Abstract
Business, education, entertainment and other diverse fields have started utilizing virtual reality (VR) as a cutting-edge technology. The term “kasou genjitsu” has taken hold as the Japanese translation of VR. However, the translation, especially “kasou” for “virtual,” has been receiving criticism mainly from VR researchers as being inappropriate. The author is also uncomfortable about this rendition, “kasou” “genjitsu,” given the technological advancement that blurs the boundary between the world created by VR and the reality. For that reason, the author investigated why such a translation has come to be used. The term “VR” was coined in the United States in 1989, but “kasou” had been used for “virtual” for some occasions before that. This is said to be greatly attributed to the translation of “virtual storage” in 1972, when IBM Japan marketed this latest technology of the time as “kasou kioku souchi.” Further back in the Meiji era (1868 to 1912), the word “virtual” was found among academic terms from the Western world, and physicists at the time translated this new concept freely as “karini,” “kyo,” and “kasou,” even though they knew those terms departed from the original meaning. This was presumably the starting point. By tracing back the history of the translation of “virtual” and considering the meaning, the author examines the essence of VR that may significantly change the world in the future.
