和紙

• 読み: わし
• ローマ字: washi
• 漢字の分解: 和 (wa) — Japan, Japanese; 紙 (shi/kami) — paper
• 発音: /wa.ɕi/

意味

Washi; traditional handmade Japanese paper crafted from plant fibres such as kozo (mulberry). A material central to Japanese literary, artistic, and cultural heritage.

和紙 is made from the inner bark of plants such as kozo (楮, mulberry), mitsumata (三椏), and gampi (雁皮), resulting in a fibrous, durable paper very different from Western machine-made varieties. It has been used for calligraphy, woodblock printing, bookbinding, shoji screens, and preservation of official documents for over a millennium. Traditional 和紙 production was registered as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2014. Many classical manuscripts — the very texts of Japanese literature — were written on 和紙.

例文

1. 和紙は繊維が長く絡み合っているため、普通の紙より何倍も丈夫だ。
2. この古文書は和紙に墨で書かれており、数百年を経た今も保存状態が良い。
3. 和紙を使った書道や版画は、その独特の質感が作品に深みを与える。

使い方ガイド

場面: traditional arts, calligraphy, crafts, cultural heritage, archival studies

トーン: descriptive, appreciative

起源と歴史

Native Japanese compound: 和 (wa) meaning Japanese/Japan; 紙 (kami/shi) meaning paper. The term directly contrasts with 洋紙 (yoshi, Western/foreign paper), distinguishing traditionally handmade Japanese paper from industrially produced varieties.

文化的背景

時代: Ancient-Modern

世代: All ages

社会的背景: Universal