94219
When I use an automatic Japanese text analyzer, it provides me with a list of
words and also short information about what kind of word it is. Japanese (和),
Chinese (漢), Foreign (外) or mixed (混). Is there any dictionary that also
provides this information? Note that what I'm asking is not whether it is
kun'yomi or on'yomi, but rather the word origin. For example, a word like 誤魔化す
is on'yomi, but probably not of Chinese origin.

I own Daijisen and it does not seem to offer it. Since the program offers me
such information I guess it's from some kind of online database.
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2022-04-21T09:46:08.520
94211
2022-04-21T19:26:43.277
51145
question
etymology dictionary
Dictionary or website with comprehensive word origin information
So far as I'm aware, there is no one website that provides comprehensive
etymologies for all Japanese words.

  * The best I've been able to find is the [日本国語大辞典【にほんこくごだいじてん】 (NKD) dictionary from Shogakukan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihon_Kokugo_Daijiten). They have a HUGE version with extensive notes, which I don't have. I do have an electronic copy from 1998 when Shogakukan and Microsoft teamed up on their Bookshelf product; that said, later versions were progressively worse, abridging more and more detail. And due to changing IT policies, I can no longer install my old one (admin permissions got yanked so we can't install anything, and my personal machines haven't run Windows for [donkey's years](https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/donkeys-years)).  
  
There is a halfway decent edition of the NKD available online for free via
Kotobank, such as we see [here in the entry for
食](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E9%A3%9F-161022). Do note that the Kotobank
version lemmatizes strangely (i.e. how it files individual entries under
headwords). If you search for たべる in kana, you will not easily find the NKD
entry, as it is lemmatized under the 食 spelling, without okurigana. Some words
are even harder to find, as they are lemmatized under spellings that include
multiple kanji variants, such as [the かたわり
entry](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%BE%92%E6%B8%A1%E3%83%BB%E6%AD%A9%E6%B8%A1%E3%83%BB%E6%AD%A9%E8%A1%8C%E6%B8%A1-2023021),
filed under 徒渡・歩渡・歩行渡 with three possible kanji spellings.  
  
There are also odd gaps in the entries. I've noticed that any word for a plant
or animal often gives a short encyclopedic description of the organism, and
very little information about the word -- no etymology or derivation, such as
[this entry for
あひる](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%AE%B6%E9%B4%A8%E3%83%BB%E9%B6%A9-197898).
It's like there was a separate editorial team working on biological
terminology, and they had inconsistent ideas about what to include in the
entries.  
  
That said, the Kotobank edition is not as extensive as my old 1998 one, and
I've learned from other users here that the huge hard-copy version is even
more comprehensive. If you are willing to pay money, I understand that it may
be possible to purchase [electronic
access](https://japanknowledge.com/contents/nikkoku/index.html).

As a bit of a tech nerd, I am quite curious how your "automatic Japanese text
analyzer" functions. I suspect it might be backed by a database (maybe even
just a text file) that correlates certain Japanese spellings with specific
readings and term categories. Without knowing more about how the analyzer
functions, it is hard to say anything useful about finding replacements that
could offer accuracy of similar, or better, quality.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-04-21T19:26:43.277
94219
2022-04-21T19:26:43.277
5229
94211
answer