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More Than Just a Thank You Post: On the Etymology of ‘Arigatou’
Looking at all the Nia x Simon art / fanarts makes me want to watch Gurren Lagann and go fangirl over this couple.
We finally reached a million pageviews last week!! Hurray! And we also made it to 9rules! Hurray2!! A big thanks to Kabitzin for the 9rules heads up, as always! We were rejected the first time, and instead of actually asking why we weren’t accepted, I moped… and thankfully enough, got enlightened and inspired to upgrade the blog + theme, organize the categories, and make this inspirational post.
Being accepted to 9rules is like a pat in the back, more than anything else, like a sempai who tells you, “Good job!” (I haven’t finished Gurren Lagann, but I do believe that Kamina x Simon moment best depicts this). There’s so much to celebrate and to be thankful for, in all these 17 months of blogging. And you, dear readers and commentators, especially those who became my 心の友 (kokoro no tomo => bossom friends), are all part of this. To add a certain twist to this thank you post, I decided to do make it more tl;dr and share this little eureka! moment as I discover the etymology of ‘arigatou‘.
Way back when I first encountered the kanji equivalent of ありがとう [arigatou], I was both amused and befuddled at its sheer oddness and irony. Yes, there is a kanji for ありがとう, but it’s rarely used. It’s commonly used in the otome games I played, however. The kanji goes: 有(り)難う (it can do without the り, hence the ‘()’), which, to my n00b eyes back then, translated to something like ‘…presence [有り => 有ります => arimasu] of hardships [難 => nan => difficulty]‘. And I was like, “being thankful for having hardship?! o.O” It didn’t make sense at all, and I never bothered researching about it too. I ended up thinking that this kanji must have been an 当て字 [ateji], kanjis representing native and borrowed words — aka, more kanji pain in the butt for Japanese and gaijin people alike.
One example of this would be the borrowed word クラブ [kurabu => club], which was turned into something authentically Japanese-y: 倶楽部 (also read as ‘kurabu’, with the kanjis representing ‘together’, ‘fun’, and ‘place / club’). In this case, the ateji makes sense because it matches both phonetic and semantic values, but there are also times when it won’t make sense at all. Like the ateji for すし[sushi], 寿司, which, by semantics, would mean ‘life span => 寿(命)’ and ‘command 司(令)’.
Now in the Japanese beginner’s class I attended in college (which was already during my last year), I remained curious about this weird 有難う kanji and so I asked our professor about it. My memory is pretty vague but I recall him actually agreeing that it is an ateji and hence it reinforced my little hypothesis. And then, just this week, while I was studying for JLPT1 using the UNICOM grammar book, I came across this ’special extra note’ for one of the grammar patterns, and it read: “The etymology of 有難う [arigatou]” I was fascinated beyond words, especially after finding out that my hypothesis for yearsss was all wrong (I felt a little disappointed at my Japanese professor too, just a little~).
The etymology of 有難う goes wayy deeper than just being the nonsensical ateji that I used to think. Not to mention the kanji has long been part of the word, not just assigned to it after xx years of conception, as with the case of atejis. And, it actually makes perfect sense.
Apparently, this all came from this one little phrase: 「有る（ある）こと」が「難い（かたい）」 => [aru koto] ga [katai] => ’something that’s difficult to come by’ or ’something that doesn’t happen all too often (in this world)’, either an act of kindness or any form of blessing [1]. It’s a blessing that’s difficult to come by, which makes you all the more thankful for it. Hence, it’s 有難く [arigataku] => which just later transforms into arigatou. Got it? I sure hope you did.
Whew… that was a mouthful.
Something to make this post all the more beautifully Nia-filled
This blogging endeavor brought me many of those really special blessings, more than just improving my English (lolz), how I communicate and express my thoughts and opinions, and organize my usually jumbled-up thoughts… it made me part of this whole anime blogosphere, and brought me closer to a diverse group of people who share the same interests as I do (or otherwise 
), far more than I ever imagined. And for that, from the bottom of my heart, ありがとう！！！
Notes:
[1] Sorry if I’m confusing the heck out of people with this explanation. Kanjis are really complicated you see, and so the ‘難’ I read as ‘nan’ earlier, has tons of other reading, one of which is ‘kata(i)’, which, when suffixed to ari, becomes ‘gatai’ instead.
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17 comments for “More Than Just a Thank You Post: On the Etymology of ‘Arigatou’”
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OMG, the first Nia X Simon image is so… scrumptious!
That was quite an interesting read, considering I was wondering about the meaning of the ‘4th katai’ 難ㄠthat popped up when I was trying to remember the other 3 that’ll probably appear in my kanji exam tomorrow ORZ And congrats on reaching a million pageviews and the 9rules admission!
Congratulations!
And I’d better bookmark this post for future reference. Etymology is a side hobby of mine (focusing on English for now, but as my Japanese improves I’ll probably start tracing word origins for that language as well).
Best thank you post I’ve read. It’s, well, interesting!
Language is fascinating.
Grats on another milestone!
Congratulations on a million page views, that is quite a long way to have come. Also congrats on 9rules acceptance.
Interesting info about “arigatou”.
Arigatai. x’3
Read the post. :’]
I’m still not good with English, I need to work on that. o_o
NOW!
Lawl.
It was confusing but with my
bleedingbrain, I was still able to understand them.Maan…it must be hard learning Japanese when it’s actually in school. o_O (and it has lots of levels too…ahh..I could imagine my brain bleeding so much before I could graduate college o_o)
Learning Arabic isn’t as interesting (by 100x) as learning the Japanese language.
You must go finish Gurren-Lagann, coz it’s uber awesome!
Ahh..I kinda miss it. TwT
I wanna go re-watch it. I haven’t seen Viral in such a long time too, I need to see him or I’ll die! D:
(Not really…xD)Meeh…why you show piccies of Nia? D:
Now I want to go look for piccies. Nia is ♥
Also especially Simon x Nia! -goes fangirl mode- xDDI love trying to read kanji, those paragraphs were literally lead “english, english, bla bla bla, english, romanisation, bla bla bla”
Congrats on the 9rules, though I believe it shall be a time before I make it onto any such site as that.
Interesting, I liiiike it
Congratulations!!
Oh and go finish GL hehe
Congratulations on both the hits and 9rules.
And this is just more proof that getting a good grasp on Japanese might take a long while for me.
Thank you guys! and now for the ‘personal’ replies
@issa-sa: kanji exam! I somehow I wish I had one of those so I’ll be pressured to study lol.
@Diego: I’ve been a weeaboo for as long as I can remember, and no other etymologies have interested be as much as the Japanese, it seems… I have to be more interested in English so I can improve more orz.
@Caitlin: hehe, glad you found it interesting, despite all the confusing-ness!
@hazy: the Japanese language, especially. Fascinating, yet really confusing
@Panther: I say don’t focus too much on getting the hits, and enjoy it as it comes. It’s more fun and fulfilling that way ^-^
@Wija-chan: lol, sorry, hope you didn’t run out of blood from reading all this
Learning Japanese becomes really interesting because of the anime and manga interests we have, which makes us see it as something fun.
@Omisyth: I still hope you got something out of those confusing kanjis I wrote
I don’t really deem myself worthy to advice about 9rules, but I do believe that the moment you find that certain ‘voice’ and passion that commands you to write, it won’t be long before .
@Ryan: Glad you liked it! Knowing that there’s much sweet raburabu in TTGL on top of the awesome action and GARness makes me put it on top of my backlog watch list. Hopefully I’ll get to watch it after I finish Nodame Cantabile
@TheBigN: please don’t let my confusing and sucky Japanese explanation skills scare you away
It might even be simpler than I make it seem like! Well just keep on learning the language for fun and you’ll eventually find yourself getting a better grasp of it 
That was neat. I know next to nothing about the Japanese language, especially written, so I’m envious.
Congratulations on your much-deserved acceptance to 9rules.
And definitely finish TTGL, lest someone spoil the awesome things yet to come in the series.
Oh. I already have a year of Beginning Japanese under my belt, so I know how hard it is to get stuff (which is “not really that hard”), so it’s okay.
Grats on both milestones and thanks for the great writeup about the evolution of ‘arigatou.’
@usagijen
At first, to me that’s true.
It’s interesting to learn it coz we’re also very much interested in anime/manga.
But I think as time past by, we start to like the language as is coz it really is interesting to learn. x’]
(When I was in the Philippines, I was reading the kanji/kana’s I see wherever I go. Lawl xDD)@otou-san: Thank you! Especially for inspiring me to organize our blog!
I’ve only been semi-spoiled regarding TTGL, but I know there’s soo much more in the series, which I won’t experience till I watch it 
@Kabitzin: I probably wouldn’t have thought much about joining 9rules if it wasn’t for your pimping, so thank you very much!
Congratulations on a million pageviews and acceptance to 9rules
Scrumptious blog is well organized and has a unique flavor
@Kitsune: thanks!!!
(and sorry for the really late reply x__x)