I thought I had responded to this but I didn't hit the "post reply" button.
Excellent. I learned much from your PDF. Thank you for that excellent write up. Very informative. And it brought back some great memories for me. I lived for 13 years in Nara, 14 years total in Kansai - greater Osaka area which includes Nara, Kobe, Kyoto and Wakayama. Oh, so much I took for granted while there. Saw many items in museums, and castles and temples.
I had several Japanese-English* and English-Japanese dictionaries* (those two are different from each other) and one that was about 6 inches/150mm thick. Even in the thicker one, many of the Japanese words you used were not in the English to Japanese version or the Japanese to English; one had to know the Japanese word to find it, and even then some specialized words would not be in the common dictionaries.. One such word that I had problems with for 10 years was "Chinese tree oil" which is "tung oil". "Chinese tree oil" is in the "Japanese to English", but not the English to Japanese, because native English speakers will look up "tung oil" which is not what Japanese or Chinese call it.
You have had a very good teacher for your Japanese. Most of those words are not in common use to most Japanese. Most Japanese will know the basic 3000 kanji characters plus another 1000 specialized characters having to do with their specialty, such as banking, industrial, business, medical, academics, etc. If one's specialty is not in that area, they generally will not know what the other specialty words mean.
In every day English, Here in the USA, we will say that "lawyer speak/lawyer language" in contracts are far beyond the understanding of most people. We know every word, but have no clue as to the real and final meaning - since we are not lawyers. In Everyday Language in Japan, it is basically the same. There are about 50,000 characters, but the average Japanese will know only 4000 - 5000 or such, which is the 3000 basic for everyday language and 1000 to maybe 2000 more for specialized use in a specific field.
Japanese use a form called furigana which is the alphabetical letter in very small script above the Kanji characters to show how it is to be pronounced**. This still does not give full understanding, which comes only if one is immersed within that specialized field. As an example, I am in the religious ministry and in my studies, my teachers taught me ministry words. Imagine my surprise when I wrote out my history and mentioned my "calling - Shomei" in Kanji characters, made several copies and gave them out to 8 Japanese adults that were studying English. Everyone asked me what "Shomei" was. I looked at them, and said, "That is a Japanese word and characters, don't you know it?" After that experience, I was careful to ask my teachers, for an additional word that was more common, or that the "common person" could understand.
Japanese Dictionaries:
* English - Japanese, Japanese-English dictionaries come in 4 basic versions: (Probably Chinese also)
1. English to Japanese WRITTEN in the English Alphabet system to learn the Japanese Word
2. Japanese to English WRITTEN in the English Alphabet system to help translate a Japanese word to English. I heard "shokuji" often - Oh, it means "meal" or food.
3. Japanese to English - WRITTEN in Japanese character system for Japanese
4. English to Japanese - WRITTEN in Japanese Katakana form with explanation in Kanji and Hiragana.
** Furigana - Japanese alphabet above a Kanji character to denote the pronunciation. For instance, the word for day: 日 can be pronounced Hi (he) or Ka, or bi, or Nichi, or Tachi, depending upon the specific word or location of that character within a combination of characters. For specialized words, most Japanese will need the Furigana alphabet above the character to know how to pronounce it correctly.
nichi yō bi (be)
にち よう び
日 曜 日。= Sunday Notice the first character is pronounced different from the last character even though they are the same character.
In some ways, the Japanese form is far more complex than Chinese, and if one is not in a specialized field, it is understood that you will not understand, and it is not demeaning if one does not understand. That was a great shock to me. I am not in the medical field but I know a lot of medical terms, legal terms, scientific terms and can often tell by the context what a specific word may mean, but there is not as much cross-specialization understanding in that language.
Many times I asked neighbors and even my Japanese language teachers even beyond basic language study times - I asked about Japanese wood work and finish and I always got a blank stare, with an answer of "I do not know" (Wakarimasen!)
Thank you for your work in explaining the intricacies of the Urushi system.