Japanese translation

[Steelnecktie]

Curious if there is anyone that can translate Japanese. I have some family heirlooms that have been passed down and would like to know what they say.
Thank you,
Dave

 

[spclark]

I have a couple of friends over there, just PM'd (not here though, don't know if either are members) a link to this thread to one of 'em.

Are you in a position to scan them or maybe use an iPhone (or similar) to get good digital images?

Risking heirlooms by shipping originals isn't the wisest path to take IMHO.

 

[JRS]

The Japanese alphabet varies by region. Do you have access to a public library, Japanese restaurant or market?

 

[Steelnecktie]

 

[Steelnecktie]

As you can tell, not even sure which way top one is supposed to face.
Definitely not shipping anything, I have some things that may be hundreds or thousands of years old.

 

[joshb]

Looks like ya need to hit Antiques Roadshow.

 

[Riesel]

I think that top one says "made in Japan"

 

[sakakibara]

The upper one is a stamp but I can't read character because it has special font which is used for stamp.
The first left one is right direction of the stamp.

The lower one is often seen on a china. I guess "Takaoka, Fugeshi" . Takaoka is the manufacturer of china . Fugeshi is district of Ishikawa Prefecture in Japan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugeshi_District,_Ishikawa
In Japanese Character "鳳至高崗"

Yoshi

 

[joshb]

The upper one is a stamp but I can't read character because it has special font which is used for stamp.
The first left one is right direction of the stamp.

The lower one is often seen on a china. I guess "Takaoka, Fugeshi" . Takaoka is the manufacturer of china . Fugeshi is district of Ishikawa Prefecture in Japan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugeshi_District,_Ishikawa
In Japanese Character "鳳至高崗"

Yoshi

Outstanding, Yoshi!

 

[Steelnecktie]

Thank you Yoshi,
I did find that the 1st one on left is in fact the correct way it is stamped and it says "Murakami" which is "surname" that my grandmother gave me at birth.
Thank you for your insight.

 

[Momo]

Hello Steelnecktie, in addition to what Yoshi said, for the top image, normally only 1 stamp is used when "signing" on paperwork, documents, clocking in for work, corrections, etc. In your picture, there are 4 stamps on a plain piece of paper. So i have the feeling the paper is just for helping with knowing stamp seal's orientation. It's also not a particular fancy seal design so it's likely a stamp for everyday regular use rather than something like a person of higher position in an organization.

 

[Steelnecktie]

Thank you Momo,
You are absolutely correct, I just stamped it 4 different times because I wasn't sure which way it faced. My grandmother would stamp envelopes with it to send back to family in Japan.

 

[sakakibara]

Yes, the stamp is "Murakami" and Surname!
In Japanese, "村上"

Yoshi

Thank you Yoshi,
I did find that the 1st one on left is in fact the correct way it is stamped and it says "Murakami" which is "surname" that my grandmother gave me at birth.
Thank you for your insight.

 

[Momo]

Thank you Momo,
You are absolutely correct, I just stamped it 4 different times because I wasn't sure which way it faced. My grandmother would stamp envelopes with it to send back to family in Japan.

You're welcome.

And in case you would like to know, the stamper in Japanese is called a "hanko" and in Japanese hiragana characters, it's はんこ. And in kanji characters, it is 判子.

The pronunciation to each character goes like this:

ha...は
ｎ......ん
ko....こ

There's another word for it which is "Inkan",or in hiragana and kanji, いんかん and 印鑑 respectively, but hanko seems to be used more often.

 

[Steelnecktie]

Wow, thank you guys very much.
I have another puzzle, is this a artist name or date on base of sculpture?

 

[Momo]

The two characters on there are a little unusual to me. Although it's definitely not a date. Maybe a name. What's strange is that either there are errors or they don't reflect any currently existing Japanese kanji although they get a little close to some, but being close is not good enough. It has to match. So I thought maybe they were former kanji that Japanese used before the post-war era so went to a list of some.

In this list, in each row of two, the upper half is today's kanji, and the lower half is the former corresponding kanji.
http://www2.japanriver.or.jp/search_kasen/search_help/refer_kanji.htm

And this is another site with today and it's corresponding former kanji.
http://www13.atpages.jp/shimapucchi/newpage23.html

But I still couldn't find a match.

Now in standard Japanese education, students have to learn around 2,200 Kanji give or take for circumstances. And maybe if including rare occurrences or special fields, maybe one might learn around 3,000 kanji in their life, give or take. But in historical Japanese language catalog of Kanji, there is apparently about 50,000 Kanji in existence. So in short, there is far more Kanji in existence than what is expected of most people to know.

So if the characters on there are correct, then perhaps both of them are from within the depths of hardly known Kanji. It could be a person's name, or some other noun, or who knows.. Also I wouldn't rule out the possibility of it being a couple of rare traditional Chinese characters either. Certainly not simplified Chinese.

 

[Steelnecktie]

Thanks Momo,
I'll have to do some more digging, I'm sure it is old, my father wasn't sure on age, been passed down through family. I did find out that the script in 2nd picture was stopped being used over 200 years ago.

 

[XTR]

It is interesting to me as someone of western descent to learn of the evolution of the written languages in China, Japan, Korea.


Little off topic here, but:

My last visits to Asia when I was in the Navy were in the 80s so digital communication was still far off for the average person, people still wrote letters, like with paper and pen! (there was no e-mail )

A question that I just can't figure out is how in the world does one type in Chinese or Japanese? I understand that the written forms have been simplified a couple of times, but still, 2000 characters is kind of hard to fit on a keyboard.

My understanding of Korean is that it is more "alphabet" based than either Chinese or Japanese to it may lend itself better to typing.

 

[Momo]

It is interesting to me as someone of western descent to learn of the evolution of the written languages in China, Japan, Korea.


Little off topic here, but:

My last visits to Asia when I was in the Navy were in the 80s so digital communication was still far off for the average person, people still wrote letters, like with paper and pen! (there was no e-mail )

A question that I just can't figure out is how in the world does one type in Chinese or Japanese? I understand that the written forms have been simplified a couple of times, but still, 2000 characters is kind of hard to fit on a keyboard.

My understanding of Korean is that it is more "alphabet" based than either Chinese or Japanese to it may lend itself better to typing.

A no e-mail and paper and pen only world sounds like an interesting world

To the question about typing, Japanese has 3 alphabets. Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. Hiragana and Katakana are essentially mirrored to each other with just different designs representing a phonetic sound (or syllables in other words). To help illustrate that, here is an example. First will be the sound in roman letters (romanji), second will be hiragana, and third will be katakana.

a　あ　ア
i　い　イ
u　う　ウ
e　え　エ
o　お　オ

ka　か　カ
ki　き　キ
ku　く　ク
ke　け　ケ
ko　こ　コ

sa　さ　サ
shi　し　シ
su　す　ス
se　せ　セ
so　そ　ソ

Katakana is used primarily for special cases to differentiate from the regular alphabet of hiragana, either for advertisement, loan words, emphasis, etc.

All kanji can technically be written in either hiragana or katakana. Here are some examples of words in romanji, hiragana, then kanji followed by the meaning in English. These examples are all the same meaning in the row, but just written in romanji, hiragana, and kanji.

asa　あさ　朝 morning
kasa　かさ　傘 umbrella
sushi　すし　寿司 sushi

There are some words where the whole word can not be written entirely in kanji, such as verbs.

iku　いく　行く to go
kau　かう　買う to buy

The last part that can't be written in kanji is a part that conjugates to change the meaning of the verb, such as for changing level of politeness or tense. Here are those same two verbs in past tense.

itta　いった　行った　went
katta　かった　買った bought

Anyway, to the initial question, the trick with typing in Japanese is that there is software that sees what one is typing, so if I type umreblla, kasa, on the keyboard in romanji, as I write k, it just comes as that, "k", but when I type the a, it automatically converts the "ka" into a か and then when I type "s" it is just that, but then when I type "a" to make "sa", the software automatically converts it to さ. Now, while I have かさ written there, the software is holding that word where I have two choices, the first choice is to press enter, and it keeps かさ as it is. The second choice I have is to press the space bar, which then the software converts the かさ to the kanji version 傘. That's basically the gist of how it works. There are times where it gives me the wrong kanji, so I hit space bar again and again to cycle through to the kanji that I want. It takes time getting used to, but it works.

So with that said, in the case of Chinese, or at least for mandarin Chinese, I think the typing would be done in the pinyin. Pinyin is all Chinese letters in roman letters. So it probably works something similar to how the Japanese hiragana and Kanji works.

Korean actually used to use a lot of Chinese characters in the language. Almost kind of like how hiragana and kanji work together. But these days, Chinese characters have been almost entirely withdrawn from regular use, but as far as I know, not completely withdrawn. I recall seeing a news article talking about a debate as to whether or not to bring back Chinese characters in to more regular usage again. And on the other end, there have been reports about debating in Japan as to whether or not to stop using kanji and just make the whole language only hiragana and katakana.

 

[Momo]

Thanks Momo,
I'll have to do some more digging, I'm sure it is old, my father wasn't sure on age, been passed down through family. I did find out that the script in 2nd picture was stopped being used over 200 years ago.

That's some really interesting stuff Over 200 years goes into Edo period.