Tag: WA
Japanese Wa (倭, “Japan, Japanese”, from Chinese Wō 倭, Hangul Wae 왜) is the oldest recorded name of Japan. Chinese, Korean, and Japanese scribes regularly wrote Wa or Yamato “Japan” with the Chinese character 倭 until the 8th century, when the Japanese found fault with it, replacing it with 和 “harmony, peace, balance”.
The earliest textual references to Japan are in Chinese classic texts. Within the official Chinese dynastic Twenty-Four Histories, Japan is mentioned among the so-called Dongyi 東夷 “Eastern Barbarians”. Note that the following texts are chronologically ordered by date of compilation, which does not always correspond with the sequence of Dynasties in Chinese history. In traditional Chinese units of measurement, distance is recorded in lǐ 里, which varied among dynastic standards, roughly equivalent to 300–400 meters. Tsunoda (1951:4) cautions that great distances in thousands of lǐ “are, of course, not to be taken literally.”
Possibly the earliest record of Wō 倭 “Japan”…
