hari kari vs. seppuku

[mononokifool]

i was just wondering if there is a diff. :? when i read it is alwase called seppuku, i also have been told that seppuku was the correct term and hari kari was a western term. :clueless: domo :bow:

[Oyakata]

i was just wondering if there is a diff. :? when i read it is alwase called seppuku, i also have been told that seppuku was the correct term and hari kari was a western term. :clueless: domo :bow:

Hi - you've probably started a firestorm here. This will more than likely be a very long thread. :-)

First of all let me be the one who points out that the two alternatives are 'seppuku' and 'hara-kiri' (not hari kari).

As for the substance of your quesion: Basically they are two words for the same thing; one word (seppuku) is more formal and educated; the other (hara-kiri) a bit rougher and more conversational. But hara-kiri is a perfectly normal and natural and fully Japanese word, with historical citations available.

Although you may be told differently, in fact the two words themselves don't refer to two different things. For instance it is not the case that 'seppuku' refers to a formal ceremony and 'hara-kiri' to an on the spot suicide. They are just two different ways of saying the same thing (think 'car' and 'automobile').

Hope this helps.

Oyakata
www.odanobunaga.com

[mononokifool]

thank you very much for the correction of the spelling. i speak english and i cant spellit any better :thankyou: :bow: i dunderstand the car thing helped me very much :car: i guess i could have asked my sensei but i dont see him for along time. :samurai: but reagardless thank you var much once again.

[nice gaijin]

腹切 is the kanji for hara kiri.
切腹 is the kanji for seppuku. It's the same word essentially, just a matter of which kanji you put first :) and yes seppuku is more on the formal side.

[nnnn]

10 out of the 10 japanese would say "seppuku," not "harakiri," although we no longer have a chance to refer to it in our daily life now.
When we see a samurai-movie or drama, you'd never hear, I guess, a samurai say "harakiri." It is possible, however, for them to say "hara-o-kiru."
"hara-o-kiru" is a verb phrase (hara: object, kiru: verb), while "seppuku" and "harakiri" are both a noun phrase.
Thus, when we hear someone say HARAKIRI, we'd assciate the speaker with someone who's not use to Japanese, namely foreigner.
I hope this would be some help. Bye.

[Oyakata]

10 out of the 10 japanese would say "seppuku," not "harakiri," although we no longer have a chance to refer to it in our daily life now.
When we see a samurai-movie or drama, you'd never hear, I guess, a samurai say "harakiri." It is possible, however, for them to say "hara-o-kiru."
"hara-o-kiru" is a verb phrase (hara: object, kiru: verb), while "seppuku" and "harakiri" are both a noun phrase.
Thus, when we hear someone say HARAKIRI, we'd assciate the speaker with someone who's not use to Japanese, namely foreigner.
I hope this would be some help. Bye.

I've heard this opinion before, particulary from young-ish people. But it's a shame that some native Japanese speakers have come to think of 'harakiri' as a 外人言葉. Really (and as I mentioned in an earlier post) harakiri is an old, and perfectly 'authentic', Japanese word.

The most famous example in literature is probably the ながまちおんなのはらきり　長町女腹切 (search for it on http://www.jfast1.net/~w-hill/shoko/edonen-m.html)

But there are other examples from both place names and common culture:
http://www.smc.town.sonobe.kyoto.jp/sono-dat/G/05/022/G05022000001.html
http://inoues.net//club/akiduki/akiduki3.html (search for harakiri iwa はらきり岩)
http://www2g.biglobe.ne.jp/~gomma/yashikifile/yashiki.html　(search for harakiri-maru 腹切丸)

One thing to constantly keep in mind is that being native speakers of a language, does not automatically make us experts in that language (myself included).

Oyakata
www.odanobunaga.com

[Silverpoint]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seppuku

Wikipedia is pretty bloody amazing...

[nnnn]

Oyakata, thank you for your feedback. I should have made a comment after I learned those things.

But since a language is such thing that evolves over time (some linguists even compare it to a creature), I guess, young native speakers' opinions are sometimes　worth listening. What was correct in the past cannot always be true now. English of the 16th century is definitely different from current English.

I tried the following Web retreaving research, and the result was interesting.
When I retreaved with the keyword "切腹(seppuku)," many of the search results are　the links to those referring to seppuku as a samurai's action of doing it, or something related to those "ACTION," while the Web retreave with the keyword "腹切(harakiri)" leads you to the links to those referring to proper nouns of places,　stories, architectures, or those related to "THINGS (including the story title)." I think this is because harakiri is used more often in the old era, and so some places or art works or written stories in those periods were named like "Harakiri　Iwa," or something like that and those "THINGS" have been kept remain until today.

I personally suppose things above are the backgrounds why seppuku sounds more natural than harakiri when referring to it as "ACTION."

Still I appreciate your lesson and regret the fact that I didn't know much about my own country. I'll do learn more about Japan! Many Thanks.

[Oyakata]

Oyakata, thank you for your feedback. I should have made a comment after I learned those things.

But since a language is such thing that evolves over time (some linguists even compare it to a creature), I guess, young native speakers' opinions are sometimes　worth listening. What was correct in the past cannot always be true now. English of the 16th century is definitely different from current English.

I agree 100% with what you are saying. I certainly am not trying to say that harakiri is a common word used in every day language. It's just important to recognize that it really is a 'pure' Japanese word that is not somehow invented by foreigners, or used only for chambara movies.


Still I appreciate your lesson and regret the fact that I didn't know much about my own country. I'll do learn more about Japan! Many Thanks.

Please don't take what I said in a bad way!　We all can learn so much, both about our own countries as well as the rest of the world. It's just important to resist the temptation to think that just because we are 'native speakers', or just because we are 'from that country', that automatically makes us experts. I remind myself about this all the time, because I am usually the first person to fall into this trap!

Look forward to having more conversations with you on the boards!

Oyakata
www.odanobunaga.com