Not quite but I can see why people think so. Both words stem from the same Kanji pair: 切腹. Cut stomach.
But one is read natively (harakiri) with an informal and colloquial feel to it and the other uses borrowed Chinese pronunciations (seppuku) that makes it sound more formal/ritualistic and so it’s used in official documents. But they mean the same thing.
Another related example is Japan’s own name: 日本. It’s usually read as “nihon” but has a special, formal reading of “nippon”.
I named one of our work projects ‘project seppeku’ once. Boss was not amused when someone told him what it meant, but it went undiscovered for longer than I would have imagined, which simultaneosly made me happy and hurt my feelings.
Harakiri and Seppuku both literally mean abdomen/stomach cutting. Those who know some Japanese may recognize hara from the common phrase hara hetta which means you are hungry (literally, your stomach is decreasing in size or diminishing). Kiri means cut.
腹: hara 切: kiri
Seppuku simply reverses those kanji: 切腹
Why are they pronounced differently? Harakiri is a native Japanese word, using more traditional Japanese pronunciation Seppuku is a borrowing of middle Chinese roots: setsu from Middle Chinese tset meaning to cut, and fuku from Middle Chinese pjuwk, related to modern Mandarin fūk.
So, setsufuku was shortened to seppuku where the Ps represent a glottal stop and skipping of part of the word.
Other way around. Seppuku is the whole ritual, which includes the helper. But if you just gut yourself out in the woods with no ceremony, it’s harikiri
SatansMaggotyCumFart@lemmy.world 4 months ago
How so?
9point6@lemmy.world 4 months ago
One is the actual disembowelment one is the ritual IIRC
SatansMaggotyCumFart@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Yes I guess harakiri is the act of disemboweling yourself and seppuku is the ceremony surrounding it.
Lemminary@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Not quite but I can see why people think so. Both words stem from the same Kanji pair: 切腹. Cut stomach.
But one is read natively (harakiri) with an informal and colloquial feel to it and the other uses borrowed Chinese pronunciations (seppuku) that makes it sound more formal/ritualistic and so it’s used in official documents. But they mean the same thing.
Another related example is Japan’s own name: 日本. It’s usually read as “nihon” but has a special, formal reading of “nippon”.
kreskin@lemmy.world 4 months ago
I named one of our work projects ‘project seppeku’ once. Boss was not amused when someone told him what it meant, but it went undiscovered for longer than I would have imagined, which simultaneosly made me happy and hurt my feelings.
Coldmoon@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
Harikari = seppuku. They’re even written with the same kanji characters.
june@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
To really put this to rest:
Harakiri and Seppuku both literally mean abdomen/stomach cutting. Those who know some Japanese may recognize hara from the common phrase hara hetta which means you are hungry (literally, your stomach is decreasing in size or diminishing). Kiri means cut.
腹: hara 切: kiri
Seppuku simply reverses those kanji: 切腹
Why are they pronounced differently? Harakiri is a native Japanese word, using more traditional Japanese pronunciation Seppuku is a borrowing of middle Chinese roots: setsu from Middle Chinese tset meaning to cut, and fuku from Middle Chinese pjuwk, related to modern Mandarin fūk.
So, setsufuku was shortened to seppuku where the Ps represent a glottal stop and skipping of part of the word.
mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
Other way around. Seppuku is the whole ritual, which includes the helper. But if you just gut yourself out in the woods with no ceremony, it’s harikiri
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 4 months ago
eh, only if it comes from the harikiri region of france tho.
otherwise it’s just sparkling disembowelment.