Japan Parliament = Diet. Why?

Factual Questions
1

This question took me by surprise the first time I heard it. Some Japanese students and I were talking about the US elections, when one of them asked, “why do you call our parliament the Diet?” All the other students, and everyone else in Japan that I’ve asked, has agreed that this isn’t a Japanese term. My own suggestion that it was an westernization of “Dai ee-too” (The Big ‘err… umm…’) was met with polite smiles, but somehow I don’t think that was the answer.

So, where did this term come from? Is it a long-forgotten Japanese term? Is it a Japanese mis-translation of some foreign word? Vice-versa? What does it mean?

thanks,

–sublight.

2

The word ‘Diet’ has always meant ‘a council or debating body’. Hence the ancient ‘Diet of Worms’ that convicted Martin Luther. I suppose that is just how the Japanese word was translated.

3

Ah, of course. I’d forgotten about that usage. Is it still used today?

thanks,

–sublight.

4

Possibly, although I haven’t heard it used in that way in contemporary works (save the Japanese Diet).

5

So is there a technical difference between Parliament, Congress and Diet? My dictionary says Sweden, Denmark and Hungary also have Diets, while England has a Parliament, but I can’t find out why.

6

I always associated “diet” with Germanic councils. A Germanisten scholar once told me it comes from the same root as Deutsch (more technically Teut-) grom back when that meant an assembly of men.

7

My dictionary says that “Diet” as a legislative body comes from Latin and means “a day’s meal.” Perhaps if you served on a Diet, you got fed.

Or perhaps I have a bad dictionary.

“Parliament” comes the Latin that means “to talk about things.”

8

Yes, it is used to describe the Japanese version of parliament.

9

The Japanese Diet’s name comes from German as far as I know. It dates back to the Meji restoration in 1889. During this time many German words were adopted into Japanese, as the Japanese were studing how to modernize the country, and considered Germany to be an excellent example.