Posted under General
Current tag (4 posts) is amidakuji, with ladder lottery/ghost leg as unused alternate names (Wikipedia uses ghost leg.)
We need an alias connecting amidakuji to one of the other names. The word makes my head hurt, so I'd prefer pointing amidakuji to ladder lottery, but if you want to point one or both alternate names to amidakuji, fine.
Updated by jxh2154
Ghostleg lottery also shows up in the WWJDIC as a translation.
I think ladder lottery is easier for English speakers to remember, though.
I can't find a particular answer on that. There don't seem to be a lot of English sources on a concept that's largely limited to Japan, China, and Korea.
The names are also all completely different in nature, so it's hard to state a common origin. "Ghost leg," "ladder climbing," "Amitabh lottery." It's a mess.
Multiple Japanese sources agree on the etymology: this form of lottery existed as far back as the Muromachi period (1336 to 1573); it was used for splitting the bill, for instance. At that time, it had a different, radial format, which was likened to Buddha's halo, and was thus called "Amida's Light"; the name Amidakuji (Amida lottery) came into common use during the Meiji era. The name stuck despite a change to the current format with parallel lines.
http://www.nhk.or.jp/kininaru-blog/55100.html
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/あみだくじ
http://www.google.com/search?q=あみだくじ+由来
Alignn said:
Though that does support it not originating in the west...
Who said it did?
The question was whether the other names came first or if the origin can be nailed down at all.
r0d3n7z said:
Multiple Japanese sources agree on the etymology: this form of lottery existed as far back as the Muromachi period (1336 to 1573)[...] At that time, it had a different, radial format[...]
The differing format is an interesting tell, in my opinion. The Korean name at the very least clearly tells of more modern etymology.
I'm not sure about Ghost Leg, though. The Muromachi period was one of a decent amount of contact with China, so existing as far back as then doesn't rule out Chinese origin. None of the sources listed outright state that it's a Japanese invention; just the age of it.
I wonder why the Wikipedia chose to merge the English pages under "ghost leg" instead of amidakuji. The Russian and Spanish pages prefer the Japanese name but fail to mention the Chinese name at all on their pages.
BCI_Temp said:
The differing format is an interesting tell, in my opinion. The Korean name at the very least clearly tells of more modern etymology.
I agree that having a traceable history makes a stronger case for Japanese amidakuji. Both Korean ("ladder") and Chinese ("leg" -> ladder rung) names seem to allude to the modern ladder format.
Trying to find sources that point to history/etymology/origin really only worked in Japanese; I tried Chinese too but did not turn up anything useful. Chinese wikipedia was so disorganized as to have two separate articles for the same thing.
BCI_Temp said:
I wonder why the Wikipedia chose to merge the English pages under "ghost leg" instead of amidakuji.
There wasn't really much discussion on the wikipedia article merger, so it's as good as arbitrary. The Amidakuji article existed earlier, but it seems that the Ghost Leg article was favored since it was expanded with more mathematics after creation. None of this helps us to establish origin or precedence of names.
