Baka (Japanese)

Demon Mumashika ( 馬鹿 ), written with the same kanji, is a mixture of horse and deer

Baka ( Japanese 馬鹿 , Hiragana : ば か or Katakana : バ カ ) is a widely used Japanese swear word and means “stupid”.

etymology

The origin of the word is unclear. According to the Shogakukan Unabridged Dictionary of the Japanese Language , it goes back to words from Sanskrit that Buddhist monks adopted into the Japanese language:

• moha ( 慕 何 , foolish)
• mahallaka ( 摩訶 羅 , stupid)

Other sources cite the Chinese Chengyu "to spend a deer for a horse" (指鹿為馬; pinyin : zhǐ lù wéi mǎ; Japanese: shika o sashite uma to nasu), which goes back to an anecdote from the Qin dynasty . According to this anecdote, Chancellor Zhao Gao showed the young Emperor Qin Er Shi a stag as a horse to find out which ministers were willing to contradict him and which were willing to agree with him.

Even if baka is mostly written with the Kanji characters for horse ( 馬 ) and for deer ( 鹿 ), this thesis does not have to be correct, because the first evidence for this comes from the year 1548.

use

• 馬鹿 者 bakamono (fool)
• 馬 鹿野 郎 baka-yarō (bastard)
• 馬鹿 女 baka onna (stupid woman)
• 馬鹿 に す る baka ni suru (fooling)
• 馬鹿 を 見 る baka o miru (make a fool of yourself)
• 馬鹿 正直 baka shōjiki (too much honesty)
• 馬鹿 げ た 値 段 bakageta nedan (absurd price)

Others

Yokosuka Ōka Model 11 (replica) in the Military Museum of the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo

During World War II , the Allies used "baka" as a code name for the manned glide bomb Yokosuka MXY-7 ( Japanese 桜 花 , cherry blossom ), a Japanese military aircraft designed for self-sacrifice , because they believed that only madmen could get on such an aircraft.

Web links

• ば か 【馬鹿, 莫迦, 破家】 , jeKai
• to spend a stag for a horse

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ば か 【馬鹿 ・ 莫迦 ・ 破家】. 日本 国語 大 辞典 [Shogakukan Unabridged Dictionary of the Japanese Language]. Tokyo: Shogakukan. 2007.
2. ↑ "to spend a stag for a horse"
3. ↑ 運 歩 色 葉 集 Unbo irohashu