burakumin

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Japanese 部落民, from Middle Chinese 部落 (buo^X lɑk̚, “tribe”) + 民 (miɪn, “people”).

Noun

burakumin (plural burakumins or burakumin)

1. A member of a Japanese social minority group, descendants of feudal-era outcasts.
   • 2003, Colin Mackerras, Ethnicity in Asia, page 52:

     Since the early twentieth century, the burakumin have had strong liberation movements that have won many concessions for the group, but which have also, through their sometimes quite violent activism, further alienated many mainstream Japanese.

   • 2011, Peter McGill, “Short Cuts”, in London Review of Books, 33.VII:

     Before it was levelled, Nagata was home to about half of Kobe’s 20,000 Korean residents, as well as Japan’s largest ghetto of burakumin. The word means ‘hamlet people’ though its mere mention usually draws instant embarrassment.

Japanese

Romanization

burakumin

1. Rōmaji transcription of ぶらくみん