Jishin

In the last post, which was about two minutes ago for me, I alluded to the earthquakes here, but I didn't mention that there was one this morning because that post was already too long. So, yeah, there was a strength 3 earthquake in Chiba prefecture (the little part that sticks out next to Tokyo) this morning, according to the news. I'm not sure if that is the Richter scale, or a Japanese system of measuring them, but I'm pretty sure it is very weak because there was one in Tokyo of the same strength when I was there and I didn't even feel it.
The Japanese word for earthquake is jishin, literally "earth quake." I actually know the Chinese characters for that one, which is kind of neat, but not too hard with all the earthquake safety literature floating around. Anyway, Japanese is full of homophones, or whatever they are called. I think this is a result of the limited syllabary and that so many words are borrowed from Chinese, where tones make a huge difference, but don't get brought over with the words. Here are some other words that are also pronounced jishin:

by oneself
self-confidence
(magnetic) core
benevolence, mercy
courtier, attendant
hour hand (watch or clock)
magnetic needle

Keep in mind that these all use different Chinese characters for ji and shin, but it is still weird.