Can だいじょうぶ(大丈夫) mean the same as だいじょうふ(大丈夫) in modern Japanese?

Question

After the Japanese borrowed the word 丈夫 from Chinese, they seem to have changed its meaning at some point:

• Chinese: heroic man > Japanese: heroic man > strong/healthy/self-assured/fearless/care-free > all good/no worries/alright

However, this change in meaning seems to have provoked a split in pronunciation for the new meaning and the old meaning. じょうぶ is now predominantly used for "alright," while じょうふ is used for "heroic man." There's even 女丈夫 (じょじょうふ) for "heroic woman." Interestingly, じょうふ, being kan'on, sounds like it was a later invention but intended for the older meaning.

Dictionaries seem to have a clear split between じょうぶ and じょうふ. This goes for both bilingual ones like Kenkyuusha's, as well as monoligual ones like Shinmeikai, Meikyou and even Kokugo Daijiten, and even pronunciation dictionaries like NHK's.

What they don't seem to agree on is whether to split だいじょうふ from だいじょうぶ. Some dictionaries (Daijirin, Kokugo Daijiten, Koujien) suggest that だいじょうふ is simply an alternative reading, and だいじょうぶ can indeed mean both "great heroic man" and "A-OK." Others (Daijisen, Shinmeikai, Meikyou, NHK, Kenkyuusha) make the same distinction as じょうふ and じょうぶ, meaning that only だいじょうふ means "great heroic man", and only だいじょうぶ means "A-OK".

So what's the real current usage in modern Japanese? Is there any source directly addressing the different readings of 大丈夫?

Answer 1

If you're interested in modern usage, the answer is simple; 大丈夫 is always read だいじょうぶ and means "OK; no problem; alright". It never means "(great) man", so its reading when it means "(great) man" cannot even be discussed. Even in 現代国語 dictionaries that do not specialize in archaic language, it is common to include fairly rare and dated usages of a word without explicitly indicating so (that's the main purpose of a dictionary for native speakers, after all).

Actually, 大丈夫 in the sense of "great man" was already obsolete 100 years ago. You can confirm this fact by visiting 青空文庫全文検索. I haven't looked at all the over 2,500 examples, but in general, in 口語 texts written from the late Meiji period onwards, 大丈夫 is always used to mean "OK". This text by 西郷隆盛 has three instances of 大丈夫 in the sense of "great man", but the text is entirely in 文語 (and they unfortunately have no furigana). In this text from the Edo period, 大丈夫 is used in both ways, and different furigana are used (だいぢやうぶ for "OK" and だいぢやうふ for "great man").

偉丈夫 and 美丈夫 are occasionally used in modern Japanese, and they are generally read いじょうふ and びじょうふ, respectively. Even so, the use of these words is limited to period dramas or historical novels with a formal literary style. In general, it's safe to say ◯丈夫 is never used in the sense of "man" or "person" in ordinary exchanges today.

EDIT: I found this essay, where 大丈夫 is read だいじょうぶ and means "great man":

大衆文芸作法

信長ほどの[大丈夫]{だいじょうぶ}も同性愛に目がくらんで、時々こんなメンタルテストを試みたかと思うと、何とも云えぬ親しみを感ずる。

これは同じ日の報知新聞の夕刊の矢田挿雲の「太閤記」の一節である。

矢田's 太閤記 was published in 1957, so this might serve as an evidence that 大丈夫 read as だいじょうぶ could have meant "great man" at some point in the past. I'm not sure if you regard the 1950's as "modern", but this is a novel set in the 16th century, so I doubt this isolated example reflects the ordinary usage of 大丈夫 in the 1950's.