Fun fact: the concept of “Bless you” does not exist in Japanese. We don’t say anything or even react to you sneezing. (If you do it continuously we might ask if you are ok) So it’s no wonder you don’t know the Japanese word even when you have watched tons of anime.
Because when you think about it, the words “Bless you (or Jesus in Spanish when sneezing)” are something to do with Christianity. I heard that christian people say those things because in their beliefs when someone sneezes their soul leaves the body or something like that? (I’m sorry if I’m wrong) Japanese culture does not root in Christianity thus no concept of “bless you.”
Hope you learned a new thing!
- a Japanese phan
@amazingphil @danielhowell
we say “salud” in Spanish for sneezing, which means “health”, not Jesus. “Jesus” is used sometimes in different countries but by far the most common is salud. thank you for the japanese context!
Ther German response is "Gesundheit", which means "health" (and which in English now apparently has the connotation of you just said a weird/complicated word). According to multiple sources from German and Austrian Public Broadcasting (WDR, SWR 3, ÖRF; including one that is all about explaining the world to children and well-researched) there are two reasons for saying this:
1) It started during the plague in the middle ages, where sneezing was seen as the first indicator of infection. Saying "Gesundheit" was meant to ward of the infection mostly from yourself (as in it was a word of protection).
2) It was meant to return the soul that was supposedly kept in the lungs and which could be expelled by sneezing back into the body.
Cursory research (national diet library, japan and some wikipedia) says the first plague outbreak in japan didn't happen until 1899 - where medicine was different and also an entirely different cultural/belief context.
This would explain how there is no equivalent in Japanese, but it is a fairly common custom in European languages that had similiar-ish belief systems and also all were struggling with the plague.
