Can 亜 mean lucky?

56 views
Skip to first unread message

Kevin Kirton

unread,
Mar 2, 2012, 11:15:06 PM3/2/12
to honyaku
Not related to a paid job, but a question that is driving me mad.
I picked up an English-language kids book in Kyoto recently called
"All About Japan" (a Tuttle book) and on its page about Japanese
writing it shows 亜, あ, and ア as examples of kanji, hiragana, and
katakana respectively. Then next to 亜 it states: This is the kanji for
the word "lucky."
But none of the Japanese or Chinese dictionaries I've looked at seems
to back this up.
I'm guessing this is a mistake of some sort?
Any ideas?

Kevin Kirton
Cooma, Australia

Kevin Kirton

unread,
Mar 3, 2012, 4:30:14 PM3/3/12
to honyaku
The mystery remains unsolved then, I guess?

It's just that the book looks otherwise well edited.
I thought perhaps that the kanji 安 was intended (since that's
often/usually given as the origin of the hiragana あ), but even then
none of the dictionaries or Chinese etymology sites gives a meaning
close to "lucky."

Once something like this gets in my head, I can't let it go. So I
emailed the publisher.
But I thought there would be someone here with at least a guess.

Kevin Kirton
Cooma, Australia

Alan Siegrist

unread,
Mar 3, 2012, 5:04:31 PM3/3/12
to hon...@googlegroups.com
Kevin Kirton writes:

> I picked up an English-language kids book in Kyoto recently called "All
> About Japan" (a Tuttle book) and on its page about Japanese writing
> it shows 亜, あ, and ア as examples of kanji, hiragana, and katakana
> respectively. Then next to 亜 it states: This is the kanji for the word
> "lucky."
> But none of the Japanese or Chinese dictionaries I've looked at
> seems to back this up.
> I'm guessing this is a mistake of some sort?
> Any ideas?

Well, since no one else has spoken up, let me speculate.

Yes, this is clearly a mistake. 亜 has no meanings anywhere close to "lucky" as far as I can tell, either in Japanese or Chinese.

Now for the speculation part. Since this is a kids book, the authors probably wanted so simplify things but still make it interesting. I can only guess that the author first picked 亜, あ and アin order to represent the sound "a" in the three different scripts. Fair enough.

But then an editor or someone important wanted to know what亜 "meant" and thought they should include the meaning of the character in the book. Of course, we all know that 亜 does not have a very distinct "meaning" itself, but rather it either represents the sound "a" in kanji place names or means something like "sub-" in various scientific terms. Neither of these are terribly easy to explain to children, so maybe someone had the bright idea to change the character to one that means "lucky" (presumably 福 or something).

So the editor changed the English but then someone dropped the ball about changing the kanji to one that does mean "lucky." Or maybe someone else objected to changing the character because it would destroy the neat "a" sound theme. So the character didn't get changed, but the "lucky" bit remained.

Editors that don't know everything about their subject can cause these sorts of problems.

Regards,

Alan Siegrist
Carmel, CA, USA

Benjamin Barrett

unread,
Mar 3, 2012, 5:08:40 PM3/3/12
to hon...@googlegroups.com
There is some ambiguous evidence on the Web. Two citations are:

亜瑠花(アルカ):lucky goods shop (http://www2.kyorochan.com/aruka/)
亜☆すた(Lucky Star)(http://raki.st/v2aQRN)

No idea what's going on there, though.

Benjamin Barrett
Seattle, WA

kanji saito

unread,
Mar 3, 2012, 5:19:31 PM3/3/12
to hon...@googlegroups.com
ひとつめの例は、「アルカ」に対する単なる当て字なので、意味は対応していな
いと思います(「亜米利加」と同じ)。
二つ目は「らき☆すた」のもじりなので「亜 lucky☆star」なのではないかと。
つまり「らき☆すた」の亜種ということじゃないでしょうか。

斉藤 完治

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Honyaku
> Mailing list.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> honyaku+u...@googlegroups.com
> For more options, visit this group at
> http://groups.google.com/group/honyaku?hl=en?hl=en

Benjamin Barrett

unread,
Mar 3, 2012, 5:26:55 PM3/3/12
to hon...@googlegroups.com
That seems reasonable. I wonder if something like those hits was the source of the book's claim. BB

Kevin Kirton

unread,
Mar 10, 2012, 9:23:40 PM3/10/12
to hon...@googlegroups.com
For those wondering about this thread, the publisher of the book was
good enough to reply to my email:

"Alas, there is no luck in 亜. I’m very sorry to report that the
solution to this mystery is that we made a mistake."

How the mistake was made is still a mystery. But I imagine it would be
something along the lines of Alan Siegrist's theory.

It's a new book, so perhaps in 20 years time from now we might see a
celebrity of some kind being interviewed about his tattoo of 亜 meaning
"lucky" and that he read it in a book so it must be true.

Kevin Kirton
Cooma, Australia

Nozomi Kugita

unread,
Mar 10, 2012, 11:19:34 PM3/10/12
to hon...@googlegroups.com
A long time ago, a fortune teller I met at a bar told me the reason why many tellers prefer using "亜" in their professional names (which I didn't even ask).

According to her, the symbol "亞", the origin of "亜" is made up of a cross in the middle, which represent a person, and the top and the bottom lines that sandwich the cross, which represent life and death (I don't remember which is which). So the symbol as a whole represents a cycle of life, celebration of incarnation, and . For which it is believed among the fortune tellers that the symbol "亞" (and thus "亜") brings luck and peace in your life.

Could be true, could be not.

Nozomi Kugita
(By the way, I just joined LinkedIn a few days ago. If you use it, add me to your network, please!)
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages