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Kobayashi Maru (小林丸)
(A replica of the Japanese-built 1613 galleon San Juan Bautista, in Ishinomaki, Japan. The Shogun already had had two smaller ships (80 and 120 tons) built for him by the English pilot William Adams.)
Kobayashi Maru is the name of a starship in a training exercise in the Star Trek fictional universe. The term also refers to any no-win scenario.
The name is Japanese, and loosely translates as 'the ship named Kobayashi', (小林, small forest). Maru (丸) means perfection or purity and is a suffix for Japanese ship names, implying a safe return always.
The word maru (丸, meaning "circle") is often attached to Japanese ship names. There are several reasons for this, here are two: -
--- Ships were thought of as floating castles, and the word referred to the defensive "circles" or maru that protected a castle.
--- Hakudo Maru, a celestial being that came to earth and taught humans how to build ships. The name maru is attached to a ship to secure celestial protection.
The first ship named this way was the Nippon Maru, flagship of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's 16th century fleet.
When the Imperial Japanese Navy (大日本帝國海軍 (Dai-Nippon Teikoku Kaigun)) was formed, the Ministry of the Navy submitted ship names to the Emperor for approval. In the early years ships were donated by the Shogunate or Japanese clans and the original clan names were kept. By World War II a system was in place for naming of ships. E.g.: -
Aircraft carriers — birds or mythical flying animals
--- Hiryū (飛龍) flying dragon
--- Junyō (隼鷹) peregrine falcon - See Japanese ship names, for more examples.
Translated names
The English translations of the Japanese warships provide some very beautiful names. There is a tendency for translations of Japanese names to be somewhat fanciful. For example, Shōkaku is often translated as "crane flying in heaven", but "flying crane" or "soaring crane" is a more accurate. Another translation is "land of divine mulberry trees" for Fusō — fuso was a Chinese name for a mythical tree that grows to the east, hence is an old poetic word for Japan.
posted by Message from Japan on Saturday, May 19, 2007
5 Comments:
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At 1:44 PM,
said... -
If you want to put forward any ideas for a blog send them to the events coordinator email address and I will create a blog for any subject you want to read about.
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At 2:10 PM,
said... -
Contact event coordinator on email
events@jsnw.org.uk -
At 9:56 AM,
said... -
Here's another random connection: -
Kobayashi Issa, famous Haiku poet wrote ...
Quiet;
In the depths of the lake,
A peak of cloud. -
At 5:32 PM,
said... -
I've often wondered what the conection of the word Maru was with shipping, now I know. As a Liverpudlian, this maritime piece was of particular interest. Very informative, very good.
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who the hell is message from japan?
