禁じられた愛 kinjirareta ai Forbidden Love
禁じられた愛 (kinjirareta ai), forbidden love, is standard written Japanese for an English phrase, and the National Diet Library's full-text search finds it once, in 1924, as the head of the longer word 禁じられた愛情.
Abstract
禁じられた愛, kinjirareta ai, forbidden love, is standard written Japanese for an English phrase: 禁じられた, the passive past of 禁じる, to forbid, set before 愛, love. The National Diet Library's full-text search finds the string in one book only, of 1924, and there it is the head of a longer word, 禁じられた愛情, forbidden affection. Two Japanese titles of the same shape are the French film Forbidden Games, 禁じられた遊び, and Moriyama Ryōko's song of 1969, 禁じられた恋, which has 恋, romantic love, where this phrase has 愛.
Overview
The sense. Love that someone has forbidden. The phrase is standard written Japanese, a participle before a noun, and it reads at once; in the books the full-text search reaches it has no Japanese past as itself.
The words. 禁じる kinjiru, to forbid, is the modern one-step form of 禁ずる, first cited in that form from 1925; 禁じられた is its passive past, forbidden [1]. 愛 ai, love: デジタル大辞泉 runs the senses from family affection through romantic love, 特定の人をいとしいと思う心, to Christian charity, キリスト教で、神が人類をいつくしみ, and Buddhist craving, 仏教で、主として貪愛; 精選版日本国語大辞典 cites the word from the 梁塵秘抄 of about 1179 [2]. The word's second sense, affection toward a person, is the nearer one; 恋 koi would name only the romance [3]. Word for word: forbidden love.
The text in English. The English is the source. Forbidden love and 禁じられた愛 overlap fully in sense, and the Japanese 愛 reaches further than the romance, to charity and to craving; the narrower Japanese word is 恋 [4].
The historical record
1924, once, and inside another word. The single page the full-text search finds is Nishimura Shinji's anthropology primer, quoting a psychoanalytic account of a mother-in-law: 此危險な、悲しい愛情は、屢〻禁じられた愛情を抑壓する爲めに、義理の子に對する反感となつて現はれる, this dangerous, sad affection, in order to repress a forbidden affection, often shows itself as antipathy toward the child-in-law [5]. The phrase 禁じられた愛 is the first four characters of a six-character word there, and the search finds it in no other book [6]; the history records the hit and does not lend it a fuller attestation.
1952 and 1969, titles of the same shape. The Japanese title of René Clément's film Jeux interdits, 1952, released in Japan in 1953, is 禁じられた遊び, forbidden games [7]; Moriyama Ryōko's single of 25 March 1969 is 禁じられた恋, forbidden love with 恋 [8].
What is not a source. The English is the source, and in Japanese the phrase has no author. The film and the song are titles that use the same participle, not sources for the phrase.
Today. What a rendering must keep is the passive: forbidden, by someone, not merely impossible. 禁じられた恋 and 禁じられた愛 are both forbidden love in English; 恋 is the romance, and 愛 is love in every sense.
A reading
禁じられた愛 is honest modern Japanese for an English phrase, correct and immediately readable, without a Japanese past of its own in the books read here. Where the sense wanted is romance rather than the wider love, 恋 is the word the 1969 song chose; 愛 is the larger word.
References
- 「禁じる」, デジタル大辞泉・精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/禁じる
- 「愛」, デジタル大辞泉・精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/愛
- JMdict (EDRDG), 「恋」, at jisho. https://jisho.org/word/恋
- JMdict (EDRDG), 「愛」, at jisho. https://jisho.org/word/愛
- 西村真次, 『人類学概論』第1編, 早稲田大学出版部, 1924, scan 94. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/982388/1/94
- National Diet Library next-generation full-text search on 禁じられた愛, searched again 26 September 2026: 1 book, of 1924. https://lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/api/book/search?searchfield=contentonly&keyword=禁じられた愛
- "禁じられた遊び", Japanese Wikipedia (the 1952 French film Jeux interdits, released in Japan in 1953). https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/禁じられた遊び
- "禁じられた恋", Japanese Wikipedia (森山良子's single, released 25 March 1969). https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/禁じられた恋