Tsuitachi, Hatsuka & Misoka in counting days

[Baka Gaijin]

Morning all

 

A quick clarification please

 

When describing a date of the month, a Japanese friend used the following terms, but did not know why they were used:

 

Why is 一日 Tsuitachi and not Ichinichi?

 

Why is 二十日 Hatsuka and not Nijunichi?

 

Why was 三十日 Misoka instead of the present Sanjunichi

 

Where do these terms come from? (Lunar - Solar?) and to what do they relate?

 

 

Cheers

[John A Stuart]

朔日 tsuitachi (first day of the month) 廿日 hatsuka (twentieth day of the month esp. of the 初月 shogatsu) 初日 shonichi (first day) 晦日 misoka (last day of month) 元日 ganjitsu (first day of first month). John

[Jacques]

Hi,

 

If i'm not wrong, ichinichi means a (one) day, tsuitachi means the first day or the month. After the tenth day (toka) Japanese use nichi except for hatsuka (20) or nijuyokka (24).

[Baka Gaijin]

Thanks John and Jacques for such a swift reply and the kanji 廿日for Hatsuka etc.

 

However, my question is, where do they come from and why?

 

Are they related to Lunar Solar observances in the old calendar used pre Meijii Jidai?

 

Do they have a significance related to the old agrarian observances "borrowed" from Northern China such as 立春 Rishun - Feb 4th -Beginning of Spring.

 

Cheers

[John A Stuart]

You will find the romaji strangely derived, but here is a good article. http://www.sf.airnet.ne.jp/~ts/Japanese/monthday.html John

[Baka Gaijin]

John Stuart wrote:

 

You will find the romaji strangely derived, but here is a good article. http://www.sf.airnet.ne.jp/~ts/Japanese/monthday.htm

 

 

Stands back in awe.............

 

John...You da Man!!

 

Yet another case of NMB doing what it says on the label. :D

 

Cheers

[sencho]

However, my question is, where do they come from and why?

 

I think they are types of ordinal numbers used for dates....

 

But just as tricky as some of our ordninal numbers... "first, second, third, fourth... easy to learn then on for the non-English speaker until they reach 21 with no apparent reason why it has an "st" on the end rather than a "th"!!!

 

and then we start talking about pairs, couples, brace, gross... drives my Japanese friends nuts!.. but I think this is the same in just about every language...

 

If i'm not wrong, ichinichi means a (one) day, tsuitachi means the first day or the month. After the tenth day (toka) Japanese use nichi except for hatsuka (20) or nijuyokka (24).

 

and juyokka (14)

 

cheers

[Baka Gaijin]

Morning all

 

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread

 

Here is my half baked theory:

 

Hatsuka is thus called for reasons bound up in the Lunar Solar calendar, and the partial adoption of the Gregorian calendar.

 

The suffix か "ka" (or possibly うか "uka") was a counter for days in Pre Meijii Jidai Japanese.

 

In the ancient numbering Hatachi はたち was used for the number 20.

 

So if a tiny extrapolation is allowed, we produce Hatsuka.

 

I am told that few modern Japanese speakers know the full ancient number system, such as use of the word あまり "amari" (remainder) to combine numbers.

 

Thus 11 is read as とおあまりひとつ tôamarihitotsu and 111 ももあまりとおあまりひとつ momoamaritôamarihitotsu etc.

 

If you want to create the ancient numbers, there's a neat Java generator on this site (Thanks again John and Takasugi Shinji San for the site)

 

http://www.sf.airnet.ne.jp/~ts/Japanese/javanumber.html

 

Cheers