Is there any definitional or etymological nuance between the English「Princess」and the Japanese「姫」？


Recently I've been looking into buying myself a copy of Ghiblis 「かぐや姫の物語」(The
Tale of Princess Kaguya)。

Now, the first thing I noticed about the 日本語訳 is that it had a similarly
annoying word in there, that word being the honorific suffix「姫」。It and the
English honorific adjective「Princess」annoy me as かぐや at no point fits the
definition of ether, starting as a adopted peasant girl, and ending a kind of
lunar shinto space alien chick, being at no point depicted as anything more
then a kind of consort.

While yes I do understand that both these words are being used more to
describe a kind of narrative archetype about her character rather then a
actual position or title. This still got me thinking about these two words,
and the fact that while they're near identical in there dictionary
definitions, they still evolved separately and only met/were used
interchangeably, later on, thus meaning there could be considerable nuance
between the two.

So ya, is there any kind of noteworthy differences or nuance between these two
words? Ether in the form of subtle differences in meaning, or in the form of
noteworthy differences in there etymology.

I ask this because while most ancient cultures had this idea of a noble
daughter, the details often reveal fascinating differences into how each group
conceptualised the role, as well as a insight into what exactly made the girl
a valuable asset.




I don't know etymology of princess but that of ひめ is that it's comprised of ひ
that stands for the sun, sunlight or spirits and め, which is a suffix to stand
for female (the male version is こ, hence ひこ). It had basically meant noble
women but you can find some words in the meaning of women in general like
一姫二太郎 etc.




I don't know etymology of princess but that of ひめ is that it's comprised of ひ
that stands for the sun, sunlight or spirits and め, which is a suffix to stand
for female (the male version is こ, hence ひこ). It had basically meant noble
women but you can find some words in the meaning of women in general like
一姫二太郎 etc.

