八咫鏡

Japanese

Kanji in this term
八	咫	鏡
や Grade: 1	た Hyōgai	かがみ Grade: 4
kun'yomi

Alternative spelling
八咫の鏡

Etymology

Phrase consisting of 八 (ya, “eight”) +‎ 咫 (ata, an ancient unit of circumference) +‎ の (no, possessive particle) +‎ 鏡 (kagami, “mirror”).^[1]

The name is a description of the mirror's size. A circle with a diameter of one 尺 (shaku, ancient foot, unit of length) would have a circumference of four ata. A circumference of eight ata would thus mean a mirror with a diameter of two shaku. The shaku at that time was roughly 23 centimeters, so the mirror would have been roughly 46 centimeters across.

Pronunciation

(Tokyo) やたのかがみ [yàtá nó kágámíꜜ] (Odaka – [6])^[2]
IPA^(key): [ja̠ta̠ no̞ ka̠ɡa̠mʲi]

Proper noun

八咫鏡(やたのかがみ) • (Yata no Kagami)

the "Eight-Hand Mirror", one of the three sacred treasures comprising the Imperial Regalia of Japan

Usage notes

The ata of that time period was around 18 centimeters or 7.25 inches, so note that the hand in the English name is not the same as the four-inch unit of measurement.

References

^ Shōgaku Tosho (1988) 国語大辞典（新装版） [Unabridged Dictionary of Japanese (Revised Edition)] (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Shogakukan, →ISBN
^ NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute, editor (1998), NHK日本語発音アクセント辞典 [NHK Japanese Pronunciation Accent Dictionary] (in Japanese), Tokyo: NHK Publishing, Inc., →ISBN

[KDJ-1] Shōgaku Tosho (1988) 国語大辞典（新装版） [Unabridged Dictionary of Japanese (Revised Edition)] (in Japanese), Tōkyō: Shogakukan, →ISBN

[NHK-2] NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute, editor (1998), NHK日本語発音アクセント辞典 [NHK Japanese Pronunciation Accent Dictionary] (in Japanese), Tokyo: NHK Publishing, Inc., →ISBN

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