The third word named in the overview article is kiseru — the long, thin implement in which you pack cut tobacco to smoke it. Where does this word come from? Nihon no Kotoba (1940) by Shinmura Izuru has a chapter, “Kiseru no gogen” (“The Etymology of Kiseru”), in which an etymologist’s withdrawal of his own theory is written out just as it happened.
The first guess: a Turkish town
That kiseru is Cambodian, Shinmura begins, is something he learned only very recently. Until then he had been thinking of something else.
In that year’s New Year issue of a magazine, Shinmura had contributed a piece titled “Kiseru” considering the word’s etymology, and put forward the idea that the name might have come from Eskişehir, which he’d heard of from someone — a town in Asia Minor known for its pottery pipes. He also thought of a German-made pipe of cherry twig called “Weichselrohr,” and compared that name.
Shinmura himself, however, calls this idea a “conjecture.” Turkish and German were remote connections, and evidence for a pottery or wooden pipe was lacking. Though he felt it didn’t reach the level of historical research, he says, no suitable etymology had turned up at the time, so he put it out for the moment.
The pointer: “Isn’t it Cambodian?”
Afterward a pointer reached Shinmura. Watanabe Shūjirō, an elder, had written a piece in a magazine titled “Mr. Satow and Japanese Culture.” In it, touching on Satow’s achievements, he let Shinmura know something he’d heard from Satow about the etymology of kiseru.
The story was this. In “Tobacco Introduction Research,” published in 1877 (Meiji 10), Satow had adopted a different theory of kiseru’s etymology (one based on a verb from Kantō dialect). But later, he said, on a trip to the Malay Peninsula, he learned that the word came from Cambodian. And Watanabe himself had already given that theory in his own book Gaikō Tsūshō Shiwa, published in 1897 (Meiji 30).
Shinmura promptly consulted Gaikō Tsūshō Shiwa. It contained an entry stating, in effect, that kiseru comes from the Cambodian khsier, meaning “tube.” Further, in a Cambodian dictionary with French translations (published in Hong Kong in 1902), khsier was translated as pipe.
That Cambodian khsier (tube) meant “pipe” and became kiseru is a natural transformation in Japanese — so Shinmura concluded.
And he writes, in effect:
“I express my thanks to Elder Watanabe for his pointer.” (the gist of the original)
The Genkai was wrong too
There’s another interesting passage in this chapter. Shinmura traces the etymological theories of kiseru since the Meiji period. According to him, Otsuki Fumihiko, in “Gairaigo gen-kō” (“A Study of the Sources of Loanwords”), published in 1884 (Meiji 17) in Gakugei Shirin, said kiseru is “Spanish,” while noting that the source word had not been found. And the later Genkai took over this theory as it was, with the note “Spanish, meaning ‘tube.’”
The Genkai we read in the Otsuki Fumihiko feature was the first modern dictionary of Japanese. But its etymology entries included theories that later research rewrote. Shinmura records the course of events calmly.
The origin of rau (羅宇) ties in too
Shinmura writes another interesting fact. The bamboo tube joining a pipe’s mouthpiece and its bowl (the metal part with the fire-cup) is called rau (羅宇) in Japanese. This rau, he says, is the name of a bamboo (mottled bamboo) that came from Laos. Shinmura also touches on the report that the word rau-dake has been known since the Kan’ei era, but adds a reservation: he himself has not yet seen firm evidence. Both kiseru and rau, then, were words that came in from around Southeast Asia — Cambodia and Laos.
What this tells us
What this chapter teaches is not the etymology itself so much as the etymologist’s attitude.
- While evidence is thin, offer a guess as “for now, one idea.”
- When other evidence turns up, withdraw your own theory and thank the one who told you.
- If a predecessor (Otsuki’s Genkai) was wrong, point that out with care.
“Correct yourself at once when you see the mistake” — this attitude shows plainly in Shinmura Izuru’s writing.
Summary
| Point | Detail |
|---|---|
| Otsuki Fumihiko’s theory | Spanish (“tube”); the source word unconfirmed, yet carried into the Genkai |
| Shinmura’s first idea | The Turkish town Eskişehir (known for pottery pipes); offered as a stopgap |
| The turning point | Watanabe Shūjirō’s pointer; Satow’s later arrival at the Cambodian theory and Watanabe’s own 1897 book were checked |
| Conclusion | From Cambodian khsier (“tube”), backed by a 1902 dictionary |
| Attitude | Withdrew his own theory and thanked the one who pointed it out |
In a nutshell — the etymology of kiseru is Cambodian khsier (“tube”). But more than that conclusion, what makes this chapter worth reading is Shinmura Izuru’s readiness to drop his own first theory in front of the evidence.