新たな始まり aratana hajimari A New Beginning

新たな始まり Original Scroll by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Abstract

新たな始まり, aratana hajimari, a new beginning, is plain modern Japanese, a noun phrase with no entry of its own in JMdict. Its words are old; in the National Diet Library's full-text index the phrase's oldest witnesses are translations: a German philosopher's new beginning in 1913, then in 1923 Paul Natorp's, Hugo Münsterberg's in the everyday form 新しい始まり, and an English-language poem's as 新たなる始め. Books catalogued under Japanese authors with no translator have that form in 1924 and 1926; Nietzsche's child carries the phrase in 1928, and the index's first example of the scroll's spelling is a translation of Feuerbach of 1933, a sentence that two more translators rendered other ways by 1949. The poet Tanikawa Shuntarō's book of sonnets has that spelling in 1953; the library's index counts that spelling in 33 items of the 1960s and 132 of the 1970s.

A reading

In its oldest witnesses in the library's full-text index the phrase carries other people's renewals: logic that starts over from nothing, the child who forgets and plays, the morning that makes the world new. Books catalogued under Japanese authors have the everyday form 新しい始まり by the 1920s, and in 1953 the scroll's spelling stands in a Japanese poet's book of sonnets. Brushed today it reads as plain Japanese, and the older sense is often still in it: a beginning that comes after something has ended.

Overview

The sense. Standard Japanese, a phrase built from two words: a new beginning, a noun phrase with no entry of its own in JMdict (The text in English).

The words. 新た arata, new, is an adjectival noun. The デジタル大辞泉 quotes a poem of the 万葉集 for it ^[1], which the 精選版 日本国語大辞典 gives as its first example: 冬過ぎて春の来たれば年月は新(あらた)なれども人は古りゆく, winter has passed and spring has come: the months and years are new, but people grow old ^[2]. The 日国 adds that the root arata can be assumed from the 万葉集's examples, but that the oldest certain example of the character 新 read アラタ is the 延久 reading of the 史記's 孝文本紀, and that it is not seen in 和文脈, native Japanese-style prose ^[2]. 始まり hajimari, a beginning, is the noun of the verb 始まる, to begin, whose first example is the 古今和歌集's preface, あめつちの開けはじまりける時, when heaven and earth first opened ^{[3] [4]}. な joins them as an attributive. The デジタル大辞泉 gives the written-language form of 新た the ナリ conjugation ^[1], and the 日国 gives the written form of 新しい as あたらし, of the シク conjugation ^[5]; 新たなる and 新しき are those conjugations' attributives.

The text in English. A new beginning and 新たな始まり match word for word: JMdict gives 新た as new and 始まり as beginning, and has no entry for the phrase ^[6].

The historical record

1913. A German philosopher. The oldest the National Diet Library's full-text index returns, searched oldest first in eleven forms, is 新なる始まり, in Hatano Seiichi and Miyamoto Wakichi's translation of Rudolf Eucken: 文明の大轉向が起り又文明の新なる始まりが起らねばならぬ場合, when a great turn of civilization comes, and a new beginning of civilization must come about. The index gives the line; the book is not open outside the library ^[7]. One item sorts ahead of it, under the year 1900: a list of books received by Kyoto University's Faculty of Education, which names O. F. Bollnow's 危機と新しい始まり. Its record dates it only to the twentieth century, and its note gives the list's span as April 1968 to March 1969 ^[8].

1923. Natorp, Münsterberg, and a poem by Susan Coolidge. In Kubo Masao's translation of Paul Natorp's 社会理想主義, the conclusion under discussion lacks, alas, the best thing, the one by which alone 「すべてが善く」, all would go well: それは新しき始まりである、それこそはじめて、眞の社會主義であるであらう, it is a new beginning, and that, for the first time, would be the true socialism, with the words marked for emphasis on the page ^[9]. In the same year's translation of Hugo Münsterberg's The Eternal Values, by Watari Yayoi 渡利弥生, the phrase is in its everyday form: 如何なる完成にも新しい始まりがある, in every completion there is a new beginning, said of the happiness of work ^[10]. The English The Eternal Values of 1909 reads In every completion there lies a new beginning ^[11]. The same year 塚越菊治's translation of Ralph Waldo Trine, 無限生活, has 每日は新たなる始めである、聞けよ, every day is a new beginning, listen ^[12]. Trine's In Tune with the Infinite prints most of Susan Coolidge's poem New Every Morning, its opening and closing stanzas among them; the Friends' Intelligencer printed the poem under her name in 1883. The Japanese line matches the closing stanza's first two lines, Every day is a fresh beginning; / Listen, my soul, to the glad refrain ^{[13] [14]}.

1924 and 1926. The everyday form, in books by Japanese authors. In the everyday form 新しい始まり the phrase is in books catalogued under Japanese authors with no translator by the mid-1920s. Murayama Tomoyoshi 村山知義's book on the art of the present and the future, of 1924, has, of a school of art, 一つの新しい始まりの究極の基礎まで決定した所の現代最初の啓示であるとは云へ, though it is the first revelation of our time to have decided matters down to the ultimate foundation of a new beginning ^[15]; a collection of plays by 宮川久雄, of 1926, has 創作、新しい始まりと云つた方がよいかも知れません。新しい始まり。, creation: it might be better to call it a new beginning. A new beginning. ^[16]. The index gives each line; neither book's pages could be opened here.

1928. Nietzsche's child. An Iwanami lecture series has the passage of Thus Spoke Zarathustra on the three metamorphoses (the window names neither the work nor a translator; the words are Nietzsche's): 童子は無邪氣であり忘却である。新しき始まり、戲れ、自ら廻る車、第一運動、神聖なる然り, the child is innocence and forgetting, a new beginning, a game, a self-rolling wheel, a first movement, a sacred Yes ^[17]. Nietzsche's German is ein Neubeginnen, ein Spiel ^[18].

1933. Feuerbach, in the spelling on the scroll. The Iwanami Bunko's Critique of Hegel's Philosophy, translated by Sano Fumio and published two years after his death, is the index's oldest witness to 新たな始まり itself: logic 一の新たな始まりであり、當初から始まり, is a new beginning, beginning from the very first, and so collides from the first with the understanding ^[19]. Feuerbach's German, in his collected works of 1846, is als die Logik ein neuer Anfang ist, von vorn anfängt, und daher auch von vornherein der Verstand vor den Kopf gestoßen wird, and the translation follows it clause for clause ^[20]. The book was reprinted in 1948, and the leaf reads the same, with 新たな marked for emphasis ^[21]. Two other translators rendered the same sentence: 新しき始まり (樫山欽四郎, 1947) and 新しき始り (中桐大有, 1949) ^{[22] [23]}. In 1942 Nakayama Jiichi's translation of Friedrich Meinecke speaks of something infinitely changing, known only in ever new forms and 常に新たな始まり, ever new beginnings ^[24].

1949. Coolidge again. 生長の家's magazine 白鳩 quotes a poet, 「朝々が新しき始まりであり、每日々々世界は新たに造られる」, every morning is a new beginning, every day the world is made anew. The window does not name the poet; the lines match the first two of Coolidge's poem, Every day is a fresh beginning, / Every morn is the world made new, with day and morning exchanged ^[25].

1953. Tanikawa Shuntarō. His 『六十二のソネット』 has もはや新たな始まりだ, it is already a new beginning. The index gives the line; the book is not open outside the library, and which sonnet carries it is not read. The index finds the line again, its windows cut to はや新たな始まりだ, in two later books each titled 谷川俊太郎詩集, of 1958 and 1965 ^[26].

After. The National Diet Library's full-text index holds the spelling 新たな始まり in one item of the 1930s, four of the 1940s and four of the 1950s, then 33 in the 1960s, twelve of them under the names of European-born authors in the catalogue, and 132 in the 1970s, counted on 2 November 2026 ^[27].

What is not a source. No source read gives the phrase a single origin. The translators rendered different originals, in German and in English, and none of them is shown to be its author.

Today. In English the phrase stands in its writers' own sentences: The Eternal Values of 1909 has it ^[11]. In an English book of 1908 it glosses another word: Henry B. Schwartz rendered Nisshin, the name Shimazu Tadayoshi took from a text in the Chinese classics, as every day a new beginning; Tadayoshi, he writes, never became head of the clan, and his son was the fifteenth lord of the Shimadzu house, as Schwartz counts ^[28]. The dictionaries give his name as 日新斎, read じっしんさい, and one gives his religious name as 愚谷軒日新, read じつしん, where Schwartz has Nisshin ^[29].

Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

新たな始まりVB4CBlock

新たな始まりVC4BCursive

新たな始まりVD4BEri's Choice

新たな始まりVS4CSemi-Cursive

References

1. 「新た」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/新た
2. 「あら‐た【新】」, 精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank (under 新). https://kotobank.jp/word/新
3. 「始まり」, デジタル大辞泉, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/始まり
4. 「始まる」, 精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/始まる
5. 「あたらし・い【新】」, 精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank (under 新しい). https://kotobank.jp/word/新しい
6. JMdict (EDRDG), entries 1361510 新た あらた (new; fresh; novel) and 1611200 始まり はじまり (origin; beginning; start), release of 26 October 2026; the phrase has no entry. https://www.edrdg.org/jmdict/j_jmdict.html
7. ルドルフ・オイケン, 『新理想主義の哲学』, 波多野精一・宮本和吉訳, 内田老鶴圃, 1913. National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text snippet (not open outside the library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/951214
8. 京都大学教育学部, 『京都大学教育学部収書報』, 昭和43年4月–昭和44年3月, the National Diet Library's item record (dated only to the twentieth century; sorted under 1900). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1873404
9. ナトルプ, 『社会理想主義：社会教育の原理』, 久保正夫訳, 1923, p. 74, scan 48. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/969946/1/48
10. ミユンスターベルヒ, 『永久的価値』, 渡利弥生訳, 春秋社, 東京, 1923, p. 204, scan 117. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/970854/1/117
11. Hugo Münsterberg, The Eternal Values, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1909, p. 200, at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/eternalvalues00muns/page/200
12. ラルフ・ワルドー・トライン, 『無限生活』, 塚越菊治訳, 大日本文明協会事務所, 1923. National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text snippet (not open outside the library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/962816
13. Ralph Waldo Trine, In Tune with the Infinite, 1897, at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/intunewithinfin02tringoog
14. Susan Coolidge, "New Every Morning," Friends' Intelligencer 40, no. 7 (March 31, 1883), at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/sim_friends-intelligencer_1883-03-31_40_7
15. 村山知義, 『現在の藝術と未來の藝術：一名、意識的構成主義への道程』, 長隆舍書店, 東京, 1924. National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text snippet (not open outside the library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1881855
16. 宮川久雄, 『杵屋弦次郎：戯曲集』, 明窓社, 東京, 1926. National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text snippet (the item is listed as open online; its page images were refused here on 2 November 2026). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1019959
17. 岩波書店編, 『岩波講座世界思潮』, 岩波書店, 1928. National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text snippet (not open outside the library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1913470
18. Friedrich Nietzsche, Also sprach Zarathustra, "Von den drei Verwandlungen," 1908 printing, at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/alsosprachzarath00niet_0
19. フォイエルバッハ, 『ヘーゲル哲学の批判：他一篇』, 佐野文夫訳, 岩波文庫 950, 岩波書店, 1933. National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text snippet (not open outside the library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1194015
20. Ludwig Feuerbach, "Zur Kritik der Hegel'schen Philosophie," Ludwig Feuerbach's sämmtliche Werke, vol. 2, Leipzig: Otto Wigand, 1846, at the Internet Archive (the digitized text). https://archive.org/details/10603853bsb
21. フォイエルバッハ, 『ヘーゲル哲学の批判：他一篇』, 佐野文夫訳, 岩波書店, 1948, p. 41, scan 22. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1039043/1/22
22. フォイエルバッハ, 『将来の哲学の原理』, 樫山欽四郎訳, 小石川書房, 1947. National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text snippet (not open outside the library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1039045
23. フォイエルバッハ, 『フォイエルバッハ選集』, 中桐大有訳, 明窗書房, 1949. National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text snippet (not open outside the library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1154955
24. マイネッケ, 『歴史主義の立場』, 中山治一訳, 創元社, 1942. National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text snippet (not open outside the library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1041161
25. 生長の家本部編, 『白鳩』, 日本教文社, July 1949. National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text snippet (not open outside the library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/6077716
26. 谷川俊太郎, 『六十二のソネット』, 創元社, 1953. National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text snippet (not open outside the library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1353706
27. National Diet Library Digital Collections, full-text search 新たな始まり, all tiers, sorted by date (the first 1,000 items, to 1993), counted 2 November 2026. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=新たな始まり
28. Henry B. Schwartz, In Togo's Country: Some Studies in Satsuma and Other Little Known Parts of Japan, Cincinnati: Jennings and Graham, 1908, p. 19. https://archive.org/details/intogoscountryso00schwiala/page/19
29. 「島津忠良」, 改訂新版 世界大百科事典 and デジタル版 日本人名大辞典+Plus, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/島津忠良

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1, Sonnet 5 and Opus 5.5, Takase Studios, LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Checked · Takase Studios (an address check by script), 2026-11-02, citations — 38 claims: 7 resolved, none failed, 30 web and library addresses the script could not open (each opened in the reading sittings, and live for any reader); one difference, a year printed illegibly in the scanned text, judged at the catalogue record and the citation kept · two fresh-context readers per round (Claude), 2026-11-02, every claim in the page's summary block traced to its source, claim by claim: round 1 FAIL, both readers, on a wrong fact (a man who never headed his clan called its lord); round 2 FAIL, both readers, on wrong facts (years added to a dictionary note that gives none, and a poem said to be printed whole where it is not); round 3 PASS, both; corrections made · Grok 4.6 (xAI), 2026-09-06, citations of the grouped history — the bracketed paragraphs checked with web search on; one contradicted and corrected; the reading of the original page image and the NDL Lab machine-read text were beyond the checker. A later amendment has not been re-checked.

Research depth: step 3 of our 10-step ladder, foundation complete · November 2026

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 新たな始まり (aratana hajimari)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/aratana-hajimari.