In my last post, we learned how Japanese language is precise, through the variety of animal counters. Today, let’s take a look at counters as they pertain to humans and demons! Humans are counted differently depending on whether they are alive or dead, influenced by the various rituals surrounding death involving the corpse.
– nin (人) = for humans that are alive.
– mei (名) = it is the same as nin, but used in formal situations.
– tai (体) = once the human is dead and a corpse, which makes sense since the kanji 体 (karada) means “body” and the word 死体 (shitai) means “corpse.”
– ki (基) = when the corpse is inside the casket, which also makes sense as the kanji 墓 (haka) means “grave.”
– kou (口) = after it has been incinerated and when it’s inside the urn. The counter kou, which is the kanji that means “mouth” (kuchi), is used for objects that have an opening similar to a mouth, hence for the urn.
– hashira (柱) = for the mortuary tablet (位牌 – ihai) of the dead person, placed on the Buddhist altar (仏壇 – butsudan). The kanji means “pillar” (hashira) and this counter is used for gods as well. Ancient belief was that people become gods after their death.
The first three (nin, mei, tai) are the most used. However, similarly to other counter specifications, these are incredibly detailed, and even many Japanese people don’t know about them, so if you don’t remember the last ones, it’s ok.
Since the human and animal counters are so detailed, it is logical that demons, gods, angels, and other fantasy creatures are counted specially too. What is interesting here, is that main criteria they are divided by is whether the creatures are harmful or not to humans, and whether they have relationships with humans. It is a bit like the service dog classification which I mentioned in my earlier post. They have different counters whether they are working for humans or not.
– nin (人) = for angels, mermaids, fairy creatures. This is the same counter for humans, because angels are supposed to be protecting or at least good to humans, and mermaids are also close to humans, in terms of feelings.
– hiki (匹) = for devils, demons, youkai (妖怪 – demons in Japanese folk tales). This is the same counter for animals, that is because devils and other monsters are supposedly bad or harmful to humans.
However, if a monster is nice and close to a person, it will be counted with “nin” too.
There are many more counters for human beings, for example if we are talking about a pair of twos or a couple or a team (kumi 組), a family ( setai 世帯), a large group (dan 団), and more. I think we can all agree that Japanese language is an incredibly precise language!