Hi hi! Jess here!
Two crafting videos in a row this time! If you haven’t checked it out already, go watch our video in which I throw myself down an origami gauntlet — hope I don’t get any papercuts! I tried to fold origami patterns at increasing levels of difficulty, and was brutally judged by none other than Cameraman, as he attempted to identify what exactly I had made (or attempted to make). Spoilers for that video ahead, so go watch it, and see how high up the origami ladder I can climb!
Hopefully it’s sturdier than this.
As you’re likely aware, origami is the art of paper folding. The word has long been a part of the English language, having entered around the 1950s, and I’m sure many other Americans like myself grew up learning to fold origami cranes and balloons in elementary school. You might know that “origami” is a compound word, combining the words for “to fold” (oru) with “paper” (kami). But did you also know that the art was originally called other names like orikata, orisue, orimono, and tatamigami? The exact reason for “origami” becoming the commonly accepted nomenclature is unknown, but there are two pretty interesting theories for its adoption, and they both have to do with where I personally first learned origami — kindergarten! The first is that “origami” is simply easier for little ones to write.
“origami”, by Jess in crayon
The second theory is that along with the implementation of the Kindergarten system from Germany, the German word “Papierfalten” was directly translated into “origami”. At the end of the day, paper-folding is paper-folding, no matter which culture came to embrace it. Even techniques and foundations for patterns carried over from the art of napkin folding in Europe, which had been used to create complex designs to show one’s status at dinner (this was later replaced by porcelain, and the practice died out).
