Saturday, 13 February 2016

usage - History of 十干(じっかん)and modern uses


As I was studying vocabulary today, I happened to come across the titular 十干 which are as follows:



甲(こう)• 乙(おつ)• 丙(へい)• 丁(てい) •戊(ぼ)• 己(き)• 庚(こう)• 辛(しん)• 壬(じん)• 癸(き)



There's a somewhat lengthy definition near the middle of this page.



I happened across this while looking up the word へい(塀 - wall), and the first entry in my プログレッシブ dictionary was 丙(へい)- showing the definition as "3rd rank" or a "grade of C (in school)". I proceeded to find that 甲 and 乙 are also used to mean a grade of A and B respectively.


My questions are:



  • Are these used in modern Japanese for ranking things??? If so, all of them, or just like the first 3??? And what kinds of things are ranked this way???

  • Is this a part of 尺貫法 or is it something completely separate???


[Side note: would anyone be interesting in making/helping to make a community wiki on 尺貫法? I find it strangely fascinating for some reason.]




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