Settling down with "sumu"

I have not written for several weeks now—I was moving to a new place in Long Beach, CA. After a month or so, we are finally settled in. In Japanese, that would be 住み込む, or sumi-komu. The first part, sumu, means “living”, like living in Long Beach.

sumu has other uses of course. There’s sumu meaning to wrap something up, written 済む. There’s sumu meaning water being clear, written 澄む. And there’s sumu for animal habitats, like a fish in water, written 棲む. It turns out that there is a single meaning underlying all of these.

Sumu is about coming to rest.

For example, a problem is put to rest. The particles in a fluid come to rest at the bottom. People come to rest in their new home.

In the category of things your Japanese teacher never taught you but you wish she had, it turns out sumu is related to su, or nest. Of course—birds live in nests; that is where they rest. And it’s related to suwaru, or sit. Of course—you settle into a seated position; sitting is when you come to rest on a seat.

It’s fascinating that English has a word with a an equally broad semantic range: settle. You settled a problem? The problem has 済んだ. Floating particles settled out of a fluid? The fluid has 澄んだ. People settled in some location? That is where they 住んだ. No surprise that this English word “settle” comes from Middle English words with the meaning of put to rest or calm.

We started off this post talking about the word 住み込む (sumikomu, settle down into a new place). We’ll talk about the 込む/komu in the next post! Lots to write about there!