Talk:National Diet

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TLDR: How it was named "National Diet"?

someone explain the history behind this absurd naming. Dark1618 (talk) 16:58, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That translation is established, but basically a translation artifact/historical legacy. A few notes:

First, its actual name is 國會/国会 (CJKV guóhuì/kokkai/gukhoe/quốc hội), which means in itself nothing but "national assembly", the same Sino-JKV term as in Korea (Republic) or Vietnam (Socialist Republic) today from where you also translate them as such (National Assembly (South Korea), National Assembly of Vietnam).
Its predecessor in the Empire was named 帝國議會/帝国議会 – translated without context, gikai basically just means parliament or legislature, so this would be the "Empire's/Imperial parliament/legislature", however it has also inversely been used as translation for the Imperial Diet of the German Empire (ja:帝国議会 (ドイツ帝国)). It was in crucial parts modeled on the Diet of the Kingdom of Prussia (elected House of Representatives, mostly hereditary appointed House of Lords/Peers, equal power in legislation, no responsible government), some elements, mostly regarding pomp & circumstances were borrowed from the UK. It is translated as "Imperial Diet". And when after WWII, the teikoku-gikai was superseded by the kokkai – that term had been in use for long and is actually older; it was used by the Freedom and People's Rights Movement in its demands for elected representation (Example, only here you translate kokkai arbitrarily differently: as "national assembly"), and had been in use as an informal term for the Imperial Diet, –, the translation as "Diet" to European languages apparently stuck.
You could even start a step earlier and ask if [Imperial/State/Federal] "Diet" is an ideal translation from German [Reichs-/Land-/Bundes-]tag before you ask if the translation of the translation is suitable. (Many translations between German/ic and Latin/Romance terms are not perfectly corresponding either, we Europeans just have become used to interchanging them in an unreflected manner and often taking them for equivalent for two millennia.)
Also enlightening in this context: The translations of Japanese subnational legislatures. In 1947, the national legisature changed its name from teikoku-gikai to kokkai, while the prefectural and municipal legislatures were renamed inversely from dō-/fu-/ken-/shi-/chō-/son-/kukai to to-/dō-/fu-/ken-/shi-/chō-/son-/ku-gikai. You translate those to English as "[pref./munic.] assemblies".

--Asakura Akira (talk) 09:02, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It means assembly, meeting, a historical name for legislative assemblies, especially bicameral (or tricameral) imperial ones. Rankedchoicevoter (talk) 10:31, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]