頑張って ganbatte Go For It
頑張って (ganbatte), hold on, keep going, is the cheer of modern Japan, and its verb is written in borrowed characters: the dictionaries derive 頑張る from 眼張る, to fix the eyes on, or from insisting on one's own way. Its sense of holding on through hardship is in print by 1907, earlier than the dictionary's first citation.
Abstract
頑張って, ganbatte, is the て-form of 頑張る used as a request, the cheer of modern Japan. The verb is written in borrowed characters; the dictionaries derive it from 眼張る, to fix the eyes on, or, as a second theory, from 我に張る, to insist on one's own way, and its senses run from watching to planting oneself to insisting to enduring. It is a word of the twentieth century's first half, and its enduring sense is in a Zen teacher's talks of 1907, where the dictionary's first citation is a children's song of 1944.
Overview
The sense. Hold on; keep going; do your best: the word a dojo says, a request to endure.
The words. 頑張って ganbatte is the て-form of 頑張る, a verb written with borrowed characters: the dictionaries derive it from 眼張る, to fix the eyes on (1745), or, as a second theory the same dictionary records, from 我張る or 我に張る, to insist on one's own way (its sense ⑥: 自説を強硬に主張する … 我を張る), and its senses run from watching to planting oneself to insisting to enduring [1].
The text in English. Go for it is an old verb phrase and a slogan only since about 1980, when its frequency quadruples; the subtitle corpus renders it 頑張れよ, ファイト, やれよ, 行け, and do your best is the older dictionary equivalent of 頑張る.
The historical record
1900 to the 1930s. 頑張って, from watching to enduring. It is a word of the twentieth century's first half. Both senses are in print by 1907: 漱石's cat watches a man 頑張つて居る, standing on his opinion that everyone else is neurotic, the insisting sense [2]; and 黙雷's Zen talks say 一人でも頑張つて一陽來復の時節を待つのだ, hold on alone and wait for the year to turn, the enduring sense, which the 日本国語大辞典 first cites from a children's song of 1944 [3]. The index has the word in 18 books of 1900–1904, 404 of the 1910s, 983 of the 1920s, 1,781 of the 1930s, and the cheer 頑張れ in 797.
What is not a source. The 1809 kabuki that first writes 頑張 means keep an eye on, and is the spelling's witness, not the sense's.
A reading
A cheer, not a text, and its history is the verb's, from eyes to endurance. On a wall it is the word a dojo says, and the Zen teacher's 1907 hold on alone and wait for the year to turn is the sense at its best.
Notes
頑張って is the て-form used as a request; the imperative is 頑張れ.
References
- 「眼張る」, 精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/眼張る
- 夏目漱石, 吾輩ハ猫デアル, 中, 1907, National Diet Library Digital Collections. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/888726
- 竹田黙雷, 黙雷禅話, 1907, National Diet Library Digital Collections. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/823526