Samurai

Samurai (侍?), Or in Japanese called bushi (武士?, [Bu͍ꜜ.ɕi̥]) or buke (武 家?), Is a medieval and early modern Japanese aristocracy. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In China, 侍 is a word that means waiting or accompanying someone in the ranks of society, and this is also actually from the original term in Japanese, saburai and saburai noun.In both countries this term usually means "those who serve are close to the nobility," then the pronunciation changed into samurai, according to Wilson, the early reference to the word "samurai" appeared in Kokin Wakashū (905-914), the first imperial anthology of poetry, completed in the first part of the twentieth century, 10. At the end of the twelfth century, the samurai became almost entirely identical to Bushi, and the word was closely related to the middle and upper class knights.The Samurai followed a set of rules which became known as Bushido, although samurai were still less than 10% of the Japanese population, their teachings can still be found to this day both in everyday life and in modern Japanese martial arts.

The more appropriate term is bushi (武士) (literally: "armed men") used during the Edo period. However, the term samurai is used for elite warriors from among nobles, and not for example, ashigaru or foot soldiers. A samurai who is not attached to clan or works for an employer (daimyo) is called ronin (literally: "the waves"). Samurai who served in the han area called hanshi.

The samurai must be polite and learned, and during the Tokugawa shogunate they gradually lost their military functions. At the end of the Tokugawa era, samurai are generally the general favors of the daimyo, with their swords only for the sake of customs. With the Meiji reforms at the end of the 19th century, samurai were abolished as different classes and replaced with national army resembling Western countries. However, the strict samurai character known as bushido still exists in present-day Japanese society, as well as other aspects of their way of life.