New Year 2026

[mecox]

Cheers for 2026 Year of the Horse 午 Uma

 

    

[Bugyotsuji]

Two threads running now! 

[John C]

17 hours ago, mecox said:

Horse 午 Uma

Mal:

 I'm just curious about the difference between 午 and 馬. I believe they are both Uma. I ask because I have a hanko with the second character on it and I'm trying to figure out if it is a nickname, profession, or whatever.

John C.

[mecox]

John, rather confusing and I needed to check with wife, as I had/have no idea.  As often occurs basic problems relate to words/characters originally from China.  But it seems basically 午 UMA  (or in Chinese Wu/Go) is the

zodiac year  午年   and  

馬  UMA is the animal (and the kanji represents its mane and legs).   So your stamp is the animal horse?

 

Looking further,  in Chinese zodiac  午 was also used to indicate time and direction.  There is  shougo　正午  (shougo in Japanese)  for “noon” (also called the hour of the horse),   午前  (gozen in Japanese) for “morning” 

and  午後  (gogo)   for  “afternoon”.  Up to the Edo period a day was divided into 12 segments called “koku”.   

[John C]

Thank you, Mal. That helps. I can eliminate a particular year as a possibility. The hanko came as part of a yatate so I suppose it was either a nickname of the user or possibly he was a stable accountant.

 

John C.

Edited January 1 by John C
name change