八咫鏡

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Japanese

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Kanji in this term

Grade: 1

Hyōgai
かがみ
Grade: 4
kun'yomi
Alternative spelling
八咫の鏡
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八咫鏡: Artist's impressions of the (unseen) Imperial Regalia of Japan, with Yata no Kagami on the upper right

Etymology

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Phrase consisting of (ya, eight) +‎ (ata, an ancient unit of circumference) +‎ (no, possessive particle) +‎ (kagami, mirror).[1]

The name is a description of the mirror's size. A circle with a diameter of one (shaku, ancient foot, unit of length) would have a circumference of four ata. A circumference of eight ata would thus mean a mirror with a diameter of two shaku. The shaku at that time was roughly 23 centimeters, so the mirror would have been roughly 46 centimeters across.

Pronunciation

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  • (Tokyo) たのかがみ [yàtá nó kágámíꜜ] (Odaka – [6])[2]
  • IPA(key): [ja̠ta̠ no̞ ka̠ɡa̠mʲi]

Proper noun

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八咫鏡(やたのかがみ) (Yata no Kagami

  1. the "Eight-Hand Mirror", one of the three sacred treasures comprising the Imperial Regalia of Japan

Usage notes

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  • The ata of that time period was around 18 centimeters or 7.25 inches, so note that the hand in the English name is not the same as the four-inch unit of measurement.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Shōgaku Tosho (1988) 国語大辞典(新装版) [Unabridged Dictionary of Japanese (Revised Edition)] (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Shogakukan, →ISBN
  2. ^ NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute, editor (1998), NHK日本語発音アクセント辞典 [NHK Japanese Pronunciation Accent Dictionary] (in Japanese), Tokyo: NHK Publishing, Inc., →ISBN