Sunday, February 15, 2009

原色

gensyoku
primary colors


I guess what I found interesting in this (admittedly very boring) noun was the first character.
原 (read as gen or hara, among other readings) can range in meaning from raw, primordial, original, to field, prairie, tundra and wilderness. I am guessing that this confluence of meanings arose after WWII when the number of characters used in Japan was reduced from over 40,000 to roughly 2,000, as a means to increase literacy, but there is something of a connection.
it is, after all, the wilderness from which all things arise. the universe, as the Greeks remind us, was born from Chaos.

No comments: