I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know that in Japan, after Emperor Tenmu banned the eating of meat, certain animals were considered not to be meat. This did not include chickens, but it did include wild poultry. Also fish, eggs, probably others I’m not aware of/remembering.
I think this is related to why Japanese uses the same counter words for rabbits and birds. You can’t just say a number plus object in Japanese alone, because you need a counter word with it. So 2 bottles is “bottles 2 long things” and 4 pieces of paper is “paper 4 flat things”. Small animals are usually counted with the word “hiki”, so you’d say “salmon 5 hiki” or “dogs 2 hiki”, but birds use “wa” instead. I think rabbits are also wa so people could basically say “Uh, no we’re not eating meat, we’re just having some long eared furry birds.”
I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know that in Japan, after Emperor Tenmu banned the eating of meat, certain animals were considered not to be meat. This did not include chickens, but it did include wild poultry. Also fish, eggs, probably others I’m not aware of/remembering.
I think this is related to why Japanese uses the same counter words for rabbits and birds. You can’t just say a number plus object in Japanese alone, because you need a counter word with it. So 2 bottles is “bottles 2 long things” and 4 pieces of paper is “paper 4 flat things”. Small animals are usually counted with the word “hiki”, so you’d say “salmon 5 hiki” or “dogs 2 hiki”, but birds use “wa” instead. I think rabbits are also wa so people could basically say “Uh, no we’re not eating meat, we’re just having some long eared furry birds.”