How the Kawaii Emotion had been Expressed in Japanese

- Analysis of Ancient Language and Japanese Dictionaries -

Abstract

This paper reports on the results of a literature review and text-mining analysis conducted to understand how the kawaii emotion had been expressed in Japanese. The Japanese term kawaii can be translated to English as lovable, cute, pretty, and sweet comprehensively. In Japanese, the kawaii emotion had long been expressed using different words, many of which have multiple other meanings. In addition, some words that had been used to express the kawaii emotion took on new meanings. The words that had been exclusively used to refer to the kawaii emotion are megushi, utsukushi, rotashi, kahayushi, and shiorashi. In modern Japanese, nuances such as ‘sweet’ and ‘pitiful’ were removed from the concept of kawaii whereas others such as ‘smiling’ were added.