Wa Wa Lexicography

Abstract

This paper compares how Oriental and Occidental lexicographers have treated the fact that Japan's first written name was a Chinese Wō < *?Wâ ‘short/submissive people’ insult. The Japanese initially used this Chinese logograph to write Wa or Yamato ‘Japan’, but eventually replaced it with the homophonous Wa ‘harmony; peace’ graph. Editorial approaches to Chinese Wō ‘Japan’ definitions in 92 dictionaries are clearly divided along national lines. Within the present sample, around half of the Chinese dictionaries in Western languages gloss Wō as “dwarf country; an old name for Japan”; while 42% of the Chinese-Japanese and 90% of the Chinese-Chinese dictionaries gloss over the word as “an old name for Japan.” Definitions of this logographic pejoration Wō∼Wa ‘Japan’ illustrate the problems of racism in dictionaries.