Japan, despite the refined image it traditionally likes to present to the world, has no shortage of words with which to call people stupid.

These words are mostly regional and the uses and nuances of calling people stupid also vary by place.

Over dinner, I was reminded of an episode of Tante Night Scoop, an investigative television program which ran throughout the 90’s. They did an exhaustive survey and mapped the locations of the common ways of calling people stupid throughout Japan.

Of interest is the centrality of the word “aho,” commonly used throughout the Kansai region of Japan (and denoted in red) and the radial spread of “baka” (denoted in blue), a word mostly associated with Tokyo and commonly found in Kanto-centric anime programs.

The map was intended as entertainment, but it has serious historical significance.

When people move, they take words with them. It would appear that people in Kansai, historically the political and economic center of Japan, had little reason to leave the region, which would explain “aho”‘s limited spread. Baka, however, can be found on both sides of Kanto, indicating that there were strong connections between the two sides, despite the distance between them.

Oddly, the other words for “stupid” occupy the same radii from Kansai indicating that certain groups of people had peculiar spatial advantages in trade, where as others did not. Though I really have no idea, I’m thinking that particular perishable products traded with Kansai might have different spoiling times necessitating particular proximities. It’s important also to note that the extreme peripheries might have been trading non-perishable resources like coal, which, though heavy, doesn’t rot.

Economics, trade and language have deep links. English wouldn’t exist without it, and the many forms of English spoken throughout the world have been influenced by the multitude of groups of people who chose to speak it to facilitate trade.

OK, enough for now and back to Kenya.