Japanese Language Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for students, teachers, and linguists wanting to discuss the finer points of the Japanese language. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
The word for 'suicide bombing via crashing your plane into something'(which most people will use in a broader sense that drops the plane from the equation) as seen done by the Japanese during WWII is 神風, who's kanji translates to 'Divine/God's wind'.
Could someone explain the etymology of this to me. What exactly does 'Divine wind' refer to? How was it meant to help justify this suicide mission to the men who did it? And is it connected to the State-Shinto they had at the time?
There were two typhoons that saved Japan from mongol invasions under Kublai Khan in the 13th century, and were thus named "divine wind" (神風). The pilots in WWII were supposed to be "divine wind", similar to the typhoon, saving Japan from other invading enemies.
Technically, the word for "suicide attack" is 特攻｛とっこう｝. It is derived from 特別攻撃隊 {とくべつこうげきたい}(special attack unit), which is often shortened to 特攻隊｛とっこうたい｝.
神風｛かみかぜ｝ is a reference to the typhoons that prevented two Mongolian invasions of Japan. They were thought to be gifts from the gods, defending Japan from its invaders. Kamikaze simply takes from that, painting a picture that the attacks would turn the tides of battle and bring victory to Japan. It's not uncommon for a country to use mythological terms for military purposes.
And it doesn't have anything to do with the State-Shinto, as far as I know.
First of all, 神風 doesn't mean suicide attack in Japanese unless it's used as a re_imported word. American started to call it "kamikaze" because one of the units that participated in the operation was called "Shinpu", whose kanji can also be read as "kamikaze".
