Help with Japanese

[ecosophia]

I need some assistance with a fiction project from readers literate in Japanese. It's set in a deindustrial future where most of the population of Japan had to flee the islands a while back -- we won't get into spoiler territory by talking about why. One of the amenities of the community where about half the story takes place is a Shinto shrine dedicated to those kami who also left Japan. Its name in English works out to the Hall of Homeless Gods; it's the Japanese for this that I need to doublecheck. 

If I'm right, that works out to  宿無神堂  , which in the on reading ought to be Shukumushindo. Am I right?  Or do I have it completely bollixed up? Enquiring authors want to know. Many thanks for your help!

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Looks as though someone is fleshing out the Neeonjin

[ecosophia]

Oh, there's probably some reference to that back in my subconscious somewhere, but this is a different story in a different deindustrial future. Kind of a deindustrial noir sensibility, with a lot of Shinto. Oh, and Gnosticism. It should be fun.

[yuccaglauca]

無宿 means homeless but I don't think the reverse order is used. That mu as a prefix usually comes immediately before the thing that there's none of, so 無神論 (mushinron, "ron" being "theory") is atheism, for example. So perhaps Mushukushindou would be better?

(I wrote "dou" since, as a learner, not indicating long vowels hurts my eyes, but you're quite correct that the official romanizations of proper nouns sometimes don't bother, as most English speakers wouldn't know the difference anyway. Either romanization would be fine for your purpose.)

[ecosophia]

Thanks for this. The reverse order is what came up in online dictionaries! I note, however, that Weilong agrees with you, and Mushukujin has a good sound to it.

As for do/dou/dō, oh, granted -- for some reason I've never liked the "u" as a lengthener, and the macron over the o is kind of a hassle on the keyboard.

[tunesmyth]

I note, however, that Weilong agrees with you, and Mushukujin has a good sound to it.

Just to clarify something. Weilong made the important point that Shinto names tend to prefer "Kun" (native, original to Japan) readings of kanji over "On" readings (rooted in Chinese pronunciations), something I hadn't consciously realized before but is definitely true. While he did agree that the 無-first On/Chinese reading 無宿神 "Mushukujin" (no-dwelling-god[s]) has a good ring to it, he also suggested that the 無 comes second in Kun/Japanese readings. The kun-yomi version of these three characters would then, in this case, be 宿無神 "Yadonashi no Kami" (dwelling-not-god[s]), which definitely sounds more Shinto-ish to me.

(More opinions in a moment further down below, I just wanted to point out the possible misunderstanding here.)

[ecosophia]

Yes, I noticed that shortly after I commented on your comment. Still, thanks for the clarification!

[tunesmyth]

Right now, the first three kanji seem to work fine. To my Japanese wife who is the real judge here, "Shukumujin" is slightly amusing, somehow, but not in a bad way, and seems plausible. The fourth kanji as it stands now would seem to suggest a meeting hall within the grounds of such a shrine rather than the shrine itself. As you want a shrine name, it should end in 社 (宿無神社 Shukumu Jinja) or perhaps Nomiya ノ宮 (宿無神ノ宮 Shukumujin Nomiya), or if a grand shrine under which many other smaller shrines may connect with, maybe 神宮 (宿無神宮 Shukumu Jingu). Probably the closest of these to "Hall of the Homeless Gods", for me, is 宿無神ノ宮 Shukumujin Nomiya, as it really stresses the existence of "Shukumujin", who I sort of imagine could be a next generation of the Shichifukujin, heading out from Japan on their own Takarabune treasure ship in search of fortune.

[ecosophia]

Thanks for this. I'm not quite sure at this point whether the Mushukijin(place) is a standard shrine or if it's run by a new religious movement heavily influenced by Shinto -- I suspect the latter, but it's still early days yet.

[weilong]

Nothing wrong with your idea. I'll just spitball a little, in case it might help you.

When using *on* readings, it is more common to use a Chinese word order. To my mind, 無宿新堂 (mushukushindo) has a better ring to it.

For all things Shinto, there is a preference for *kun* readings. In that light, 宿無 could be yadonashi. A temple near me, for example, is called 水無神社 (looks like mizunashi jinja, but is actually mizuna jinja or minashi jinja depending on who you ask).　The tenth month of the old calendar is 神無月 (the month without gods, because they all go to Izumo for a convention at that time), which can be read kannazuki, kaminashizuki, or a couple of other variations.
So 宿無 could be something like yadonashi, yadona, or yadonakari. A possible rendering of 宿無神堂 could be yadonagamido or yadonashikamido. Another possible name, 宿無神社, could be read as yadonajinja or yadonashijinja.

[weilong]

A typo in my comment: 無宿新堂 in the second line should be 無宿神堂

I second the comment about ...堂 most often referring to a building on the grounds, rather than the whole temple institution/compound. I wouldn't take that as a hard and fast rule, though. If it is a stand-alone shrine, it would probably be kind of small - probably just one room, but big enough for a priest to go inside and do ceremonies. It has associations with Buddhism, too (although the line between Shinto and Buddhism is often quite blurry). I could definitely see 宿無神堂 yadonagamido as a sort of homeless shelter for displaced gods.

Also as mentioned in another comment, ...ノ宮 or ...神宮 is usually something pretty grand, while 神社 is just an ordinary sort of shrine. Specifically, anything with 宮 in it is likely to be associated with the imperial family in some way. For regular (non-imperial) shrines, there is a kind of ranking from 大社 (taisha, a sort of regional headquarters) to 神社 (jinja, an ordinary shrine) to plain old 社 (-sha, a satellite from a larger shrine).

[ecosophia]

Many thanks for all of this. Yadonagamido works well. As noted in response to a comment above, I get the sense that the Hall of Homeless Gods is run by a new religious movement influenced by Shinto rather than being a Shinto shrine per se, but it's still early days yet in the framing of the story (and I need to reread a bunch of my books on the odd corners of Japanese religion before finalizing anything anyway...)

[tunesmyth]

I'll first say that I agree with everything Weilong wrote. (With the minor caveat that I have certainly come across examples of small "Miya", as well as non-imperial "Guu", for instance Kotohira-guu.) I also agree that, if it's not strictly a shrine, that it needn't be called "Jinja" nor "Miya" nor "Guu", and "Do" would be a fine choice.

I just asked my wife about which of the various pronunciation choices seemed most pleasing to her Japanese ear. She gave an answer I found quite amusing, which was that a typical kind of thing to be the case would be for most everyone in the local community to all call it one thing, but then if you go and chat with the head priest at the shrine and call it that, they'll gently correct you and tell you it's actually read the other way, but you can say it whatever way you like. :-)

She also offered that her own preferred pronunciation of 宿無神堂 would be a mix of Kun and On: "Yadona Jindo". She thinks it sounds a little bit stylish that way, evoking a feeling of wordplay. That said, she stresses that any of the readings that have been put forward here work for her. Even ホームレスどう ("Homeless-do") would work for her!

I look forward to learning more about the Yadonashi no Kami. Are there only a few of them? Are there ten thousand myriad swarms of Heavenly Amatsu Yadonashi no Kami and Earthly Kunitsu Yadonashi no Kami?

[tunesmyth]

One more slightly random detail, should it happen to be of use. The uncommon word 宿無 "Yadonashi" ("without a dwelling") is just one syllable removed from the common word "Yadonushi" 宿主, which is the word for a landlord or innkeeper (literally, "dwelling lord", which is probably why the word also gets used for things like parasitic hosts).

A minor change of one syllable is sometimes used in folk magical or religious practices. Perhaps this is a form of Kotodama. Just as for instance, my local shrine 水分神社 Mikumari Jinja is named after waters which have split off from a mountain stream, and are kami related to these waters. But a local folk practice considers the shrine kami to also be kami for watching over children, due to the (completely non-official) alternate pronunciation of "Mikomori Jinja", "komori" being the word for someone who looks after children.

So if the Yadonashi Kami are also Yadonushi Kami, perhaps there is a further paradox nested in the home of the gods who have no home, in that they are also the lords of the home in which they do not dwell?

[(Anonymous)]

the first 3 kunyunmi reading are accurate, for the fourth one, it is either do or to. not sure anymore. The best japanese-english dictionary out there is called the Nelson J-E dictionary.

[ecosophia]

Thanks for this!

[(Anonymous)]

In this case it would be "do" due to rendaku (sequential voicing). You're quite right that "to" is also a valid reading though.

[ecosophia]

So that's the Japanese word for it! I'm used to thinking of it as "mutation," which is the term for the corresponding (but somewhat weirder) habit in Welsh.

[weilong]

You've probably got enough ideas to work with already, but it occurred to me that you could switch it around to 無堂神宿 (mutoshinjuku). Since 宿 has a connotation of temporary lodging, that would be a sort of inn for gods who have no temple.

[ecosophia]

What would the equivalent be in kun pronunciation?

[weilong]

Perhaps donakikaminojuku. Other possibilities are donakikaminoyado, donagamijuku, donagaminoyado. Place names ending with -juku (e.g. Harajuku, Shinjuku), by the way, were stops on the old highways that carried foot traffic across the country.

[(Anonymous)]

For your consideration...
無宿神の堂。
Mushukujin no dou.
A good mix of on readings with a very Japanese particle.

Adam and Haruko

[(Anonymous)]

Will your story include Adam Keely and Sumigawa Haruko? Or their descendants? If they gave the kids his surname, what would "Keely" become?

Re: Adam and Haruko

[ecosophia]

No, this is in a different deindustrial future, and it's also on the other side of the continent. I should have guessed that someone would think of that, though!

Just my two cents...

[michele7]

Dear John,
You don’t have to publish this. After reading your ask for help last week, this has been whirling around in my brain. My background is having lived in Japan for 13 years, married to a Japanese man, prayed at our local shrine, danced in festivals, yada, yada. What has me perplexed is the thought of “homeless” gods. I’m not sure the gods can ever be homeless. I’m no expert, but my understanding is the gods reside in big shrines, smaller shrines, hokora, kamidana and then rocks, rivers, mountains, etc. I’m sure you know the US has at least two Shinto shrines. So, just like fleeing people in the past who brought their religious items with them, don’t you think Japanese people would do the same? There is a Shinto concept of the gods in everything, so I can’t wrap my head around “homeless” gods. Now, neglected I can see. Small shrines in abandoned rural towns are neglected. I mulled this over with a couple of my children, who understood my thoughts. Again, just my two cents. (I will admit at first I felt the words “Hall of Homeless Gods” sounded disrespectful. I still feel a strong connection to Japan with friends and family still there, so I tend to get a bit defensive.) Good luck with the book!

Re: Just my two cents...

[ecosophia]

Thanks for this. It's supposed to be a startling, even shocking concept -- and in the story, it's the belief of a new religion (shinkō shūkyō, 新興宗教) that borrows some of its ideas from Shinto but is by no means orthodox. As for refugees, there were quite a few of those -- the main character's mother spent her teen years in a refugee camp near Vladivostok -- but tens of millions didn't make it. In this story, whole communities were wiped out, and their shrines and religious items with them.

Now of course the more important kami won't have been affected by that -- the kami of heaven and most of the kami of earth -- but a lot of minor local kami are not so fortunate. Those are the kami the Hall of Homeless Gods makes offerings to.

A bit offtopic but still somewhat related...

[(Anonymous)]

I've read Your book "Twilight's Last Gleaming" and, as russian-speaking person, noticed a small language-related typo. Russian "starets" is, indeed, mean something close to "righteous old man", but plural form of starets sounds as "startsi", not "staretsi". IMHO this needs to be corrected in new edition.

Other than that, a great novel. And special thanks for NOT portraying the characters from other cultures in cliched/caricatured way. This may sound trivial, but actually not such a common thing in western fiction books.