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Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Haiku Topical Dictionary

From my friend Leah I just learned about the Japanese Haiku topical dictionary at the University of Virginia Library Japanese Text Initiative, a program making classical Japanese texts available online.

Choose your season, choose your season word, and a screen pops up and defines the season word (and closely related season words) for you, and then displays several haiku employing them, both in Japanese and translated into English.

For example, the weather here has changed almost overnight from unbearably hot to refreshingly cool, so Leah looked under the season autumn for the word sawayaka, which the dictionary defines as "fresh refreshing, crisp (of weather)". Below the definition are five haiku using this word or a related word to describe the beginning of autumn.

Enjoy browsing haiku using this handy topical dictionary.

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