What's behind "ura"?
Our word of the day is URA (うら).
Say that word slowly. Roll it around in your mouth. Feel where the U is coming from—it’s from the back of your mouth. And that’s what URA means: back. It means behind, underneath, inside, reverse, inner, rear; you get the idea. In all these cases, it’s also hidden, or unknown.
And it can also be what’s inside you—your spirit, your soul, your inner being. In that case, it’s written 心. That’s right, URA/うら is one reading of 心. It’s found in useful words you might not know like うらかなしい (心悲しい), “sad deep down”, or うらさびしい (心寂しい), “lonely inside” or うらこいしい (心恋しい), “deep longing”. It’s also used in words you use all the time and never thought about, like うらやましい (羨ましい, urayamashii), meaning “envy”, which could be written 心痛しい, “painful inside”. For homework, look up うらめしい.
We know the word URA-GIRI (裏切り, treason), but how is that related to back or inside? Easy. The shared inner state, the soul of the two parties involved is being cut.
URA is magnificently broad. It's a brilliant example of the expansive meaning that many Japanese words have. It describes anything and everything that is the back of something or behind something or inside something, including inside your soul. Together with its opposite OMOTE (表) it supports a view of the world where virtually everything is characterized by being either in front and visible or in back and hidden. This is a fundamental aspect of the Japanese perspective on the universe and the language which expresses it.
And what could be more hidden and unknown than the future? What if we could pluck out the threads that connect us to the future and weave them together to reveal it to us? That would be URANAU, meaning “fortune telling”; don’t be misled by the fact that it's written with a different character 占. This URA is the same unknown, hidden behind the veil of time; the NAU is the threading and weaving you know from its nominal form NAWA (縄, rope). I'm not just making this up; this is established Japanese etymological theory.
When we think of URA another word which pops into our mind is 浦, a bay, inlet, or cove. Could it be that this is related to the other URAs? Well of course it is. A bay is hidden BEHIND the shoreline when viewed from the ocean.
But of course URA is usually written 裏 and just means back or behind or inside. The character is a combination of 里 at the top giving the pronunciation RI, and 衣 at the button giving the meaning of clothing, because clothing can have an inside, obviously, as in the useful word 裏返す, uragaesu, “turn inside out”, like a shirt. In its basic meaning of “back” this word occurs in dozens of compounds: 裏金/uragane/back payment=bribe, 裏道/uramichi/back road, 裏話/urabanashi/back story, 裏技/urawaza/hidden trick, 裏庭/uraniwa/back yard, and many, many more. Then there's 裏付ける/urazukeru, meaning to back up a theory or claim, or provide backing. Or how about 裏目に出る/urame ni deru/backfire? Add that to your list of cool Japanese expressions to amaze your friends. Along with うらをかく, ura wo kaku; yes, this is the same kaku we discussed in an earlier post. Literally, this means to poke or scratch someone inside. In other words, to outwit, outsmart, get the better of, by doing the reverse of what your hapless opponent expected.
We engage in these explorations for several reasons. One is that it's fun. Another is that it gives us insight into the Japanese mind and culture. The third is that it provides useful hints for learning and teaching Japanese, which to be frank I'm surprised is not leveraged more in Japanese language pedagogy.