How to Read “A bat is also a bird”
Kōmori mo tori no uchi
Meaning of “A bat is also a bird”
“A bat is also a bird” is a proverb about the difficulty of classifying things that exist on boundary lines. Bats are similar to birds because they fly through the air. But strictly speaking, they are not birds.
Still, they can be treated as “part of the bird category.” This shows how hard it is to decide where to place things that don’t fully meet the requirements but share some common features.
People use this proverb when they face situations involving classification or judgment. When you encounter an unclear case that can’t be clearly defined, you can say “Well, a bat is also a bird.”
This shows flexible judgment or generous treatment. It expresses a practical way of thinking. Even if something doesn’t fit perfectly, you can treat it as part of the same group when you look at it broadly.
Even in modern society, we often struggle with decisions between strict definitions and practical application. The wisdom of flexibility shown in this proverb remains relevant today.
Origin and Etymology
No clear written records explain the origin of this proverb. However, the structure of the phrase reveals an interesting background.
Bats have puzzled people since ancient times. They have wings and fly through the air like birds. Yet they have no feathers and give birth to live young as mammals do.
Modern biology clearly classifies them as mammals. But before scientific classification was established, people must have wondered how to treat bats.
Aesop’s Fables includes a story where a bat moves between two camps during a war between birds and beasts. Similar recognition existed in the East. In Japan too, bats were seen as ambiguous creatures, “both bird and beast.”
This proverb builds on these characteristics of bats. It shows a flexible approach to classification: “If we include it as a bird, we can.” How do we handle things that can’t be clearly defined?
Even if something doesn’t fit perfectly, we can treat it as part of a group if it shares enough common features. This expression contains the practical wisdom of Japanese people.
Dealing with things on boundary lines has always been a troubling problem.
Interesting Facts
In Japan, bats are called “kōmori.” The Chinese characters “蝙蝠” came from China. In Chinese, the pronunciation of bat sounds similar to “fortune.”
Because of this, bats are considered lucky creatures in Chinese culture. In Japan, however, their nocturnal habits and cave-dwelling lifestyle sometimes give them a slightly eerie image.
Biologically, bats are the only mammals with the ability to fly. Bird wings are covered with feathers. Bat wings have a membrane structure with elongated finger bones.
This unique body structure has continued to give people the classification puzzle: “Are they birds or beasts?”
Usage Examples
- The new project doesn’t fit perfectly into existing genres, but a bat is also a bird, so we can treat it as educational content
- His specialty is the boundary area between economics and psychology, but a bat is also a bird, and he’s recognized as a social science researcher
Universal Wisdom
The proverb “A bat is also a bird” reveals wisdom about the essential ambiguity of classifications and boundaries that humans create. We constantly divide things to understand them: “This goes here, that goes there.”
But the real world is not as simple as the clear lines we draw.
This proverb has been passed down for so long because people knew from experience that perfect classification doesn’t exist. Like bats, many things belong to both categories while fitting neither completely.
They exist in nature and human society alike. New technology, new culture, new ways of living. As time progresses, things that don’t fit existing frameworks keep increasing.
At such times, do we exclude them by insisting on strictness, or do we accept them flexibly? This proverb points to the latter path.
Even if something doesn’t fit completely, we treat it as part of the group if it shares some common features. That tolerance is the wisdom that accepts diversity and enriches society.
The flexibility to accept things on boundary lines without excluding them, saying “Well, such things exist too.” This is not mere compromise. It’s a mature attitude that acknowledges the complexity of the world.
When AI Hears This
The decision to classify bats as birds actually touches on the essence of the human brain’s classification system. Cognitive science shows that we judge things not by perfect definitions but by “distance from typical examples.”
In other words, we have typical bird images like sparrows and pigeons. Bats share the important feature of “flying through the air.” So we just put them in the bird category for now.
What’s interesting is that modern image recognition AI has exactly the same problem. Machine learning classifies objects using a concept called “feature space.” This is just a numerical representation of similarity to typical examples.
For example, an AI seeing a penguin for the first time might classify it as a fish based on its swimming behavior. This is structurally the same mistake as humans considering bats to be birds.
What’s even more fascinating is that this proverb includes the tolerance of “that’s okay anyway.” Even though bats are mammals biologically, treating them as birds works fine practically.
This is exactly the “trade-off between accuracy and practicality” in machine learning. Perfect classification costs too much computing power. So AI also compromises with “good enough is okay.”
Ancient people put into words the wisdom of prioritizing convenience over strictness, based on experience.
Lessons for Today
This proverb teaches us the importance of flexibility without obsessing over perfect classification or definition. In work and relationships, being too bound by fixed ideas like “This should be this way” prevents us from accepting new or slightly different things.
Especially in modern society, new values, lifestyles, and work styles that don’t fit existing categories keep emerging. At such times, we shouldn’t exclude them saying “Strictly speaking, they’re different, so we can’t accept them.”
Instead, we need the spirit of “A bat is also a bird” to accept them flexibly.
When you’re in a position to judge something, you may meet people or things that don’t fully meet the conditions but share essential commonalities. Remember this proverb at such times.
Strictness is important, but sometimes generosity opens new possibilities. The tolerance to accept diversity without excluding things on boundary lines is the first step toward creating a rich society.
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