夢実現 yume jitsugen Realize Your Dreams
夢実現 (yume jitsugen), dream realization, is 夢の実現, the realization of a dream, with its particle dropped the way a headline drops it. The full phrase is in print from 1904, when 堺利彦 rendered William Morris's News from Nowhere, and the short form in books from 1918.
Abstract
夢実現, yume jitsugen, is a headline compression of 夢の実現, the realization of a dream, not a coinage. The full phrase is in 181 books of the National Diet Library's full-text index from 1904, when 堺利彦 rendered William Morris's News from Nowhere, and then in the success literature that followed; the compressed form appears in three books, from a volume of Tolstoy's letters in 1918.
Overview
The sense. The realization of a dream: a hope made real, said the way a headline or a poster says it.
The words. 夢 yume, dream, here in its twentieth-century sense of a hope [1], and 実現 jitsugen, a Meiji word for realization, listed in the 哲学字彙 of 1884 and first cited from 漱石 in 1907 [2]. Between them the particle の is dropped.
The text in English. Realize your dreams is rare before 1980 and peaks in 2010; make your dreams come true is in print from 1895. The English is an instruction, the Japanese a noun phrase.
The historical record
1904 to 1944. 夢実現, a headline compression. It is 夢の実現 with its particle dropped. The full phrase is in 181 books from 1904, when 堺利彦 rendered William Morris's News from Nowhere (其の樂しき夢の實現) [3], then in Marden's 成功の基礎 of 1907 and the success literature that followed; the compressed form appears in three books, a Tolstoy letters volume of 1918 [4], a 1943 life of 森恪 [5] and 桑木彧雄's history of science of 1944 [6], and in five more only as the tail of another word (靈夢, 迷夢, 甘夢).
A reading
A headline, 夢の実現 with its の dropped, and a Japanese reader reads it as a poster reads; that is a register, not a fault. The index first has the full phrase in a socialist's translation of a utopia, and then in the success books; the short form is the same hope said faster.
References
- 「夢」, 精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/夢
- 「実現」, 精選版日本国語大辞典, at kotobank. https://kotobank.jp/word/実現
- ヰリアム・モリス, 理想郷 (tr. 堺利彦), 1904, scan 17. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/798702/1/17
- トルストイ書簡集 (石田三治), 1918, scan 19. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/933065/1/19
- 山浦貫一, 森恪, 上, 1943, National Diet Library Digital Collections. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1908689
- 桑木彧雄, 科学史考, 1944, National Diet Library Digital Collections. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1063016