In search of identity: how daikon became daikon
Why write a blog post about the different names of radish?
Actually, I was not aware that an ordinary vegetable, such as radish, could have so many identities, and the quest into the names even became somehow adventurous.
So, let’s get started.
I made out four main terms for radish:
- raifuku, and its variations
- daikon 大根, as it known today
- ōne – this is the Japanese reading of the two Chinese characters 大根 , this can also be written in Japanese syllables (hiragana or katagana) or in characters that are phonetically used
- suzushiro, a term that suddenly popped up and none of the authors really knew from where it originated
- radish becomes female and global
Chinese influences: raifuku and its variations
The first source I’d like to introduce is the:
Honzō wamyō (“Japanese names of materia medica“, 918)
This is the oldest extant dictionary on medicines in Japan. The author is Fukae Sukehito who was the court physician of Emperor Daigo (885-930). He did not write the book out of the blue, but used a template, the Chinese herbal Xinxiu bencao (“New study of materia medica”). It is the merit of him that the names of Chinese medicines and drugs became Japanese. He also noted whether these medicines were produced in Japan or not, and if yes, he also listed the origin of the product. Although the work contains errors (as Japanese research suggests), it represents an important source because it gives an entire account of the Japanese denomination of medicines prior to the tenth century.
The author did not use the term daikon nor the characters for daikon but listed the vegetable under the Chinese character compound 来葍, saying that radish is called raifuku or rofuku or rafuku. These ‘terms’ were all Japanese pronunciations of the Chinese word for radish, luobo or laifu , which could be written in diverse characters. The author further ‘confused’ radish with turnip.
Next source:
Wamyō ruijushō (“Japanese names, classified and and annotated”, 938)
This is a Japanese dictionary of Chinese characters, also called Wamyō ruijūshō, written by the scholar Minamoto no Shitagō (911-983). Radish is listed under the Chinese character 葍:
“the Erya jizhu calls it [fu] 葍: pronounced as fuku 福 [in Japanese], the Japanese name is ōne 於保禰, and commonly the two characters 大根 are used. The root is straight, white and edible. In the Jianmingyuan, it is listed as [laifu] 萊菔, pronounced as rai 来. The Honzō wamyō lists [lufu] 蘆菔, pronounced as fuku 服. In Meng Shen’s classic on food, it is listed as [luofu] 蘿菔, pronounced as ra 蘿.” (Wamyō ruijūshō, vol. 17, vegetables)
These sources are important in so far as most of the dictionaries of (Sinophile) authors up to the nineteenth century that adress radish rely on it. They tell more or less the same: Radish is called rafuku, raifuku or rofuku, and the Japanese name is ōne.
But what happened with radish as daikon?
What I’ve learned from the sources so far is that the people of the tenth century alread used the two-character compound 大根 as we know the word radish in Japanese today, but it is not clear whether the people also pronounced the characters 大根 as daikon.
But what I know for sure is that they called radish daikon at the end of the sixteenth century. Because radish is listed and pronounced as daikon in the Ekirinbon setsuyōshū (“Ekirin’s Collection of words for everyday use”), a Japanese dictionary from 1597.
And the author of another dictionary, the Honchō shokkan (“Food mirrow of our country”, 1697) adds that “in my opinion, it is recently convention to use the popular name 大根 but the name rafuku is also still used”.
My guess is that people used the word daikon for radish rather in daily life, whereas rafuku, raifuku, and rofuku were the terms to look up in dictionaries.
Radish as suzushiro
Radish could previously be searched for under raifuku and its variation, or sometimes under daikon, and in each case the Japanese pronunciation ōne was added. Yet, in the Kokon yōrankō (“Preliminary introduction of all times”), a Japanese dictionary from the 19th century, suddenly another term for radish popped up: suzushiro.
What happened?
The author Yashiro Hirokata (1758-1841), who compiled this encyclopedia on behalf of the government, makes a connection of suzushiro with the ‘term’ susuhori. Susuhori is listed in the Engishiki (“Procedures of the Engi Era”, 927), which is a Japanese work about laws and customs, and stands for susuori or susubori meaning salted pickled vegetables. Pickles were already part of the imperial cuisine in the tenth century, and both radish and turnip were used for it.
But other authors had other ideas for the meaning of suzushiro
One of them is the the physician and botanist Sō Senshun (1758-1834). He wrote a small booklet called Haru no nanakusa (“seven herbs of spring”) in which he explained that suzushiro comes from suzu, meaning ‘clear’, and shiro, which is ‘white’, and that suzushiro was also used as another term for turnip (suzuna).
He also made some nice drawings of radish and turnip, which both are contained in the booklet.
That’s not all.
Another scholar, Tanikawa Kotosuga (1709-1776), who was an expert in ancient literature and culture, wrote that suzushiro has two basic meanings: One means tufts of hair left on the heads of children after shaving and is written in the single Chinese character 鬌. The other meaning, he explains, is radish:
“One of the seven kinds of herbs is radish. So, suzu stands for ‘pure’ and shiro for ‘white’. One theory says that in the materia medica books the flower of a thistle looks like a tuft of hair, so suzushiro must be a thistle. But this is twisting the meaning. In Satsuma, it is always called charlock (kawataka), which is field mustard”. ( Wakun no shiori, vol. 12, su)
We’ve now got a bunch of explanations from these authors that are more or less convincing. Maybe suzushiro was just a kind of buzzword for radish among the literati in the nineteenth century. Yet, fact is that these days suzushiro is only associated in connection with ‘seven-herb rice gruel’ (nanakusagayu) or just with the notion of ‘seven herbs’ (nanakusa). Today, in early January, people buy them in a supermarket to make seven herb gruel, which is traditionally eaten around the seventh of January.
From local to global to female
Radish was also often named after the cultivation aera. The aforementioned Wakun no shiori also addresses diverse regions in which radish had its own local name. For example, radish was called Miyashige in the province Owari (present-day Western part of Aichi prefecture), Nerima in the Kantō aera, or Hatano in Kanagawa prefecture. In Edo, the author explains, people call it hadana, in Kyoto nakane (“long root”) and in Osaka hosone (“thin root”). In Idewa or Dewa, a province in northern Japan (present-day Yamagata and Akita prefectures), people call it ohakata.
And, he continues, radish is called ‘routorateisu’ in Dutch. This is how the Dutch “radijs” is pronounced in the Japanese way.
Miyashige radish is still very famous, even today. Nerima and Hatano/Hadano are place names, and nakane and hosone refer to the different shapes a radish can take. Ohakata didn’t first make any sense to me. But then I found out that ohakata is another word for radish in the court-lady language (nyōbō kotoba).
Yep. The ladies had their own language.
They did not create an entire different ‘language’, they just invented new words. Japanese scholars assume that nyōbō kotoba started in the fourteenth century as jargon among women who served in the temples or courts. A great number of these words were related to food, kitchen utensils, and clothes, and ohakata seems to have been a popular name for radish around the sixteenth century, since it even appeared in the first Japanese-Portuguese dictionary, the Nippo jisho (1603).
Usually, these new words were based on the shape of the thing, the color, or other characteristics. For example, another word for radish in the court-lady language is karamono, which means “hot/pungent thing” clearly aiming at the most prominent characteristic of radish: it’s pungency.
The meaning of ohakata is not clear. I assume that it means “honorable (o) teeth (ha) hardening” (kata), and is likely to refer to the expression hagatame, “hardening the teeth”, for which radish (or even mochi) was used. It was served during the New Year meal at the court, presumably as a pickled side dish or snack.
By the way
The term ohakata became obsolete during the course of time. But other nyōbō words have survived. Oden, for example, a typical Japanese winter dish. Or o-tsumami for snack, which originally referred to pickled radish in the court-lady language but now comprises all kinds of simple dishes from edamame to French fries. It’s a typical pub food that goes well together with beer or sake.
Conclusions?
I would say that radish lost some of its identities during the course of time. And there were several trends of how to call it. Daikon and ōne are the only ones that survived. Or perhaps you have some other ideas?