Illuminating 明るい/light

The word 明るい/akarui means “light”.

Japanese children learn this character and its ten (!) readings at the tender age of seven. Foreigners preparing for the JLPT learn it for N4.

Obviously, this character is a sun 日 and a moon 月, so it’s easy to see that it must be all about light. This type of character is what called an ideogram, although in this case there are two elements so it’s a compound ideogram. (That’s distinct from an pictogram, which represents a physical object; here what is being represented is an idea.)

Actually, though, experts believe the character represents the sun rising while the moon is still out. In other words, it depicts the dawn, the brilliant oranges and yellows and reds of the morning sky.

Wait a minute. Did you say red? Could it be? That’s right. The word akarui is cognate with akai, the Japanese word for red. But actually aka covers, or originally covered, a wider gamut of the color spectrum, including orange and yellow and even bits of purple—basically the entire range of warm colors. For unknown reasons, the Japanese chose to write this word with the character 赤, which depending on who you ask is a very big (top) fire (bottom), or a man (top) over a fire (bottom). In China, the 赤 character is not used for red, that would be 紅; as a color 赤 is a deeper, blood red (and of course the color representing Communism, as well as red ink).

Brightness

It's interesting, although perhaps not surprising, that 明るい/akarui can be used in cases where in English we would use “bright”, such as a bright disposition, or bright prospects. It can also mean knowledgeable about or familiar with; your mind is lit up with the familiarity.

明らか/akiraka

A notable variation of this word is 明らか/akiraka/clear. In an earlier post, we visited words ending in yaka; this word is derived in similar fashion but using raka instead, which lends a similar flavor of being of the nature of something, but less abstract and subjective. If light is being shown on something, then it is clear. Like the yaka words, the result is what’s called an adjectival noun.

The most common use of this word is to say something is akiraka meaning it’s obvious, beyond doubt, evident, plain. You can double down with the phrase 火を見るより明らか (hi wo miru yori akiraka, “plain as can be”, “clear as a bell”).

This word is commonly used in the form 明らかにする or 明らかになる. The simplest way to translate these is as “make clear” and “become clear”. But there are nuances. It can describe two quite different cases: to bring something into the light (which wasn’t visible or known before, so “reveal”, “expose”, “divulge”, “uncover”), or to shed light on something (which was there, but was unclear or only dimly lit, so “illuminate” or “clarify”).

Researchers love to use akiraka ni suru to talk about what they have found. One resource for authors proposed the construct ～を明らかにした as one of the highest credibility ways to make claims in academic papers. Translators beware: this should almost never be translated as “clarified”. “Shed light on” is less objectionable, but doesn’t really capture the intent. In this context, it means “uncover”, or “identify”, or “elucidate”, or “explain”. It’s interesting that the “luc” part of “elucidate” comes from Latin for “"light, bright, clear”.

本章では、中国における企業、産業と国家・党の関係がどのようになっているのかについて、具体的な法制度、産業の実態に触れながら、明らかにしたい。

This chapter will explain the nature of the relationship of China’s enterprises and industries with the state and party, touching on specific legal systems and sectors.

Using akiraka in business

akiraka is commonly used in business contexts as well; here’s an example of that.

したがって，新しい技術によって実現されるビジネス価値を明らかにし，多くのステークホルダがそれを共有することが重要になっている．

Please don’t translate it like this:

Accordingly, it has become increasingly important to clarify business value obtained through new technology and share this with multiple stakeholders.

In this improved translation, we’ve used “clear understanding”.

This is why it is important for stakeholders to share a clear understanding of the business value new technology brings.

Ten readings for 明

What are the ten readings I promised for 明? In addition to the on readings of mei and myo, the kun readings are asu, akari, akarui, akarumu, akaramu, akiraka, akeru, aku, akuru, and akasu. The verbal forms here predictably relate to dawning, illuminating, brightening, bringing into the light, glowing, and gleaming.