Gaijin, but with what kanji ?

[Maciamo]

I was thinking making some of the JREF tshirts with some of the above kanji. It would read :

Gaijin ? What do you mean ?

外神 ? (divine foreigner)
外仁 ? (virtous outsider)
害人 ? (harmful person)
街人 ? (town resident)
鎧辰 ? (armoured dragon)

[Hiroyuki Nagashima]

Gaijin ? What do you mean ?

"外国人"


....

[Maciamo]

Gaijin ? What do you mean ?

"外国人"

It was intended as a joke.

[Elizabeth]

It was intended as a joke.

'Oh, sorry I meant "Gaikokujin", not Gaijin' I think was Nagashima's attempt at compromise language.

[Mikawa Ossan]

Sorry if this is anal, but wouldn't 外神 be an outside or foreign god, and not a divine foreigner? I mean, the only reason 外人 means foreigners (as in people) is because of the second kanji, am I wrong?

外人 is basically　よその人
Is not 外神 basically よその神?

[Maciamo]

Sorry if this is anal, but wouldn't 外神 be an outside or foreign god, and not a divine foreigner? I mean, the only reason 外人 means foreigners (as in people) is because of the second kanji, am I wrong?

There hardly any difference between "outside god" and "divine foreigner".

First of all, there is hardly difference between 'outside' and 'foreign', as "foreign" comes from Latin "foras", which means "outside". My Oxford Dictionary also gives for defnition of foreign : "coming or introduced from outside".

Then, a "divine person" or "godly person" could basically be considered as a god. The most common way of representing god(s) in any religion is the human form. So we could say that the word "god" generally includes the meaning of "person". Therefore : a foreign/outside god = a foreign/ouside divine person = a divine foreign person = divine foreigner.

Sorry if that was too mathematical. foreign foreign

I wouldn't worry too much about the strictness of the meaning of kanji compound. It is in the nature of kanji not to distinguish between gender (male/female), number (singular/plural), function (subject/object) and word class (noun/adjective/adverb/verb). So, a kanji like 神 can mean 'god' (masc.sing.), 'gods' (masc. pl.), 'goddess' (fem.sing.), 'goddesses' (fem.pl.), while 上 can mean 'up' (adv.), 'above' (prep./adv.), 'rise/raise' (verb), 'top' (noun/adj.). The compound 上神 can thus mean "rising god", "god from above", "top god", or any alternative with gods, goddess, and goddesses. As for the function, it gets interesting with kanji that have several meaning. For instance, 着 means both "wear" (noun/verb) or 'cloth', but also "arrive" or "arrival". So 上着 could theoretically mean 'top wear','raised cloth', 'rising cloth' (whatever that means), 'arrive at the top', 'top arrival(s)', 'rise in arrivals', etc.

[Mikawa Ossan]

There hardly any difference between "outside god" and "divine foreigner".

This is what I disagree with, but I'll get back to this.

First of all, there is hardly difference between 'outside' and 'foreign', as "foreign" comes from Latin "foras", which means "outside". My Oxford Dictionary also gives for defnition of foreign : "coming or introduced from outside".

I couldn't agree more. I meant "or" in the inclusive sense.

Then, a "divine person" or "godly person" could basically be considered as a god. The most common way of representing god(s) in any religion is the human form. So we could say that the word "god" generally includes the meaning of "person". Therefore : a foreign/outside god = a foreign/ouside divine person = a divine foreign person = divine foreigner.

You're missing my point. I'm saying that a person is a person, and a god is a god on a very basic level. So that a 外人 refers to a person, whereas 外神 refers to a god.

I'm not talking about representations of gods. Now if you want to say that you're a god tongue in cheek, that's fine with me, but on a very basic Japanese level, I'm just saying that 外神 seems to me to literally refer to gods, not people.

Any metaphors you like to make notwithstanding, I think very few Japanese people would ever make the connection to "divine foreigner".

I'm not trying to rain on your parade, really!