Jaja Uma (じゃじゃ馬 – Shrew)
Jaja Uma
じゃじゃ馬
In yesterday’s post, I introduced the word “otenba,” which means a spirited girl.
昨日の投稿で、活発な女の子を意味する「おてんば」という言葉を紹介しました。
Actually, there is the similar term, which is called “jaja uma” (じゃじゃ馬).
実は、よく似た言葉に「じゃじゃ馬」というものがあります。
“Jaja” is an onomatopoeia that represents something noisy/spoiled, “uma” means a horse, and jaja uma originally refers to a restive horse that doesn’t get used to people.
「じゃじゃ」は騒がしい様、わがままを言う様を表した擬音語であり、本来じゃじゃ馬は人に慣れない暴れ馬を意味する言葉です。
This came to be metaphorically used to humans, especially women.
これが比喩的に人間、特に女性に対して使われるようになったというわけです。
Both otenba and jaja uma refer to a spirited girl, but in the strict sense, jaja uma refers to an wayward woman who are hard to deal with.
おてんばもじゃじゃ馬も活発な女性を指す点では同じですが、じゃじゃ馬は（まさに本来の意味のじゃじゃ馬のように）言うことを聞かない扱いの難しい女性を指します。
I think that this is really idle information, but I prefer to both otenba and jaja uma.
どうでも良い情報ですが、私はおてんばな子もじゃじゃ馬な子も好きです。
