家族は永遠 kazoku wa eien Family is Forever
家族は永遠 (kazoku wa eien), family is forever, sets 永遠, the Meiji translators' word for eternity, after the family as a bare predicate, the way a motto speaks. Before 1946 the words fall together on two pages, a saint's promise and a schoolteacher's creed, and on neither are they a sentence of their own.
Abstract
家族は永遠, family is forever, puts 永遠, eien, the Japanese noun for eternity, after 家族, the family, as a bare predicate. The word is young for so large a thing, first cited from Nakamura Masanao's 1871 translation of Samuel Smiles. The exact string stands on two pages before 1946, in a life of St Francis of 1922 and a women teachers' record of 1924, and on neither is it a sentence of its own; as a motto the phrase has no author.
Overview
The sense. Standard written Japanese; 永遠 is a literary and philosophical noun, at home on a gravestone, in a hymn and in a pop lyric. 永遠 eien is the Japanese noun for eternity and the adverb for forever: the dictionaries' first citation is Nakamura Masanao's 1871 rendering of Samuel Smiles, and its second sense, eternity as what stands outside time, enters with the Tokyo philosophers' vocabulary of 1881. 家族は永遠, family is forever, sets the word after a subject as a bare predicate, which is how a motto speaks.
The words. 永遠 eien. デジタル大辞泉: いつまでも果てしなく続くこと。時間を超えて存在すること, continuing without end; existing beyond time, with the examples 永遠に残る名曲, a song that will last forever, and 永遠のスター. 精選版日本国語大辞典 gives the same first sense with its synonyms 永久, とこしえ, 永劫, and dates it: 永遠無疆の福を望むことなり, to hope for a blessedness without end, in 西国立志編 (1870–71), Nakamura Masanao's translation of Self-Help; the second sense, existence outside time, is cited from the 哲学字彙 of 1881 as the entry Eternity 永遠; the dictionary adds that the compound is older in Chinese, in the 書経 [1]. 家族 kazoku, the family: 夫婦・親子を中核として、血縁・婚姻により結ばれた近親者を含む生活共同体, the living community of spouses and children and the kin joined to them by blood and marriage; first cited from 1808 and then from Fukuzawa's 西洋事情, 人間の交際は家族を以て本とす, human society has the family for its base [2].
The text in English. Forever is an adverb and 永遠に does the same work; 永遠 alone is also the noun eternity, which English keeps separate. Where the two languages differ is in warmth: forever in English is worn smooth by songs and cards, while 永遠 keeps a slight formality, the word of philosophy and of the Christian hymnal, so that 家族は永遠 reads a little higher than family is forever. The bilingual dictionary gives 永遠 as eternity; perpetuity; permanence; immortality and no more [3].
The historical record
1922 and 1924. 家族は永遠, as the head of a sentence. The exact string is on two pages before 1946, and on neither is it a sentence of its own. In a life of St Francis it is Christ's promise to the saint that his family, his order, will endure: 汝の家族は永遠に續くものと成り、益々弟子達は增し加へられるであらう, thy family shall become a thing that continues forever, and disciples shall be added more and more [4]. In a Tochigi women-teachers' record it is a conservative's declaration: 家族は永遠に家族主義、女子は永遠に良妻賢母主義なれ, let the family be family-ist forever and women forever good-wife-wise-mother-ist [5]. Neither is a sentence of its own in the sense meant here; both show the words falling together naturally.
What is not a source. The phrase has no author. 家族は永遠 has no Japanese page as a sentence of its own to 1946, and the history says so rather than lending it the saint's or the schoolteacher's. In English, family is forever is a motto with no author either.
A reading
One word carries the phrase. 永遠 was made for eternity and it has not lost that size; put after 家族 it says something larger than the English family is forever quite means, and that is a gain, not a mistranslation.
References
- 「永遠」, デジタル大辞泉・精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/永遠
- 「家族」, デジタル大辞泉・精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/家族
- JMdict (EDRDG), 「永遠」, at jisho. https://jisho.org/word/永遠
- 宮崎安右衛門, 『聖心』, 総文館, 1922, scan 132. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/969546/1/132
- 『栃木県女教員研究会研究録』第1輯, 1924, scan 103. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/918070/1/103