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十人十色 jūnin toiro Ten People, Ten Colors

This is a philological study of the Japanese proverb 十人十色 (jūnin toiro). It spans an 1850s kabuki digest, a novel where the ten colors are ten drunk customers, a boy's schoolroom proverb list, and the Meiji translators who, finding no source to cite, reached for Terence and the Zuozhuan.

Japanese Scroll of Ten People, Ten Colors (jūnintoiro) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
Ten People, Ten Colors (jūnintoiro)

Ten People, Ten Colors (jūnintoiro) on a traditional Japanese Scroll by Master Eri Takase.

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Abstract

十人十色, ten people, ten colors, is a native Japanese proverb with no author and no Chinese source: every person has their own tastes and their own mind. Its clipped four-character form is first attested in an 1850s kabuki digest and in a novel where the ten colors are ten drunk customers in a pleasure house; behind it stands a family of ten people, ten something sayings from 1638. Having no source of its own to cite, the Meiji dictionaries reached for Terence and a line of the Zuozhuan when they had to render it into English, and gave so many men, so many minds as the standing equivalent; a single American paperback, in 1987, is the first to turn the colors into tastes.

Overview

The sense. The sense has not moved: people differ, and the proverb says so without judging it. What moves is the register. In its first recorded uses it belongs to the pleasure quarter, drunk customers and courtesans' wiles, and the 色 carries its second meaning underneath. By 1882 it is in a schoolboy's proverb list, by 1901 in dictionaries glossed with a line of the Zuozhuan, and by the twentieth century it is the plain classroom proverb the modern dictionaries define. The Meiji dictionaries chose between hearts, minds and tastes in English, and the choice is real: 俚諺辞典 says hearts, 藤井 says likes and thoughts, ことわざを知る辞典 says tastes and individuality.

The words. 十人, jūnin, is ten people. 十色, toiro, is ten colors, with 色 read in its native Japanese sound iro, and the word here means kind, sort, character rather than a color of paint: an Edo Buddha's life quoted by the 1910 proverb dictionary has 十品, ten kinds, in the same slot of a kin saying. The word 色 also means love and the erotic, and the novel the dictionaries cite as the proverb's first use plays on that: its ten colors are ten drunk customers in a pleasure house, each to be handled in his own key. Ten is not a count; it stands for everyone, as in the kin proverb 十人寄れば十色, ten people together are ten colors, which a 1915 dictionary takes as the long form this one clips. A belly variant, 十人十腹, ten people, ten bellies, runs beside it from 1886. Nothing in the four characters varies across the witnesses.

The proverb in English. The dictionaries made the English, and the three American paperbacks each chose differently. From 1882 to 1929 the equations are all proverbs of minds or tastes: Many men, many minds, So many men, so many minds, Men's tastes differ with each individual, No two men are of a mind, Every man is in his humour; none of them is the picture. Galef in 1987 turns the colors into tastes [1]; Zona in 1996 keeps the literal, Ten people, ten colors [2]; Trimnell in 2004 gives the house title word for word [3]. The proverb is not in Galef's second book (2000).

The historical record

1638 and 1686. 毛吹草, 松江重頼's haikai handbook, and Saikaku 西鶴's 好色五人女: the family the proverb comes from. 十人寄れば十国の者, ten people together are men of ten provinces. In Saikaku the passengers on a ferry are 丹波の蚊帳賣、京の呉服屋、鹿島の事觸、乘合船こそをかしけれ, a mosquito-net seller from Tanba, a Kyoto draper, a crier of oracles from Kashima; a passenger boat is a comedy. Not the proverb, but its shape and its joke, half a century before Edo had the four-character form [4].

Mid-nineteenth century, year unresolved. 清談若緑, a 人情本 by Kyokusanjin 曲山人, the sequel to his 娘節用 of 1831 to 1834. The first citation the 精選版日本国語大辞典 gives: 夜の契りを挑むなる。十人十色の生酔客。千差万別それぞれに。調子をあはす憂苦労, the ones who come courting a night's promise: ten people, ten colors of half-drunk customers, a thousand differences and ten thousand distinctions, and the sorrow and labor of matching each one's key. The proverb's first recorded use is about handling drunks in a brothel. The original printing's year is not settled; the sentence stands in an 1883 typeset reprint, where the kana beside the four characters read じうにんといろ [5][6].

1854. 踊形容花競, a kabuki picture-digest by Ryūsuitei Tanekiyo 柳水亭種清 with prints by 豊国. 十人十色といふやつだから、順礼のうちはうまみがない, it's ten people ten colors, as they say, so among the pilgrims there's nothing to my taste. The oldest dated book in the public-domain corpus that carries the four characters, in a cursive hand, and already といふやつ, the thing they say: a proverb, not a coinage [7].

1882. 無花果艸紙, a manuscript list of proverbs in the papers of 正岡子規. 十人十色 in a run of sayings, each with a red tick: …疝気持より半持になれ、十人十色、獅子身中の虫…, between better a half-share than a hernia and the worm inside the lion. The poet was fifteen, and the proverb was schoolroom stock [8].

1882. 英仏通弁自在, 稲垣才三郎's English-French-Japanese phrasebook. The earliest equation with an English proverb: Many men, many minds, then the French Autant de têtes, then 十人十色, with the English and French spelled out in katakana above [9].

1887 to 1894. The Meiji novelists. 十人十色の手練手管, ten people, ten colors of wiles, is a stock phrase in four 戯作 of 1887 and 1888, one witness for a cliché of the courtesan's trade [10]; an 1887 novel pairs the proverb with the Chinese line the dictionaries would soon reach for, 人心の同じからざるは面の如しとやらいふ事も有つて所謂十人十色, there is that saying that hearts differ like faces, and so, as they say, ten people ten colors [11]; an 1894 book on the duties of women writes 諺にいふ。十人十色にして、蓼食ふ蟲も、好き好きと, as the proverb says, ten people ten colors, and some insects prefer smartweed [12].

1888. An English-Japanese Lexicon with an appendix of foreign phrases, revised by 杉浦, 松下 and 曲直瀬, published by 大倉. Three Latin phrases are glossed with the proverb. Facies non omnibus una, 萬人ハ萬人ノ顏容ヲ有ス; 十人十色, every man has his own face. Quot homines, tot sententiæ, the Japanese ending 百人ノ思想アリ; 十人十色, a hundred people, a hundred thoughts. And under a headword misprinted Suus cuique most, 萬人萬人ノ慣習アリ, 十人十色ノ諺アリ, every man has his own custom; there is the proverb ten people, ten colors. The Japanese proverb is being used to explain Ovid and Terence to Japanese readers [13].

1901 to 1929. The dictionaries. 俗諺辞林 in 1901 glosses the proverb with the Chinese line outright [14]. 俚諺辞典 in 1906: 十人が十人ながら各自皆心の同じからざるをいふ, it says that all ten of ten people have hearts unlike one another, and calls 十人十腹 the same proverb [15]. 上田萬年's romanized dictionary of 1915 takes 十人十色 as the abbreviation of 十人寄れば十色 and renders So many men so many hearts [16]. The Japanese-English dictionaries from 1907 give So many men, so many minds [17]; 井上 in 1909 adds Men's tastes differ with each individual [18]; 斎藤 in 1918 No two men are of a mind [19]; 研究社 in 1929 Every man is in his humour, which is Ben Jonson's title [20].

1910. 藤井乙男, 諺語大辞典. 【十人十色】人おのおの好む所、思ふ所を異にするをいふ, it says that each person differs in what he likes and what he thinks, and then, in place of any Japanese source, four Western proverbs: So many men, so many minds and Every one has his taste, both marked French; All tastes are tastes, Italian; There's no disputing about taste. The next headword, 【十人十腹】, is same as above with a Dutch proverb, Many heads, many minds; and on the same page he shelves the family, 十人寄れば十色, 十人寄れば十里の事 from a Buddha's life, and 十人寄れば十国の者 from 毛吹草 and 西鶴. 藤井 gives a canon address for nearly every proverb in his book; for this one he gives none, because there is none [4].

The dictionaries today. 精選版日本国語大辞典: 好みや考えなどは、人によってそれぞれみな異なるということ, that tastes and ways of thinking all differ from person to person, with the 清談若緑 sentence as first citation. デジタル大辞泉: 考え方や好みなどが各人それぞれに違っていること. ことわざを知る辞典: 人には、それぞれ違った好みや個性がある, each person has their own different tastes and individuality, with 漱石's cat in 1905 noticing that the human proverb applies to cat society too, the two kin proverbs, and Every man to his taste as the English [5].

What is not a source. The proverb has no author and no Chinese source. The Zuozhuan line the Meiji dictionaries used to gloss it, Zi Chan 子產's 人心之不同，如其面焉, men's hearts differ as their faces do; how could I say your face is like mine, is a parallel the lexicographers reached for, not an origin [21]. Terence's quot homines tot sententiae: suus cuique mos, as many opinions as men; each has his own way, and Ovid's facies non omnibus una, not one face for all, are the Latin the 1888 lexicon set the proverb beside [22][13]; so many men, so many minds is Terence naturalized in English, and the dictionaries' favorite equivalent for that reason. The 1638 saying about ten people from ten provinces is the proverb's family, not its text.

The proverb in English

1905. Basil Hall Chamberlain, Things Japanese, fifth edition, page 399. In his list of proverbs: Ten men, ten minds. (Literally, "ten men, ten bellies," the mental faculties being, according to popular belief, located in the abdomen.) [23]

1918. 武信由太郎, 武信和英大辞典, page 631. Under iro 色, sense ⑦ 種類, the proverb as an example: 十人十色. So many men, so many minds [24].

1928. 竹原常太, スタンダード和英大辭典, page 425. Under jūnin 十人: 趣味は十人十色だ Every man to his taste.—Anon. and 十人十色 Many men, many minds.—Kirk [25].

1946. 竹原常太, スタンダード和英辞典, page 345. Under jūnin 十人: 十人十色 Many men, many minds [26].

1968. Charles Corwin, A Dictionary of Japanese and English Idiomatic Equivalents. Junin toiro, 十人十色, So many men, so many minds. Everyone to his own taste. To each his own [27].

1974 and 1980. 研究社. The Japanese-English of 1974 glosses it So many men, so many minds. / Several men, several minds. / Every man in his humor [28]; the English-Japanese of 1980, under mind, So many men, so many minds. 十人十色 [29]; the school dictionary, under so, the same [30].

1987. David Galef, Even Monkeys Fall from Trees: The Wit and Wisdom of Japanese Proverbs, Tuttle, number 46, page 106. Jū-nin to-iro. Ten men, ten tastes., and in his list of English equivalents, There is no accounting for tastes. He turns the colors into tastes [1].

1996. Guy Zona, Even Withered Trees Give Prosperity to the Mountain, Simon and Schuster, page 55. Ten people, ten colors. The literal, with no Japanese and no source [2].

2004. Edward Trimnell, Tigers, Devils, and Fools: A Guide to Japanese Proverbs, Beechmont Crest, page 67. Jūnin toiro. "Ten people, ten colors." Everyone has his or her own individual taste. You can't please all of the people all of the time. The literal, word for word. The proverb is not in Galef's second book, Even a Stone Buddha Can Talk (Tuttle, 2000) [3].

Today. The EDRDG dictionary gives several men, several minds; everyone has his own (ideas, tastes, interests, etc.); different strokes for different folks [31]. The house title, Ten People, Ten Colors, is the literal rendering that two of the three English books also chose, and it is the reason to buy the design: the picture is what every English proverb of minds and tastes lacks. What a rendering must keep: the ten, which means everyone; and the colors, which are the picture.

A reading

This is an Edo saying with no author, first attested in an 1850s kabuki book and in a novel where the ten colors are ten drunk customers; it descends from a saying of 1638 about ten people from ten provinces on one ferry. When the Meiji translators had to render it they reached for Terence, so many men, so many minds, and for a line of the Zuozhuan, hearts differ as faces do; and a fifteen-year-old 正岡子規 ticked it in red in his proverb list.

References

  1. David Galef, Even Monkeys Fall from Trees: The Wit and Wisdom of Japanese Proverbs, Charles E. Tuttle, Rutland and Tokyo, 1987, no. 46, p. 106.
  2. Guy Zona, Even Withered Trees Give Prosperity to the Mountain, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1996, p. 55.
  3. Edward E. Trimnell, Tigers, Devils, and Fools: A Guide to Japanese Proverbs, Beechmont Crest Publishing, 2004, p. 67.
  4. 藤井乙男『諺語大辞典』, 有朋堂, 1910, 【十人十色】【十人十腹】【十人寄レバ十色】【十人寄レバ十里ノ事】【十人寄レバ十國ノ者】. National Diet Library pid 862766, scan 264. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/862766/1/264
  5. 「十人十色」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典・デジタル大辞泉・ことわざを知る辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/十人十色
  6. 曲山人『若緑 小三金五郎娘節用続篇』, 春陽堂, 1883 typeset. National Diet Library pid 879736, scan 160. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/879736/1/160
  7. 柳水亭種清 作, 一陽斎豊国 画『踊形容花競』, 安政1 (1854). National Diet Library pid 10303445, scan 28. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/10303445/1/28
  8. 『無花果艸紙』, 迂加連達磨 著, 1882, manuscript in the National Diet Library's 正岡子規 papers. pid 2541082, scan 124. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2541082/1/124
  9. 稲垣才三郎『英仏通弁自在 交際商用』, 競錦堂, 1882. National Diet Library pid 1939229, scan 34. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1939229/1/34
  10. 『薔薇の花影』· 『社会仮粧舞』· 『当世滑稽文章』· 『金蘭花縁』, 1887–88. National Diet Library pids 887857, 882519, 882623 and 886110.
  11. 『鶴殺疾刃庖刀』, 1887. National Diet Library pid 891402.
  12. 『女子の本分』, 1894. National Diet Library pid 757164.
  13. An English-Japanese Lexicon, with an appendix of foreign phrases, rev. 杉浦, 松下 and 曲直瀬, M. Okura, 1888. National Diet Library pid 1677027, scans 555, 564 and 566. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1677027/1/555
  14. 『俗諺辞林』, 1901. National Diet Library pid 863228, scan 190. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/863228/1/190
  15. 『俚諺辞典』, 1906. National Diet Library pid 900343, scans 132–133. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/900343/1/132
  16. 上田萬年『ローマ字びき国語辞典』, 1915. National Diet Library pid 1900620, scan 203. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1900620/1/203
  17. ロイド『和英新辞典』, 1907. National Diet Library pid 903157, scan 261. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/903157/1/261
  18. 井上十吉『和英辞典』, 1909. National Diet Library pid 1869465, scan 329. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1869465/1/329
  19. 斎藤秀三郎『熟語本位英和中辞典』, 1918. National Diet Library pid 1681530, scan 392. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1681530/1/392
  20. 研究社『新英和中辞典』, 1929. National Diet Library pid 1904907, scan 199. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1904907/1/199
  21. 『左傳』襄公三十一年, at Chinese Wikisource / ctext.org. https://ctext.org/chun-qiu-zuo-zhuan/xiang-gong-san-shi-yi-nian/zh
  22. Terence, Phormio, ll. 453–454, at the Latin Library. https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/ter.phormio.html
  23. Basil Hall Chamberlain, Things Japanese, 5th ed., John Murray / Kelly and Walsh, 1905, p. 399.
  24. 武信由太郎 編『武信和英大辞典』, 研究社, 1918, p. 631, s.v. iro. National Diet Library pid 925665, scan 324. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/925665/1/324
  25. 竹原常太『スタンダード和英大辭典』, 宝文館, 1928, p. 425, s.v. jūnin. National Diet Library pid 1126806, scan 220. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1126806/1/220
  26. 竹原常太『スタンダード和英辞典』, 大修館書店, 1946, p. 345, s.v. jūnin. National Diet Library pid 1126792, scan 178. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1126792/1/178
  27. Charles Corwin, ed., A Dictionary of Japanese and English Idiomatic Equivalents, Kodansha International, 1968, s.v. junin toiro.
  28. 増田綱 ed., Kenkyūsha's New Japanese-English Dictionary, 4th ed., Kenkyūsha, 1974, s.v. 十人十色.
  29. 小稲義男 ed., Kenkyūsha's New English-Japanese Dictionary, 5th ed., Kenkyūsha, 1980, s.v. mind.
  30. 岡倉由三郎 ed., Kenkyūsha's New School Dictionary, English-Japanese, Kenkyūsha, undated printing, s.v. so.
  31. EDRDG (JMdict), 「十人十色」, at gokanji. https://new.gokanji.com/word/十人十色

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1, Takase Studios LLC)

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

Checked · grok-4.6 (xAI), 2026-09-05, citations · gpt-6-astra (OpenAI), 2026-09-05, citations