JLPT Level: Unlisted, but the kanji are N2, N5, and Unlisted?! in that order.for real, every time i

JLPT Level: Unlisted, but the kanji are N2, N5, and Unlisted?! in that order.for real, every time i find a ridiculously crucial kanji that isn’t in the JLPT i just get mad because I know that 鎌, the kanji for SCYTHE, is on there because 鎌倉 Kamakura was a big deal like over 1000 years ago but the kanji for 分 (minutes, part, portion, understand) ISNT lsfjkklsjdfslkfOkay, anyways.This is a pretty cool word. Get ready for a bit of history in this edition of Word of the Day. First, let’s do the customary kanji breakdown.村On-yomi: sonKun-yomi: muraMeaning: village, town八On-yomi: hachiKun-yomi: ya, ya.tsu, ya.ttsu, youMeaning: eight分On-yomi: bun, fun, buKun-yomi: wa.keru, wa.ke, wa.kareru, wa.karu, wa.katsuMeaning: part, minute of time, segment, share, degree, one’s lot, know, rate, 1%, chances, shaku/100Put together these three kanji and you get the literal meaning of “80% of village share.” And somehow that actually means “ostracism?” Counter-intuitive, I know. Rest assured, though. We’ll get to the bottom of this.Back in the Edo Era (1603-1868), villagers really didn’t get to leave their hometowns very much unless they were sent away for marriage or had some sort of special dispensation. You pretty much lived and died where you were born. Villages didn’t exactly have a booming population, and much of Japan’s weather is harsh with typhoons, floods, and tsunamis, not to mention earthquakes, landslides, and other natural disasters. Famines and illness weren’t uncommon either. It was a really rough time to be alive and everyone in the village had to band together as much as possible.The things villagers did/were impacted by were broken down into ten different classifications:冠 Emperor coronation婚礼 Marriage出産 Childbirth病気 Illness建築 Construction水害 Flood Disasters年忌 Death Anniversary (a Buddhist anniversary service)旅行 Travel葬式 Funeral火事 Fire DisastersIf you did something bad enough to get you ostracized, frankly, there were times that villagers needed everyone they could, and even if they hated your guts, they wouldn’t actually send you away. Instead, they murahachibu’d you and said, “Out of the ten different things we do, you are only allowed to participate in funerals and putting out fires.” For all other eight events, this person was treated as if they did not exist, and they were not allowed to join in. And this is why “ostracism” is called 村八分. The person was excluded from 8 of the 10 important village tasks.Personally, I find it odd that they wouldn’t let the ostracized person help with flood cleanup. Forcing them to help with fires makes sense, though, because up until WWII almost all Japanese buildings were made of wood and even older homes had thatched roofs. If one house caught on fire, the entire little village could go up. And as for funerals, this likely wasn’t done out of kindness to the person so they could bid farewell to their loved ones who hadn’t been ostracized. Death carried a very, very heavy stigma in medieval Japan. Those who came into contact with death (undertakers, leather tanners, etc.) were shunned by society and forced to live on outskirts. It’s likely that villagers thought, “This guy is already ostracized, so let’s have him deal with the dead bodies instead of us.”Note that this word is only used in historical contexts now. One time I couldn’t remember how to say “shun” or “exile” and I used murahachibu instead and everyone laughed at me. So keep in mind that, unless you’re talking about ostracism in Medieval Japan, you probably shouldn’t use this word haha. -- source link

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