"Soul" in Japanese

[Soulend]

I was wondering if someone knew the Japanese for 'soul'. Would a term referring to the demise or 'death' of a soul be '(soul) no shi'?

[yamatodamashii]

So, basically, what's your username in Japanese?
:D

Try this link:
http://linear.mv.com/cgi-bin/j-e/inline/nocolor/dosearch?H=PS&L=J&WC=none&fg=red&S=26&L=E&T=soul

But I think "kon" is what you are looking for.

[Jeff Hamacher]

David,

my short answer is similar to Jason's, or at least the character is the same one: the "soul" you're looking for could be tamashii, or you can use the compound reikon, which combines tama and the above-mentioned character.

if you wanted to express "Soulend", possibly like "the death/annihilation of the soul", you could cook up a fanciful name such as reikon-metsu, where metsu means "ruin; destruction; death". believe me, though, it would have nothing to do with "natural" japanese! the closest such a name would come to any real japanese term is reikon no fumetsu, "the immortality of the soul", or reikon no zetsumetsu, "the annihilation of the soul".

please feel free to contact me by PM and i can offer further insights as you might want them. can your computer grok japanese? i could even look into sending you the characters for your reference.

[Soulend]

Thank you guys....yeah, basically my username. :D I just didn't want to come off like the queries one occasionally sees: "Hey, what's 'Supreme and Eternal Death-Spirit and Destroyer of Worlds' in Japanese?". Jeff, my computer can indeed grok kanji and I'll be firing off a PM to you.

[yamatodamashii]

More importantly, do you know where your towel is?

[Soulend]

My towel?

[yamatodamashii]

Isn't "grok" a reference from the *Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy*? If so, then the most important thing is to always know where your towel is.

[Adam Young]

Isn't "grok" a reference from the *Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy*? Right genre, wrong book. "Grok" is from "Stranger in a Strange Land" by Heinlein.

[kabutoki]

hi there !
talking about soul. are you familiar with the history of the word yamatodamashii ? i don´t want to offend you, so please get me right. there is more than just a slight negative connotation to this word.

yours
karsten

[ghp]

Karsten,

Right -- that is true for "yamatodamashii" -- but it is not true for "tamashii" or in its compound form such as "Kenkon" [sword soul].
http://www.geocities.co.jp/NeverLand-Mirai/1141/kenkon1.gif

And just to point out the obvious, "tamashii" is a different kanji than "tame(shi)" -- which means "to test."

Regards,
Guy