my late wife. But i have to deal with a certain monsters. Especially that one monster with the silly pyramid on their hand!!
To be specific Toyama has gold
The 道 in 北海道 isn't part of the actual name, it's the administrative division: 都道府県. They all get translated as "prefecture" into English. What's odd is that while all other prefecture names need the 都・府・県 added to their names, Hokkaido's 道 ended up becoming part of its name while simultaneously functioning as the administrative division.
I love these types of videos, I never see anyone else make them
I like that font you used
Thanks! I really like it too.
Puerto Rico please! 🇵🇷
The island is so small, so many people do not know that it is a US territory since the 50's and it would be a wonderful treat.
Please!!
I love your channel! ❤❤❤❤
Puerto Rico has been a colony of the US since 1898. It became a "commonwealth" in 1952. And yes it would be a treat to see a video about the municipalities.
Love how many of the flags are in the same simple style of design.
そもそも同じ「prefecture」でも、「都」「道」「府」「県」で4種類に分類されることって知られているのかな？
東京は「都」、大阪と京都は「府」だから、TokyoとKyotoは音の逆転とかではないんだけど…
Did you know that Japanese prefectures are classified into "to", "dō", "fu", and "ken"?
The correct names for Tokyo and Kyoto are Tokyo-to and Kyoto-fu.
That etimology of Saitama might make sense back then, because at the time the area which was the formerly know as Tokyo City (The current 23 wards) are actually the sea and thus making Saitama having a coast
Keep in mind that prior to 1943, Tokyo was also a urban prefecture just like Kyoto and Osaka with the current 23 wards was originally Tokyo City (Tokyo-Shi) just like with Osaka and Kyoto both having Osaka City and Kyoto City
If we count with the former Japanese empire territories prior to 1945, the provinces in current-day Korea are also counted as circuits, with the current Gyeonggi Province of Korea which was the then-Keijo Province (Keijo-do) being the largest. And also Taiwan was split into prefectures as well. The circuits in Korea and prefectures in Taiwan were kept after both got independence from Japan.
The name Saitama (originally Sakitama) means "happy soul. The kanji was later added as a phonetic alphabet.
4〜5世紀に建てられた「さきみたま神社」人を守り幸福を与える神様が由来とも言われています。幸御魂の魂は玉とも呼ばれ勾玉の工房跡も見つかっているので県章は16の勾玉を太陽のように円形に並べたマークになっています✨と県の広報誌に書いてありました😊
"Aomori" can also translated as "green forest" since the word "ao" can be translated as a color within the blue-green spectrum. It's one of the famous examples of languages that don't distinguish between blue and green colors. I think Tom Scott once discusse this phenomenon in one of his videos.
Great video! As someone who lives in Shikoku, I also wanted to just add a couple of fun things! The name “Shikoku” means four countries. In the past, the island of Shikoku was divided into four countries. One of these prefectures was called Iyo, which is modern day Ehime prefecture. There are still many reminders of this old name! Many stations are still called Iyo- and then the station name. There is even a local dialect here called “Iyo-ben”!
7:03, 岩手 could also mean someone that does rocks, or a hand of rocks
14:55 Tokyo is not just the inverse of Kyoto. As you even touched on in this video, the kanji and meaning of the names are different, though what wasn't touched on is that they would actually romanise differently too. If you were to faithfully write their names using romaji, they would be Kyouto (京都) and Toukyou (東京). Those extra "u"s are extremely important.
They share the same Kyou (京, capital), but the 都 (to) in 京都 (kyoutou) is the part that means metropolis, city, or capital. It would be accurate to translate it as "capital capital", following a common language device in Japanese wherein a word or name takes two kanji of the same or similar meaning to make one word or name.
The 東 (tou) of 東京 (Toukyou) means, quite simply, East. The full name means "east capital". This difference between 都 (to) and 東 (tou) is very important
2:41 I’ve always loved Aomori. The flag, the shape of the prefecture. And the Kanji for Aomori 青森
The thing about names like Nara and Saga (奈良、佐賀) is they're ateji kanji, meaning the kanji were chosen for phonetics rather than meaning. I haven't directly researched it, but I think in the early time when Japan was adapting Chinese, for place names, they chose a large selection of characters. These became known as hentaigana (変体仮名) and selected of those characters evolved to become hiragana.
If you look at an older map like the Kuniezu (国絵図) or Keichō Nihon sōzu (慶長日本総図), you'll find a large number of places with the same kanji and sounds matching them.
Nicely done. I'd like to see you do something similar with the Canadian provinces. Some of them are obvious like, Nova Scotta, while others may not be so obvious.
Your japanese pronunciation was actually very good!
When explaining Hokkaido, the last character in its name was missing, the correct name is 北海道
Even as a Japanese, many of these origins are new to me! I never really thought about what these names mean, great video👍
Just one pronunciation tip, “h” and “j” are pronounced in the English way, instead of “silent” or “h” respectively.
Your pronunciation is good, man.
I'm in that one minute family 🎉
Jesus loves you ❤️
Nor the sponsor is stopped when RUclips premium is on
I was literally watching a video about the empire of Japan and this came up😂😂😂😂
Jesus loves you so soooo much ❤️
I was also researching Japan for the first time recently, so YT has kept track of our interests very well, LOL!
@@L17_8 - Did you hear about the Yakuza members who converted to Christianity? If not, you should look them up; they're super crazy but incredible stories.
Very interesting video. Congrats
The Japanese font displayed in this video is a Chinese font.
Kanji characters came from China, but there are different written forms of Kanji characters that represent the same meaning.
For example, if “font” were written as “fönt,” it would be readable, but it would feel strange.
A great one. I would like to add a note that to my understanding, Gifu was named by Oda Nobunaga himself when he took over the castle. It's name is refer to Chou Dynasty of ancient China, the originate of the dynasty is from 岐山. Your explanation is so close to that, but miss who is the great person, and why. Oda Nobunaga implied that he would start his regime from this place, just like the Chou Dynasty.
Overall, you read these names rather nicely. Sure, someone native or someone like Metatron might point at wrong things, but you did very nice. You only fumbled at longer names. Stuff like Tsutsui Sadatsugu. Shorter versions like Shima Sakon, you read just fine.
Thank you for making this. UK version would be nice.
I'm just happy they incorporated the region of Kaga into Ishikawa prefecture as, in Spanish (and probably in Portuguese, you tell me), Kaga sounds like the word in Spanish for "take a shit!"
Video idea, you should explain the meaning and origin of European countries in their native language, like a soft remake of the first video
Jesus loves you ❤️
@L17_8 nah trust me he doesn't, bro died 2k years ago
Great idea!
@@L17_8 He first had to exist, also please explain to me why a spanish/latin origin name was used for a african jew? I'll be waiting a long time while you think about why you worship a man clearly from eastern europe instead of the short dark skinned jewish man that your book of fables, that insisted he lived and died with no direct knowledge. Please answer those simple questions without I was told and it's in the book. Let see how that goes for you. Rome wrote the bibble you know? Yeah rome wrote it to control the people.. It seems to have worked don't cha know.
He’s already done that.
Hokkaido's name is Japanese in origin. It used to be called Ezo or Watarishima by the Japanese and only after the Restoration did it come to be called Hokkaido. The Ainu called the island "Aynu Mosir" (or "Ainu Moshiri" if you use the Japanese-influenced spelling), which means "land of the humans". As far as I know, "big" and "human" in the Ainu language are "poro" and "aynu/kur" respectively
About Okinawa, the name probably comes from how the Okinawans called their own lands, since the first mention of a name for the southern islands is "Wokinaha", written with kanji different from the modern 沖縄. It's also called Uchinaa in Okinawan but written with the same kanji as in the Japanese language. Also, Okinawa refers only to the largest and most populous island, which is the origin of the prefecture's name
I'm very blessed to have lived in Ehime and Tokyo. I love this country.
@14:58 is this a clip from king of the hill.
Hokkaido is definitely “Northern Sea Way/Road as written.
it's funny and interesting.
Great job!
Nara is the name of the mountain that separated Nara and Kyoto. Kyoto was known as Yama-ushiro (山背), as in Yamashiro no Ooe no Ō (山背大兄王), that is the “rear of the mountain”. 😅
I teach English in Japan and one of my activities is a prefecture quiz. I give hints about prefectures including English meanings of prefecture and capital kanji. I was curious if any we had any differences. Saitama I found didn’t mean sacred jewel like the kanji suggests but my findings was land in the back of the wet land. I’m not entirely convinced it’s right. Most of them are the same. Some of yours were the same meaning just reworded to sound better.
Hm...
What were those dudes in Saga doing?
Please check you facts. The Kanji combination for Kyoto is NOT the inward of Tokyo. While kyou 京 (meaning capital) is the same Kanji in both, the "To" in Tokyo is 東 (meaning East) and the "To" in Kyoto is 都 (meaning capital, same as 京).
Osaka came from the fact that it was supposed to be 小阪(kosaka) meaning small city, but the emperor there felt that since they were the capital second (before Tokyo, after Kyoto), they feel like they should be known as one of the capitals (lol) so they chose 大阪(Oosaka), meaning big city, instead.
14:08 in my restless dreams i see that town, shizuoka
1:34 2:06 2:18 2:42 3:09 3:28 3:49 4:06 4:30 5:14 5:34 5:46 6:24 6:49 6:57 7:13 7:27 7:52 8:14 8:31 8:50 9:02 9:43 9:59 10:14 10:19 10:44 11:11 11:26 11:45 12:10 12:27 13:04 13:48 14:08 14:38 14:58 15:20 15:37 15:55 16:09
Hi from knowledge love prefecure😊
14:51 "Tokyo is just an invert of Kyoto"
I expected a big shitstorm in the comments hearing that
can you go with provinces next?
0:30 I found "BINGO"
(machine translated)
Shizuoka is not Silent Hill. Shizu means "humble",which from the name of the mountain there.
Obrigado
2:00 I couldn’t help but laugh out loud (and every Greek with me)! Sakurada has a very different meaning in Greek, (separated in two words "σα κουράδα" and the "d" pronounced like a "th in this") namely, it means literally "like a turd" 😂 and figuratively it means a lazy person or a coward.
Japan is Love, Japan is Life.
Ōsaka (大阪 - Oo-saka):
大 (Ō/Oo) - big/large
阪 (Saka) - hill/slope
大阪 - big hill/large slope
Tōkyō (東京 - Toukyou):
東 (Tō/Tou) - east
京 (Kyō/Kyou) - capital
東京 - eastern capital
Kyōto (京都 - Kyouto):
京 (Kyō/Kyou) - capital
都 (To, a short form reading of Toshi) - city (in the case of Tokyo, this Kanji also means metropolis; for example 東京都 - Tōkyō-to/Toukyou-to)
京都 - capital city
I have kind of a special question.
I know that there are two dog breeds whose name are Akita Inu and Chiba Inu. Are those two dogs related to the prefectures ? Or doesn’t it have any specific link ? Thank you ! 🙂
makes sense why gunma's mascot is gunma-chan which is a horse 😊
Good pronunciation, just remember there aren’t soft consonants in Japanese so Gifu is pronounced Ghi-foo not ji-foo. And for Oita, while 分 does mean part, it also originally meant field so 大分 means big field more than big part
My favorite is Yamanashi. It SOUNDS like "Without Mountains", when it's clearly NOT "Yamanashi". Mount Fuji is located there.
The places Gifu refers to are not legendary, but real locations in China. The mountain Qi (Gi) was the place of origin of the Zhou dynasty. Fu refers to Qufu, the city where Confucius was from.
The system definetly needs to be updated a bit, hokaido has a large land area and population then Shikoku but is one single administrative divison while shikoku is four
10:44
奈Na” has no meaning as a word❌
"奈Na" has meanings such as the fruit that grows on a large tree, abundance, elegance, strength, vitality, and life.
There are various theories, but the word 奈Na in 奈良Nara has the meaning of tidying up plants and leveling fields.
New video 👀
Jesus loves you so much ❤️
@@L17_8 Ok?
A little nitpick. The romaji H in Japanese is pronounced similar to the English H. The narrator seems to think the initial H is silent.
15:14 withe characters over a white background? I can't read it 😡
7:35 shikanokonokoshitan
Yes, UK regions would be nice.
If you’re going to do UK regions, I’d suggest doing the counties. Because there aren’t that many regions, and they’re all simple; like Southeast England.
That's a good idea!
the only thing that people need to know is that Yorkshire is the best one.
You don't need a 90-second introduction. Just get to the point.
Hello from Japan 😊
I can't understand the meaning of 奈(na), but it seems to have meant fruitfulness or wishes in ancient times.
3:29 good luck well (well good luck well)
The explanation is too literal... If you read the phonetic alphabets as they are, it's almost always different from the original meaning. Hokkaido, for example, was named as North based on the fact that Hokkaido is a "do"(states), meaning the Great Road, which was an ancient division of the Eastern world, and Shikoku was called Nankaido(South Ocean Road), Kyushu was called Saikaido(West Ocean Road), and Shiga to Shizuoka and Tokyo was called Tokaido(East Ocean Road). This is called Goki-shchido (five capital provincies and seven states) in ancient times and Goki-hachido (five capital provincies and eight states) in modern times.
Also bring video for India.
I wouldn’t translate 北海道 as Northern Sea Circuit, but rather something like Path to the Northern Sea.
海道 doesn't mean "sea circuit'. it means "way or road from Kyoto"
Hate to say, but you've got it wrong.
You are decoding kanji characters used for place names, but those names could go back to before installing the writing system.
For example, "Gunma"(5:14) was originally called "Kuruma". Ancient officials chose somewhat similar sounding Chinese characters, 群(gun) and 馬(ma), but probably they are used only phonemically.
I can't blame you because even most Japanese don't understand this.
You also need to remember that a lot of prefectures are named after a city within it, that's why the names are not 100% descriptive for the entire prefecture.
Neat
Thank you!
Shizuoka=Silent Hill
I'm Japanese and I didn't know 99% of this
⚠️Why is Hokkaido(北海道) is NOT 県 [KEN] (=prefecture)?
In the early Meiji Era(1869), Hokkaido was indeed Hokkai circuit (circuit = 道 [Do]).
After some time, Hokkaido was divided into three prefectures (Hakodate, Sapporo, and Nemuro pref.) which caused confusion. Therefore, the government established a new Hokkaido Government Office(北海道庁) and merged those three prefectures into a local government called Hokkaido.
At that time, the word Hokkaido(北海道), which originally included the kanji character for 道 [Do](= circuit) the administrative unit, became the place name. Therefore, unlike other prefectures, only Hokkaido is written in full as Hokkaido and not abbreviated as Hokkai. This is because there is no fatality named Hokkai.
Also, although Hokkaido is not a prefecture by law, it is not too much to say that there is no difference between Hokkaido and other prefectures. It is translated into English as "prefecture" because it has the same status as a prefecture, just with a different name.
Incidentally, Osaka and Kyoto are now specially called 府 [FU] (=prefecture). Because they are historically important cities.
(東京都(Tokyo Metropolitan) used to be 東京府(Tokyo Prefecture) as well until 1943.)
Osaka is a city of commerce, while Kyoto is historically important because it was the capital of Japan and home to the emperor for over 1000 years. However, 府 and 県 are completely equivalent. The 府 were only given the title of prefectures as honorary city titles.
Lol, having white text overlaid on white geese 😅
I’m curious how Japanese (and Germany) got their names. Why doesn’t everyone call them whatever they call themselves?
The name Germany is older than the Germans themselves. It's first appearance is attested in Tacitus's book Germania in AD 98. Japan is derived from the Wu or Min Chinese pronunciation of the Kanji characters used for Nippon/Nihon. Imagine if the world used the Spanish name for the USA (De Los Estados Unidos de America): technically, it's correct even if not exactly correct.
@@petergray2712 Thanks. Good explanation.
12:54 wrh
I always thought that Prefectures were just the Japan-equivalent for 'States'.
Basically, each prefecture has a capital city, and special cases like Osaka/Kyoto/Tokyo can be technically thought of like Washington DC which is a zone for the city, except they have a say in their national elections unlike DC.
They are both subnational divisions
No it isn't, because Japan is one state (a unitary state). Prefectures are the equivalent of counties in federal states.
What about the Ryukyu and Kuril Islands? They are not part of any prefecture?
The Ryukyu Islands have been Okinawa Prefecture since the Ryukyu Kingdom was dismantled after coming under Japanese possession. It should be noted, however, that from 1945 to 1972 they had a different designation and government organization under the U.S. military occupation, and that the northern part is called the Amami Islands and belongs to Kagoshima Prefecture. As for the Kuril(Chishima=Thousand Islands) Islands, Russia occupies the entirety of the Kuril Islands, and although Japan claims that the four southern islands belong to Hokkaido, that claim is not internationally accepted and they are not included on maps.
@@Inunaki_Doraemon
The Hoppo ryodo( the four southern islands) are an inherent part of Japan. They are internationally guaranteed by the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951. They are only effectively controlled by Russia.
北方領土は日本の固有の領土であり、ロシアが実効支配しているだけです。このことは国際的にも1951年のサンフランシスコ平和条約で保証されています。
Why is the background music in Chinese style instead of Japanese style?