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New Era Name 'Reiwa' Defines Japan As Emperor Akihito Prepares To Abdicate
Japan has revealed the name of its next imperial era to be "Reiwa," set to begin May 1 as Crown Prince Naruhito is expected to take the throne.
Yoshihide Suga, Japan's chief cabinet secretary, announced the name at a press conference Monday morning local time, unveiling a board with the two kanji characters written on it. While there was some deliberation over the exact meaning, the two characters that make up the new name, or the "gengo," translate roughly to "good fortune" and "peace" or "harmony," according to The Japan Times.
"We hope [the era name] will be widely accepted by the people and deeply rooted as part of their daily lives," Suga told reporters.
The announcement comes as the current "Heisei" era draws to a close after three decades, with Emperor Akihito set to step down on April 30 in the first abdication of the throne in over 200 years.
[...]Announcing the name one month in advance gives companies and government entities time to incorporate the name into paperwork and computer systems, The Guardian reports. Even as the Western calendar has become more widespread in Japan, the era name is still used frequently, including on newspapers, coins and official documents like driving licenses. Under the system, 2019 is known as Heisei 31, or the 31st year of Akihito's reign.
Also at BBC.
See also: Japan's New Era Gets a Name, but No One Can Agree What It Means
Previously: MonarchyNews: The King is My Co-Pilot and Japanese Succession "Crisis"
Japan Clears Way for Emperor to Step Down in 1st Abdication in 200 Years
Big Tech Warns of 'Japan's Millennium Bug' Ahead of Akihito's Abdication
(Score: 5, Informative) by stormwyrm on Wednesday April 03 2019, @09:49AM (7 children)
This is an odd choice to say the least. The two characters have these individual meanings:
So there's kind of a double meaning here. It could mean an order to peace, or to command Japan. The latter possibility has some implications which countries like China just might take the wrong way...
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 03 2019, @10:26AM (1 child)
Taking a tech angle: On the plus side, they're using existing kanji for this era, instead of making new characters up which they've done for previous eras, so no need to worry about a rush to update unicode and font files and all sorts to be able to render the name. I'm not sure how software which can handle this old calender system works though. I expect they'd need an update? Would be nice to hear from anyone who knows better than me if this is the case, and how such changes are accomodated for or implemented.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by stormwyrm on Wednesday April 03 2019, @11:00AM
Since the fall of the Shogunate in 1868 there have been the following eras:
All of the kanji used are standard ones that have been in use in China and Japan for centuries. The only way in which they make up new characters for era names is to create monograms of the characters, e.g. ㍻ (Heisei), ㍼ (Shōwa), ㍽ (Taishō), and ㍾ (Meiji). A Unicode code point (U+32FF) is already reserved for Reiwa, and it will certainly look just like a monogram of 令 and 和, just as with all the other single characters for era names. You don't have to use the monogram character for the era, the digraph is just as acceptable, and is in fact far more common. You sometimes even see era names abbreviated by using only the first character of the name (e.g. 平22 for Heisei 22, or 2010 in the Western calendar)
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Wednesday April 03 2019, @12:17PM (1 child)
My AI also notes:
元危 = Linux's current era.
it's pronounced "systemd"
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 03 2019, @01:25PM
So that is how to write "awful trash inflected on the user base with violence resulting in Hell on *nix"
I have wondered! Thanks!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Wednesday April 03 2019, @01:09PM (2 children)
If they want to. That's the problem with diplomatic games. It's very easy to find things to be offended by.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 03 2019, @01:31PM (1 child)
China is so easy to offend these days. Just stepping foot on an island in the middle of international waters is enough for them to declare war. Heck, just talking about one of the countries they have invaded or taken control of will piss them off.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday April 03 2019, @04:38PM
When the ultimate insult is Winnie The Pooh ...