{"id":97,"date":"2017-09-20T12:00:21","date_gmt":"2017-09-20T03:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/no-sword.jp\/zoku\/?p=97"},"modified":"2017-09-18T21:34:33","modified_gmt":"2017-09-18T12:34:33","slug":"yusei-to-kensei","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/no-sword.jp\/zoku\/2017\/09\/20\/yusei-to-kensei\/","title":{"rendered":"Y\u016bsei \u512a\u6027 \u2192 Kensei \u9855\u6027"},"content":{"rendered":"

A couple of weeks ago the Genetics Society of Japan announced some changes in their new official glossary of genetics terminology<\/a>. The most striking are the changes to the words for “dominant” and “recessive,” which are changing from y\u016bsei<\/i> \u512a\u6027 to kensei<\/i> \u9855\u6027 and ressei<\/i> \u52a3\u6027 to sensei<\/i> \u6f5c\u6027 respectively.<\/p>\n

The reason for these changes in particular is simple: to stop people misunderstanding what they mean. Etymologically speaking, y\u016bsei<\/i> and ressei<\/i> imply something closer to “superior” and “inferior” than “dominant” and “recessive.” This is obviously not great for a field that is prone to lay misinterpretation about inherent superiority and the like at the best of times. The etymological implications of the new words are more like “apparent” and “hidden,” which does seem far safer.<\/p>\n

There are also other adjustments. Some are housekeeping, like changing the word for “mutation” from totsuzen hen\u2019i<\/i> to just hen\u2019i<\/i> because totsuzen<\/i> means \u201csudden\u201d and isn\u2019t necessarily part of the concept. Some are more expansive, like a shift in terminology relating to color blindness: the Society now recommends shikikaku tay\u014dsei<\/i> \u8272\u899a\u591a\u69d8\u6027 (\u201ccolor vision diversity\u201d) over terms like shikikaku ij\u014d<\/i> \u8272\u899a\u7570\u5e38 (\u201ccolor vision abnormality\u201d), itself apparently a euphemism for the blunter shikim\u014d<\/i> \u8272\u76f2 (\u201ccolor blindness\u201d).<\/p>\n

One thing that isn\u2019t mentioned in the news stories about this I\u2019ve seen so far (example<\/a>, example<\/a>) is that these terms aren\u2019t necessarily neologisms. A simple Google Books search reveals kensei<\/i> and sensei<\/i> in use as far back as the 1960s, for example. The newsy part is that the Genetics Society of Japan, based on consultation with its members, has decided to throw its weight behind the \u201cnew\u201d terminology and deprecate the old. This will reportedly include trying to persuade the Ministry of Education and Everything Else For Some Reason (MEXT) to get on board, so keep watching your kids\u2019 textbooks, I suppose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A couple of weeks ago the Genetics Society of Japan announced some changes in their new official glossary of genetics terminology. The most striking are the changes to the words for “dominant” and “recessive,” which are changing from y\u016bsei \u512a\u6027 to kensei \u9855\u6027 and ressei \u52a3\u6027 to sensei \u6f5c\u6027 respectively. The reason for these changes … Continue reading “Y\u016bsei \u512a\u6027 \u2192 Kensei \u9855\u6027”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13,55],"tags":[59,56,58,57],"class_list":["post-97","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-news","tag-genetics","tag-japanes","tag-language-planning","tag-vocabulary"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bLCp-1z","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/no-sword.jp\/zoku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/no-sword.jp\/zoku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/no-sword.jp\/zoku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/no-sword.jp\/zoku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/no-sword.jp\/zoku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/no-sword.jp\/zoku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99,"href":"https:\/\/no-sword.jp\/zoku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97\/revisions\/99"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/no-sword.jp\/zoku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/no-sword.jp\/zoku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/no-sword.jp\/zoku\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}