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The Origins & Uses of the Kanji 場 - hellosilly - 2006-12-16
Hi all. I've been a lurker for a while but first post here.
Just wondering if i can get the insights of some of you about the origins of the character 場. I can get what the left and right hand side parts mean but i'm looking with particular reference to the right hand side. I read somewhere that the right part refers to the yin and yang philosophy of permanent transformation?
I'm doing a short essay on the use of 'ba' for part of my MBA over christmas and having a little trouble finding a good way to explain why we can't convey the concept fully in English.
Any input would be great, thanks in advance!
The Origins & Uses of the Kanji 場 - wrightak - 2006-12-16
When it comes to the origins of kanji, I always refer to Henshall's guide to remembering Japanese characters. If you're doing an MBA on this sort of stuff then I'd imagine you might already have it. Would you like me to post what it says about 場? It doesn't mention anything about yin and yang.
The Origins & Uses of the Kanji 場 - raulir - 2006-12-16
Kanjigen's 解字 (character analysis) for 場:
「会意兼形声。昜(ヨウ)は「日＋T（高くあがるしるし）＋彡(いろどり)」で、太陽がいろどり美しくのぼるさま。場は「土＋（音符）昜」で、日光の当たる高めの開けた地。」
会意兼形声 = both meaning+meaning (会意) and meaning+sound (形声). 昜 is the sound component (ヨウ) and its meaning comes from 日(sun) + T (rising high) + 彡(coloring) = sun that has risen high and is beautifully colored. The meaning of the whole (場) then is high open land on which sun shines.
The meaning given in the analysis of the character should, of course, not be taken as some sort of "true" meaning, but simply as the etymology. The actual meanings listed are wide, flat land (example word: 広場 = plaza), an open place where people gather (example: 会場 = meeting hall), simply a place (example: 場所 = place), and some more obscure ones.
BTW, I don't know what you mean by a concept of ば that can't fully be conveyed in English. AFAICS the word simply means "(open) place" and additional nuances come from ways of use. I think it's a rare abstract word that you can translate to a single expression in another language in all cases (not counting concrete words such as "refrigerator", "nuclear fusion" and "Second World War", as they rarely take on alternative meanings beyond simple metaphor and euphemism), so an abstract word has to be a particularly difficult case to merit separate treatment (instead of just using this general state of things as the reason). ば doesn't strike me as especially difficult, but quite ordinary, actually. Words such as こと, かける and でる have much more varied usage, and there are many more such cases. Even ところ has more meanings than ば.
I also think it's unlikely you will find much of use in the etymology of the kanji to explain the usage of ば, as people don't normally think of etymologies of words -- much less the etymologies of the kanjis used in those words -- when using them, and consequently with time usage diverges from the original meaning. Seeing that ば is kunyomi, the etymology of the kanji is likely to be even less significant.
... After writing the above, it struck me that you might have meant "use of 場" (the kanji) with "use of 'ba'", instead of use of the word ば. But "conveying its concept in English" would be even more confusing, as kanjis are never used alone, but only as parts of words (words consisting of only one kanji are not an exception to this, e.g. there are at least three different words where "角" is used alone), and thus conveying (explaining) their meaning has to be done in words in any language, including Japanese (and it is done in kanji dictionaries such as kanjigen, which I used here). It is hard to believe that something could be explained in Japanese and not in English, or the other way around, even if the amount of words needed may differ.
As I have a tendency to downplay things, it may simply be my lack of effort or ability to see the difficulty in ba, so it'd be interesting if you could clarify what you mean :-) I'm quite interested in the peculiarities of Japanese, especially when they occur in common words. I hope that some of this long post was helpful to you.
The Origins & Uses of the Kanji 場 - hellosilly - 2006-12-16
Wow, thank you wrightak and raulir for your quick responses!
I should really have made it more clear in my original post, it made sense to me as I typed but i never gave any of the background to the question i was asking! Sorry.
So, I'm actually doing an essay on an academic in the field of organisation studies called Ikujiro Nonaka. The main body of is work is on the creation of knowledge and innovation in Japanese firms.
One of the concepts that is introduced by Nonaka is what he calls "ba" which he says could be seen as "a shared space that serves as a foundation for knowledge creation". In his original (Japanese Language) work he is referring to the component 場 of the Japanese word 場所. When his work is translated into English he simply calls it "ba" rather than "place", which makes me curious as to why.
Like you said, in Japanese it's not often used by itself so this confused me initially, but in Nonaka's work it is referred to more as the 'concept' (?) of 場 than the actual word to be translated as "place".
Yes, i can see what you're saying about words like 事 that have much more varied usages and may not be translated universally as "event", 場 is simpler in that respect. But basically what I was trying to ask was; obviously there is some lost information in conveying the concept (whatever that may be) when writing ば/ba instead of 場. I was wondering what the Kanji says implicitly that cannot be conveyed simply by the english term "(open) place" and thus why it was deemed nessicary to introduce a whole new word "ba" into our English language vocabulary.
Perhaps there is a deeper meaning to 場 that isn't covered in English so i was curious if that deeper meaning is hidden in the origin of the charcter itself.
I have to apologise, much of this might not make sense as my knowledge of the Japanese language is relatively basic as i've only studied part-time for a couple of years so thanks for your patience.
>>>Also wrightak, i've only got basic Kanji dictionaries as this is only a small part of the course so any other dictionary interpretations would be great. Thanks again!
The Origins & Uses of the Kanji 場 - Pangolin - 2006-12-16
It seems to me that he is adopting it as his own term of art: a pre-existing word, but one that is given a precise meaning in a particular subject area (e.g. law). Being Japanese he has the option of introducing a native word instead of having to say "place" in quotes, so to speak. The German word "angst" works in a similar way in English, where using the translation "fear" couldn't carry the nuance, it's just too normal a word. If this is the case, then there's no need to look deep into the etymology of ば - the special meaning is his own invention. However, as you have pointed out, the word isn't often seen on its own in Japanese, and perhaps he has chosen it for that reason, rather than ところ. I notice 場 means "field" in physics, as in magnetic, I don't know if that sheds any light.
The Origins & Uses of the Kanji 場 - raulir - 2006-12-17
Now I see where you're coming from. It's possible that he chose not to translate it because it is a central term to his work and he wanted to get it right, so translating it would entail a risk and terms sound deeper when they are in foreign languages anyway (and Americans like that) ;-)
場(ば) the word is used, but mostly as a part of bigger expressions, e.g. その場、改まった場、場違い. If you use it freely, you can get strange sentences very easily. It has some specialized usages, including "field" (電磁場 = electromagnetic field), which was mentioned. The meaning is often a place where something (such as electromagnetic interaction) happens or is done, like in English "workplace" (仕事場), "marketplace" (市場), "public place" (公の場), "a formal situation" (改まった場), "scene of the accident/murder/etc" (現場).
Based on your description, it seems like what he means is the (workplace) environment, ie. "a suitable (workplace) environment for knowledge creation", or "a workplace with environment conducive to knowledge creation". Or perhaps working area (i.e. personal space) instead of workplace (including non-immediate surroundings). Be the emphasis as it may, I think that the surroundings/environment is important here. 場(ば) is not, after all, a pointlike place but an area.
The Origins & Uses of the Kanji 場 - hellosilly - 2006-12-17
Thanks to everyone for the input! raulir, what you are saying seems to correlate with the way it is used. Environment and context seem to be the key; an area rather than a pointlike place. I really appreciate your insights, many thanks all!