Talk:えた

Noun sense: offensive?

Considering that えた denotes the lowest group in Japan’s caste system in the Edo period (1603–1868), surely this term is {{historical}}, rather than {{offensive}}; or is it also an offensive synonym of a standard term for said Japanese untouchables? — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 12:33, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm not a native speaker so I don't have a sense for it, and I've never heard this word spoken, but I was going off of Jim Breen's WWWJDIC which lists it as vulgar (see http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1C) and wikipedia's page "Burakumin" which says "In the feudal era, the outcast caste were called eta (穢多, literally, "an abundance of defilement" or "an abundance of filth"), a term now obviously considered derogatory." It looks like "burakumin" is the standard term, probably sensitive by itself, and eta is an offensive synonym. Not exactly deep research, but that's my two cents. Haplology 16:48, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

That makes sense. Could you add the kanji or hiragana form of (deprecated template usage) burakumin as a standard synonym to the entry, please? — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 18:37, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Done. According to English WP, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burakumin#Terminology) the term I added is the most PC. It is abbreviated to just "burakumin" but that is apparently more common in English than in Japanese. Haplology 01:54, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

OK. Thanks. — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 02:13, 10 August 2011 (UTC)