We check here, in Orikuchi Shinobu’s own words, the “kotodama” (“word-spirit”) touched on in the overview article. It is the section “2. Gengo denshō” (“Transmission of Language”) of the lecture “Kokugo to minzokugaku.” (The English renderings of the quotations below are ToL translations.)
Without words, we cannot think
Orikuchi begins this section with the role of language. Words, he says, are like the binder used when making buckwheat noodles. They are merely an organ for keeping thought, but without that organ, thought is like buckwheat flour that has lost its binder: who knows where it would fly off to. And besides passing thought on to later ages, words have a higher role: letting us concentrate now, and think about things. We cannot think without words — that is Orikuchi’s starting point.
So words have a spirit
From there, Orikuchi proceeds like this.
言葉に精霊があり、それが不思議な作用をすることを、さきはふ或はさちはふと申してをります。
(That words have a spirit, and that this spirit has a marvelous working, is called sakiwau or sachiwau.)
In Orikuchi’s explanation, ancient people thought that words have a soul. Just as the things around us have souls, they thought a spirit lurks in words, which we cannot grasp in the hand nor see with the eye, yet which move our own mouths. That they called kotodama.
So what does it mean for that spirit to “sakiwau”?
つまり、言葉の持つて居る意義通りの結果が、そこへ現れて来ると言ふ事が、言霊の幸ふと言ふ事です。
(That is, that a result exactly in accordance with the meaning a word carries appears there — that is what it is for kotodama to sakiwau.)
This is the core of the section. The land where kotodama flourishes meant a land where what is spoken in words comes to be just as the words say. It isn’t a story about Japanese being beautiful.
This phrase isn’t so old
Orikuchi goes on to try to determine, from the form of the phrase, how old it is.
言霊の幸ふと言ふ言葉は、言葉の形から見れば新しい形です。
(The phrase “kotodama no sakiwau,” seen from its form, is a new form.)
According to Orikuchi, this way of speaking belongs to the age when the songs of the Man’yōshū were being sung among the people. It doesn’t seem a phrase that goes back much before the Nara period. But he doesn’t stop there. As for the belief itself, that kotodama has a marvelous working, whether it existed before that, one cannot say flatly that it did not. Only the belief that can be clearly delimited by the phrase “kotodama no sakiwau,” he says, probably hardened in a time not far before the Nara period. Here again Orikuchi carefully delimits how far he can assert.
A later misreading
And Orikuchi points out that the phrase was later reread in a completely different sense.
さうした学者の誤解が、ずつと後になつて、起つて来たのだと思ひます。
(I think that misunderstanding by such scholars arose much later.)
Orikuchi explains that scholars of a certain age interpreted “kotodama no sakiwau kuni” as Japan is a land where marvelous, mysterious words are in use, and further as a phrase praising how excellent and beautiful the words of Japan are. And those who so interpreted it thought that this is why splendid songs flourished in Japan. But in Orikuchi’s view, that was a later scholars’ misunderstanding.
What this passage shows
This passage is the clearest sample of Orikuchi’s method. By putting the meaning of a word back into the belief and life of the people who used it, Orikuchi finds where the later rereading occurred. At the same time, to the question “when was this phrase from?” he uses a checkable clue — the form of the phrase — and beyond that avoids assertion, saying one “cannot say flatly that it did not exist.”
How Orikuchi’s explanation is treated in present-day research, we sort out in the verdict article.
Summary
| Point | Detail |
|---|---|
| Starting point | We can’t think without words; so ancient people thought words have a spirit |
| Kotodama no sakiwau | A result just as the words’ meaning appearing in reality |
| Age of the phrase | “Kotodama no sakiwau” is a new form of the Man’yō period; the belief itself may have existed before |
| Later rereading | Taking it as praise of the beauty of Japanese is a later scholars’ misunderstanding |
| Orikuchi’s method | Put words back into belief and life; delimit how far one can assert |
In a nutshell — “kotodama no sakiwau kuni” was originally a phrase of belief in words: what is said comes to pass. Reading it as boasting about the beauty of Japanese is a later misunderstanding, Orikuchi Shinobu said.