Koi, Koi Carp, Nishikigoi

The weather here is really strange at the moment, Sunday, glorious clear blue skies, Monday, dull, gray and wet, Tuesday, glorious clear blue skies, Wednesday, dull, grey and wet.

As such most of the day has been spent with my head in books or the computer, studying and working on Nishikigoi Mondo, save for a quick drive round Yamakoshi and a 15km cycle round Ojiya.

One of the chapters of Nishkigoi Mondo deals with the early naming of Koi and how they became known as Nishikigoi. One of the chapters of my study book deals with the Kanji symbols for different kinds of fish, which led me to investigating the meanings behind the Kanji which make up 'Nishikigoi'.

For those that don't know, 'Koi', means 'carp' in Japanese. Japanese find it easier to say 'Nishikigoi' than 'Nishikikoi', therefore the 'k' changes to a 'g'.

Now, the 'carp' referred to as 'Koi' are just plain boring old native wild carp, i.e. magoi, which were kept by people as a source of valuable protein by people in Japan. What we can also ascertain at this juncture is that 'Koi Carp' doesn't make sense as a term, it in fact means 'carp carp'.

If we take a closer look at the Kanji for 'Koi' we can see it's actually 2 symbols that make up the word.

The chapter in my study book told me that the Kanji symbol on the left mean't 'sakana', which tranlates as 'fish'. It also explained more about the following Kanji: Note, all are types of fish, as indicated by the symbol on the left. My book then explained that in ancient times the scales of the 'ayu' were used to tell fortunes, the character on the right meaning 'fortune'. It also explained that 'tara', or cod, were most delicious in winter, the character on the right meaning snow. The 'saba', or horse mackerel, had a blue body, the character on the right meaning blue.

So, therefore I started to wonder, what did the character on the right of 'Koi' mean?

Now, as a dedicated 'gakusei of Nihongo' I could have gone off and researched, instead I mailed Yoshi to ask him.

I have to say that I was rather fearful of the reply, perhaps something like 'fat', 'greedy' or 'tasty'.

However, the reply that came back was most pleasing, this symbol mean 'village', 'Koi' are fish that live near the village, near homes, near people.

Whilst out yesterday I noticed the sign for Nishikigoi no Sato, Nishikigoi Village, or more specifically 'Village of Nishikigoi', 'no' meaning 'of', and you'll note that 'sato' is the same as the last symbol in 'Koi'.

So, we now know that 'Koi' or 'carp' are a fish that can be found around people, but how did the 'Nishiki' part come about and why?

When the people of 'Yamakoshi' - a term used loosely - started to breed the colour mutations that we now know as 'Nishikigoi' a number of terms were used to describe them as a whole and as individual varieties including kawarigoi, hanagoi and perhaps most popularly irogoi, meaning coloured carp a name which, incidentally, was banned during the second world war as it was too 'fancy'. After the second world war they were in fact called 'Fancy Carp' by Niigata’s 'Irogoi Farming Fisheries Agricultural Cooperative' when they planned to export them to the US.

However, earlier than this the term 'Nishikigoi' had beened coined. It is said that the term was first used when Katsura Abe, head of Niigata Prefecture’s Fisheries Department, exclaimed that 'this is nothing less than Nishikigoi' upon seeing Taisho Sanke with his own eyes. For a number of years however the term was somewhat lost.

Nowadays 'Nishikigoi' is the most common and understood description of what we, in the west, call 'Koi'. But what does the Kanji below actually mean?

Again I turned to Yoshi. The character on the left means 'gold' or 'bright'. The character on the right is apparently no longer used on it's own but means 'cloth'. Therefore 'nishiki' means gold cloth.

So, when we put all that together what do we get?


Yep, 'fish living near people wearing gold cloth', so, next time people ask you about your pets, don't tell them you keep 'koi carp', tell them you keep 'Nishikigoi', and then tell them what it means and more importantly, where they originated from!