Talk:忍者

"omitting the hiragana"

@Eirikr This seems like a very modern-looking-back point of view; isn't 忍者(しのびのもの) normal orthography in olden times? (Manyōshū, etc.) —Suzukaze-c (talk) 07:35, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

@Suzukaze-c: I'm not entirely sure I understand your point? The ninja reading doesn't appear until modern times, as best I can tell, so "a very modern-looking-back point of view" doesn't seem all that surprising. After WWII, shinobi no mono in standard orthography would presumably have been spelled as 忍びの者, mentioned in entries at Kotobank as the title of a 1962 movie.

Not sure what you intend by bringing up the Man'yōshū? That only attests the term shinobi as a verb stem, never as a noun, with zero instances of shinobi no. The phrase shinobi no mono isn't attested until 1689. In the citation given in the KDJ entry, this was spelled しのびの者. In my limited searching, I have not been able to find an online version of the 浅井三代記 source text to confirm the spelling. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 17:48, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

@Eirikr: I speak of the way Japanese was written then: nominalized verb infinitives written using a single kanji (https://furigana.info/w/忍:しのび; 光(ひかり); 組(くみ); 係(かかり); etc.) + implied の (枕草子(まくらのそうし); 葦原中国(あしはらのなかつくに)). Thus it is not that (strictly speaking in terms of orthography) ⟨忍びの者⟩ became ⟨忍者⟩, but that the pronunciation of ⟨忍者⟩ shifted from /shinobino-mono/ to /ninja/. —Suzukaze-c (talk) 20:05, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

@Suzukaze-c: Ah, thank you for the clarification. Given the relatively recent appearance of the term ninja in the mid-1900s, I suspect the then-current orthography for shinobi no mono was 忍びの者, as noted above; possibly 忍の者. But I'm happy to reword the etym here to avoid any overemphasis on spelling. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 20:42, 18 August 2021 (UTC)