"Yume" is the Japanese translation of "dream". I found something interesting today about "yume". I like reading Japanese poetry in Man'yoshu, the oldest existing literature, compiled in the 8th century. "Yume" is often used in poetry. In those poems, it means a series of thoughts, images, and feelings that you experience when you are asleep.
"I Have A Dream". As you know, it's a famous phrase from Martin Luther King Jr. and this "dream" is put into "yume" in Japanese. If this "dream" is simply a series of thoughts and images you can see only when you are asleep, don't you feel sad? Thinking of those, I consulted my dictionary. According to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, "dream" is a wish to do, be, or have something and used especially when this seems unlikely. However, "yume" had never meant a wish to do, be, or have something originally, at least before the Edo era. That is to say, the meaning of "dream" and "yume" doesn't coincide completely. This fact caught my interest and I examined the reason a little further.
In the Meiji era, the western culture flew into Japan like a flood. At that time, "yume" is designated as the translation of "dream". After that, "yume" got influenced by "dream" and obtained a new meaning from "dream" which it didn't have since then. Now, "yume" has mainly two meanings; one is vaporous, temporary, vain, useless stuff, and so on when you see only during sleep. The other is positive meaning like wish, strong will, intention, blueprint for future and so on. I really recognised that the words are alive.
(Vocabulary)
poetry [U] (文学の一形式としての) 詩
catch sb's attention/interest/imagination ＜人＞の関心をひく, 注目を集める
LDOCE Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English ロングマン現代英英辞典
consult [他] 〈本・リスト・地図など〉 を調べる
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