# Lacquer tree



## TheChabon

Hello. I am having problems with this old (1848) French text

La laque du Japon est la résine d'un arbre appelé sitz djou ou ouroiisi no ki

[_Lacquer in Japan is the resin of a tree called_ *sitshu [?] * _or urushi-no-ki_]

I can't find that 'sitshu' or whatever word anywhere. Anybody heard of it? 

Thank you very much in advance.


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## Ghabi

Resin is known as _jushi_ 樹脂/じゅし, and _urushi-no-ki_ is 漆の木 (lacquer tree or _Toxicodendron vernicifluum_). Hope it helps a little.


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## Flaminius

Hello *Ghabi*,



> 漆の木 (lacquer tree or _Toxicodendron vernicifluum_)


Indeed this script representation is very common but the name of a species is customarily written out in katakana in scientific nomenclature:
ウルシノキ

In fact, in the ordinary speech 漆 or ウルシ is already the tree as well as the lacquer.

The other name "sitz djou" is more difficult but I think it is an approximation of the on-reading of 漆; _shitsu_.  Unfortunately, this is not how the plant is known to the Japanese.


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## TheChabon

Flaminius said:


> The other name "sitz djou" is more difficult but I think it is an approximation of the on-reading of 漆; _shitsu_.  Unfortunately, this is not how the plant is known to the Japanese.



The on-reading/kun-reading issue, 
http://japanese.about.com/library/blkod1345.htm is definitely the problem here. Great, thank you very much for that. 

So that would mean that the French writer of the original text, who obviously did not really read or speak Japanese, looked at the Japanese 'urushi' character, read that it could have two different pronunciations and incorrectly assumed that both pronunciations could be used in Japan to mean 'lacquer', right?


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## mikun

Hi,
As many people posted, 'urushi' lacquer is a substance extracted from 'usushi-no-ki'. This substance is very reactive and allergic to man. By making several membranes of 'urushi' lacquer on the surface of instrument by using 'fude' pen, it becomes very beutiful and protective to insects or other organisms. We call these 'urushi' protected expencive devices '漆器(sikki).
We have no 'umlaut' ou 'accent marque' system in Japanese language, though correct pronunciation is one.


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## Wishfull

Hey, 
Is it 漆樹 (しつじゅ）　which the original writer wanted to write?
If so, as Flam had said, it is not Japanese ordinary expression of the tree, unfortunately.


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## Flaminius

Bingo, *Wishfull*.  漆樹 (_shitsuju_) must be an older official/scientific name for the lacquer tree.

I found it as part of the title of a research published in 1936.

It is more than likely that this word was much more common when the French text was published in 1848.  This is ten years before any French people were authorised to come to Japan.


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## TheChabon

Wow. That was impressive. 

Please excuse me if this question is redundant [I don't read or speak Japanese, at all]: so it is definitely not a misunderstanding or mispronunciation issue by the French writer? [Like, for example, as if he had been trying to figure out Japan from the outside, probably China, and then using the Chinese pronunciation for the character.]

That is: based on the research title, one can be reasonably certain that back in 1936 and before, at least some Japanese did use the on-reading for the 'urushi' character when referring to the lacquer tree, right?


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## Wishfull

Flaminius said:


> 漆樹 (_shitsuju_) must be an older official/scientific name for the lacquer tree.



Hey,
I might discover one more thing.
Shitsuju　might still be the official/scientific name for the lacquer tree, even today.
I just don't know the vocabulary because I'm a non-botanist and didn't know the jargon.

I googled " shitsuju " and found this page.http://www2.mmc.atomi.ac.jp/web01/Flower Information by Vps/Flower Albumn/ch2-trees/urushi.htm

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So going back to the original post, 
*[Lacquer in Japan is the resin of a tree called sitshu [?]  or urushi-no-ki]*
*Lacquer in Japan is the resin of a tree called shitsuju or urushi-no-ki.*
The French writer was correct.

There are two names.
*Shitsuju* is the official/scientific name which many Japanese people might not know now.
*Urushi-no-ki *is common/colloquial name which most Japanese can understand.


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## TheChabon

Gentlemen: I love you. Thank you so much.


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## Flaminius

The page you provided a link to, *Wishfull*, refers to 漆樹 as 漢名 (_kammē_ [Chinese name]).  Japanese botanists in the past may have relied on Chinese herbology literature and borrowed a lot of taxonomy, but today they discuss plants by their 和名 (_wamē_ [Japanese name]).  In fact a 和名 is not just a Japanese name but the Japanese name accepted by experts.  In order to set 和名 apart from common names, the former is written out in _katakana_ even when the plant has a script representation in Chinese characters.

The official Japanese name of the lacquer tree is: ウルシ
ウルシノキ, also written out in _katakana_, may be an accepted synonym.



			
				TheChabon said:
			
		

> [S]o it is definitely not a misunderstanding or mispronunciation issue by the French writer?


The author was correct in his time.  Things have changed since then as we have discussed.

Yet, it may worth a while to compare his romanisation with what is more common today: _sitz djou vs. shitsuju_

The Japanese vowel /u/ is unrounded and easily dropped at the end of a word or between consonants that have the same place of articulation.  Two spellings <tz> and <ts> are for the same pronunciation; [t͡s].  Writing <tz> is closer to the actual pronunciation and <tsu> reflects a more historical, careful pronunciation.

The French author may have meant the pronunciation [d͡ʒ] by <dj>.  This is an accurate distinction but irrelevant in the Japanese phonetics because the opposition [d͡ʒ] vs. [ʒ] does not alter the meaning in Japanese.   [ʒ] is either a free variation of [d͡ʒ] or simply non-existent.

His <si> for <shi> is very difficult to explain.  Today, all /s/ before the vowel /i/ have turned into "sh" (therefore <si> is always <shi>), but the process may not have been complete in dialects back in 1848.  It is be equally possible that the original transcriber, most likely a Japanese, used <si> because it is the archephoneme of most (probably all) instances of <shi>.

Finally, a comment to this:


> So that would mean that the French writer of the original text, who obviously did not really read or speak Japanese, looked at the Japanese 'urushi' character, read that it could have two different pronunciations and incorrectly assumed that both pronunciations could be used in Japan to mean 'lacquer', right?


In Japanese the character for lacquer (漆) is never used as an independent word when read _shitsu_.  In more linguistic terms, _shitsu_ (written out as 漆 in the Japanese orthography) is a bound morpheme.  It cannot appear in a sentence on its own.  It combines with other Sino-Japanese morphemes to create words.  Examples are; 漆黒 (as black as lacquer) and 漆器 (lacquerware, never a bowl made from lacquer wood).

In these examples, 漆 clearly means the resin.  For 漆樹, however, the morpheme could arguably mean the plant _Toxicodendron vernicifluum_.  漆 is not used independently in this sense either.


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## Wishfull

Hi.
I understand.
Flam is correct, as usual.

例のサイトに「和名；うるし　漢名；漆樹」　とあったので、漢名とは「漢字で書いた名前」かと勘違いしていました。

また、グーグルで「漆樹」を検索してみると、「漆樹彩館○○」という漆器を取り扱っている店の屋号がヒットしたため、今日でも「漆樹」という単語は使われており、「知る人ぞ知る専門用語」なのだと勘違いしてしまいました。

大胆にも「漆樹彩館○○」に直接電話をかけてみると、なんと、「まったくの当て字で、シキサイカン○○と読む」とのこと。
また早合点してしまった！

てなことで、＃９は、誤りであります。「edit」はもはやかけられなくなってますので、謹んでここに訂正申し上げます。

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I would like to say that #9 post was not correct. （平伏した顔文字をここに入れたいのですが、仕方がわかりません。）


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