by Nao

nō, Noh

When we studied “kan bun,” the Chinese classics, at school, we learned to interpret this character as a modal verb. It means “can.” In classical Japanese, there used to be a word meaning “cannot” with this character, that is, atawazu. The ata of atawazu is today’s character and has the same function as that in the Chinese classics. The wazu is in hiragana and denies the verb atau meaning “can.” These usages are obsolete. The point is that the character implies “can.”

The word nō means ability. The related compounds are sainō (talent) and honnō (instinct). The performing arts are called geinō. If you are interested in Japanese entertainment news, search for geinō nyūsu. Nyūsu is in katakana.

Noh is also a Japanese traditional performing art. It is sometimes called nōgaku. A Noh theater is called nōgakudō, of which the dō means a building. Noh can be performed in various ways like this example.

1. Draw the rotated chevron shape from the top left.
2. Draw the dot.
3. Draw the sweeping stroke to the left.
4. Draw the hook touching the previous stroke. Turn upward at the end.
5. Draw the horizontal stroke under the hook.
6. Draw the horizontal stroke below it.
7. Draw the horizontal stroke to the upper right. Nao draws it from the left to the right. Normally, it is a sweeping stroke drawn from the right to the left.
8. Draw the curve with a small upward turn from the top center.
9. Draw the horizontal stroke below the curve. Again, it is usually drawn from the right to the left.
10. Draw the curve with a small upward turn just below the upper curve.