Talk:National Diet

someone explain the history behind this absurd naming. Dark1618 (talk) 16:58, 12 January 2025 (UTC)

:That translation is established, but basically a translation artifact/historical legacy. A few notes:

:* First, its actual name is 國會/国会 (CJKV guóhuì/kokkai/gukhoe/quốc hội), which means in itself nothing but "national assembly", the same Sino-JKV term as in Korea (Republic) or Vietnam (Socialist Republic) today from where you also translate them as such (National Assembly (South Korea), National Assembly of Vietnam).

:* Its predecessor in the Empire was named 帝國議會/帝国議会 – translated without context, gikai basically just means parliament or legislature, so this would be the "Empire's/Imperial parliament/legislature", however it has also inversely been used as translation for the Imperial Diet of the German Empire (:ja:帝国議会 (ドイツ帝国)). It was in crucial parts modeled on the Diet of the Kingdom of Prussia (elected House of Representatives, mostly hereditary appointed House of Lords/Peers, equal power in legislation, no responsible government), some elements, mostly regarding pomp & circumstances were borrowed from the UK. It is translated as "Imperial Diet". And when after WWII, the teikoku-gikai was superseded by the kokkai – that term had been in use for long and is actually older; it was used by the Freedom and People's Rights Movement in its demands for elected representation (Example, only here you translate kokkai arbitrarily differently: as "national assembly"), and had been in use as an informal term for the Imperial Diet, –, the translation as "Diet" to European languages apparently stuck.

:* You could even start a step earlier and ask if [Imperial/State/Federal] "Diet" is an ideal translation from German [Reichs-/Land-/Bundes-]tag before you ask if the translation of the translation is suitable. (Many translations between German/ic and Latin/Romance terms are not perfectly corresponding either, we Europeans just have become used to interchanging them in an unreflected manner and often taking them for equivalent for two millennia.)

:* Also enlightening in this context: The translations of Japanese subnational legislatures. In 1947, the national legisature changed its name from teikoku-gikai to kokkai, while the prefectural and municipal legislatures were renamed inversely from dō-/fu-/ken-/shi-/chō-/son-/kukai to to-/dō-/fu-/ken-/shi-/chō-/son-/ku-gikai. You translate those to English as "[pref./munic.] assemblies".

:--Asakura Akira (talk) 09:02, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

:It means assembly, meeting, a historical name for legislative assemblies, especially bicameral (or tricameral) imperial ones. Rankedchoicevoter (talk) 10:31, 13 January 2025 (UTC)