Draft:Kawaii

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“”Kawaii cultural products cannot be separated from responsibility in producing nationalistic, gendered or xenophobic sentiments merely because of the ‘cute’ form they take. By allowing such products to go uncritiqued, we too become complicit in their ability to continue parlaying messages that ultimately, whether for better or worse, define identity.

—Sara Catharine Osenton, Insidiously 'Cute': Kawaii Cultural Production and Ideology in Japan:85

Etymology

Perhaps because of the phonological and semantic similarities between the word kawaii and the Chinese word 可愛 (pronounced "kě'ài" in Mandarin) which also means "cute", there is a misconception that kawaii is a Chinese loanword, The fact that the word kawaii is oftentimes actually spelled with the characters 可愛 as 可愛い further creates a false impression of it being a Chinese loanword. In reality, kawaii ultimately came from the Japanese adjective 顔映し (pronounced "kawahayushi") for "red-faced", which is a compound of 顔 (pronounced "kao"), the Japanese word for "face", and 映し (pronounced "hayushi"), an archaic Japanese word for "radiant". The Chinese characters 可愛 became associated with the word after the semantic shift from "red-faced" to "cute". Thus, the Chinese word 可愛 seems to have had no influence on the semantic change.

Definition

The word kawaii is not entirely equivalent to the English word "cute".^:1 Its meaning is defined as 1) pitiful, 2) ought to be loved, or 3) pretty little (as in "pretty little puppy" for example).^:1 Thus, kawaii is a type of aesthetic which, as in English, includes things that are "childish, benign, and pleasant",^:1 but has connotations of "desire, attraction, and beauty".^:1