Geometry in Native Japanese - 1 - Introduction

I must admit that the geometrical world in ancient Japanese (say more than 1,500 yeas ago) were very poor as compared with the Chinese and Western worlds.

There were no native Japanese words for point, line, surface, solid (I think that the word solid should be more developed  in  abstract sense). I think that China developed these concepts most and fairly early as they already had spacious abstract words very early although I am not sure when. Let's compare spacious abstract words in English, Chinese and Native Japanese. The Japanese seems to have imported the Chinese spacious words early as these words were just what they wanted for certain uses.


0) 0D - point                     Chinese    点　　　　　　 Native Japanese　め（me; 目 or eye）

1) 1D - line                       Chinese　　線　　　　　　Native Japanese　すじ（su-ji; 筋 or stripes in muscles, veins）

2) 2D - surface or area      Chinese　　面　　　　　　Native Japanese　おもて（o-mo-te; 面 or face）

3) 3D - solid or volume     Chinese　　体（立体）　　Native Japanese　かたまり（ka-ta-ma-ri; 塊 or lump）

The modern Japanese are the same as the above Chinese. It may be natural to use some parts of the human body to express space related concepts. And it is a huge jump to develop abstract words for spacious concepts.

The next post we will discuss "point" or め（me; 目 or eye）.



sptt