Where does the な in 大人 (otona) come from?

Question

As far as I understand, the word 大人 (otona) uses the kanji 大 to represent お and the kanji 人 to represent と. According to this site the readings for 人 do not include な. Where does the な come from then?

Answer 1

It's [熟字訓]{じゅくじくん}. Excerpt from Wiktionary:

A Japanese word whose kanji spelling conveys the meaning based on the individual characters, but the reading is not directly related to the spellling. For example, 大 (“big”, usually read ō in kun'yomi compounds) and 人 (“person”, usually read hito in kun'yomi compounds) combine to form 大人, meaning “adult” but read as otona instead of the otherwise-expected ōbito.

We have tons of 熟字訓, e.g. [昨日]{きのう}, [土産]{みやげ}, [二十歳]{はたち} etc. For more, see 熟字訓 on Wikipedia.

Answer 2

Regarding the etymology of おとな

大人 contains the meaning of the leader of a group, the most significant one, the eldest one, etc.

The etymology is not clear however one of the reason might related to the word 乙名＝おとな

During 室町 period, the wise leaders who lead some local farmer's autonomous group were commonly called 乙名＝おとな。 It is unclear which word came first but the reading [大人]{おとな} quite possibly came from 乙名。

Reference: See section 大辞林 第三版.

So here you go! The な comes from [名]{な} in 乙名。

Or is it?　GO FIND OUT YOURSELF〜　ヽ(ﾟ∀ﾟ)メ　Study etymology〜　You can probably get a PhD studying this.

Portal -> 日本歴史言語学会

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Regarding 熟字訓

It is false to think 大人＝　[大]{お}・人{と}＋な。

@user5185 is right about 大人 being 熟字訓 and got not much relation with the pronunciation おとな。（It might once be related, but not anymore cause no one is sure.）

For more information on 熟字訓 and 当て字 see my another answer for this question.

Answer 3

おとな is a Japanese word meaning big person...adult. When kanji came to Japan they took the characters 大　人　 to represent their native word.

乙名　is a buddhist term..ie a Chinese loan word assigned a close apporximate to its original pronunciation.

The alleged similarities between the two are superficial.

You will find that in Japanese anyone can take kanji and assign a meaning and reading to them that goes outside the norm.

For instance 鸚鵡　is written using kana alone. おうむのスコックス

Squawks the parrot from dkc2. Or i can just write 鸚鵡 and put スコックス　 above it.

さいのランビ Rambi the rhino 犀のランビ　becomes just 犀

Squitter the spider

I can write 　蜘蛛靴 Spider +　shoes I can then do this

蜘ん靴　spider +shoes

I can then do this 蜘*靴 , or just 蜘靴。 i can then put the furigana スクイータ

Etc So anyone who plays donkey kong country 2 when they see that would know it is thay character.　theres not really a confusion because when talking about a normal spider rhino or parrot only kana is used.

Similarily, multi kanji compounds can be abbreviated in the hopes that the meanimg can still be conveyed. For instance

ゆゆはくしょ　幽霊遊猟白書

Originally 6 character compound meaning ghost hunting report Abbreviated to

幽☆遊☆白書

Any native speaker who sees this would understand what it is saying.

When speaking kanji will ne eliminated or parts of readimgs will be eliminated and replaced with ん

Both these concepts are important to understand especially for understanding anime ,manga and video games as they are used a lot.

This is very common in japanese media. Its pointless trying to find a reason for this. The reason is that the person or people took a word and assigned characters to it that associated with its inherant meaning. We do the same in english. Its not really a foreign concept. In english we assign a singular noun a group noun. You see this wtih fruit. We call oranges and tangerines..oranges. bananas and plaintains...bananas.

We say we are driving the car..while in our truck.

Transportation refers to bus bike train or plane.

Our immediate peers will understand what we are talking about and not question that we are in a truck instead of a car.

We also make up slang code words to refer to things all the time.

In other words we take one word and associate with another similar meaning word for ease of communication and comfort.

Both cars and trucks are vehicles. We shouldnt habe to specifically state what type of locmotive we are driving. So we just use the generic noun car.

Not the same concept i know, but similar enough so as not to be alienated from a foreign language.