JapanNewbie

Kasagumo – Umbrella Cloud

Posted on 21. Jul, 2012 @ 2:48 pm by harvey in Culture, Language Views: 1,129

New words! More culture!

I recently learned the word “kasagumo.” I think I first heard it when I was visiting a Japanese art museum with a friend (@guideyu) and she was surprised I didn’t know the term. It bothers me when Japanese phrases come up in everyday conversation that I don’t recognize… so I looked it up! Here it is.

After hearing the description of a “kasagumo,” basically a cloud that covers or hovers over the top of a mountian, I thought that the characters would be 傘 (kasa, as in umbrella) 雲 (cloud). It seems that the official characters are 笠雲, but 傘雲 is so widely used you might as well count it.

In fact 笠 is simply another character which also means “umbrella,” so it seems they are interchangeable.

The technical name for this type of cloud is Lenticularis [Wikipedia].

Fujiyama Kasagumo

There are actually different types of Kasagumo.

This informational Japanese website about Mout Fuji has a chart that shows the different types of Kasagumo and their names.

Image from http://fujisan.yamakei.co.jp

You can do a Google Image search for “kasagumo” to see many photos of kasagumo in the wild. You can also search for kasagumo in Japanese for many more.

Here is a YouTube video of a Kasagumo forming and dissipating over Mount Fuji.

Has anyone out there ever seen a Kasagumo in the wild??? I haven’t!