Kanji of the Day: 仰天
Found in Arthur C. Clarke’s “Rendezvous with Rama” Japanese edition, chapter 2. The context of the original text described how an older Astronomer would have been taken aback in knowing that Spaceguard could keep track of more than 500,000 asteroids.
This is probably cheating, but I can’t find any etymology definition that satisfies 仰 to my liking, the first symbol of this kanji. So I’m going to resort to its standard dictionary definition attached to 仰ぐ・あおぐ “To look up.”
If we insists to break down this symbol, we should be able to spot a radical ｲ on the leftmost of this symbol which was derived from 人, and usually corresponds to its dictionary translation, “human.” The middle symbol, probably derived from 上, or “above,” along with the last symbol, which I’m not sure where to put it etymology wise, combined to give an image of a “human” looking at “above.” If you squint a bit more, you might be able to imagine the middle symbol as a person looking at something at the sky, as he shields his eyes from the sun as he did so.
Either way, the symbols are fairly robust to hold together an overall feel of “to look up” given by this kanji’s dictionary definition.
The second kanji, also somewhat involves 人. As you could see from the picture below, this kanji is a literal representation of a holy being, an Angel. The wings on his shoulder spans long, longer than his arms spread wide and 天 represents this as a longer horizontal line (the wings) above another (the arms).
Standing alone, this kanji often associated with “heaven.” Even if, the actual kanji for “heaven” is 天国・てんごく which is a combination of this kanji and kanji for “country” 国・くに. Another common use for this kanji is the complete kanji for “angel” itself which is 天使・てんし.
Another usage for this kanji is to show a superlative quality like in “genius” 天才・てんさい. Although this kanji was also used for the reasonably famous local delicacy “tempura” 天ぷら that if you asked me, a rather boring dish (which is the opposite of superiority).
Either way, on a final note, 天 usually carries the meaning of “heaven” and in this case, this meaning put a further weight on the 仰天 and its association with something “above.”
So, 仰天, combining 仰 “to look up” and 天 “heaven,” to give you an overall impression of “looking up to heaven.” Now, imagine a mortal, gazing up to the sky, to the beauty and glorious promise of heaven above, what kind of feeling that went through this mortal as he continues to gaze into it? Amazement, probably, fear, to some, even horrifying. Whatever it was, the feeling would be anything but normal. And that is the dictionary translation given by 仰天. “Astonishing” is one, “unexpected” is another, et cetera.
The original text that uses this kanji is as follows:
＜スペースガード＞の追っている小惑星の数が５０万個に達すると知ったなら、彼は定めし仰天したことだろう。
which if we are to translate it word by word would have been something like,
The number of asteroids that Spaceguard were tracking is more than 500,000. If he was to know this, he would surely be appalled.
The original non-translated text, in comparison, is as follows:
He would have been appalled to know that SPACEGUARD was now keeping track of half a million.