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I'm translating a song as part of a project.
What is ki used for? Is it a prefix for kokyou?
Natsukashi ki kokyou

晴天の日の少々、感傷に浸る午後
懐かしき故郷 夢見な理想郷
忘れがちな嘘 あるまじきEmotion
企みし今生の消せぬ怨霊の炎

Chocolate
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Land Of Milk And Honey
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1 Answers1

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In late middle Japanese, the actual class of い-adjectives was in fact subdivided into 2 classes, namely ク-adjectives and シク-adjectives. There is remnant of those adjectives even now, though there are mainly to be found in novels or songs in order to add a touch of old.

Here, we have 懐かしき, it is the old 連体形 (the base you should use to modify a noun or clause) of 懐かしい which was a シク-adjective. So here basically, you can understand 懐かしき故郷 as 懐かしい故郷. They mean the same, but the variant with き is not in current use anymore, save for artistic purposes.

永劫回帰
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    Is it really true that the き variants are not in current use? I have seen them now and then in other places as well, for example the phrase 古き良き – Locksleyu May 13 '16 at 15:14
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    @Locksleyu You may find a lot of fixed expression with old grammar in use, yes. But it is not so productive anymore. For example, I stumbled on this today: "選ばれし美少女たち！アニメファンが選ぶ「もっとも魅力的だと思う魔法少女キャラ」TOP20!" you can see the 選ばれし (again old grammar in use, but it seems to be limited to a very restricted set of verbs now). That's the same for those old adjectives, they pop up from time to time but only a restricted set of adjectives are still used in their ancient form to add style. – 永劫回帰 May 13 '16 at 15:26
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    Yeah, 古き良き sounds like a fixed idiom to me. – naruto May 13 '16 at 16:08
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    Thanks guys. I have also seen 美しき now and then but I think that usage was specifically chosen to impart a 'classic' feel. – Locksleyu May 13 '16 at 17:37
  • @駑馬十駕 Wow, you have such a background in language ^^ – Land Of Milk And Honey May 13 '16 at 18:38
  • @LandOfMilkAndHoney, not so much ^^, if you stay hanging around on that website your background can only grow anyway. If you want to see old grammar in use, video games, novels, and all this kind of stories are really indicated. In particular, I feel that a lot of video games in pseudo-medieval settings like old-idioms very much. – 永劫回帰 May 14 '16 at 12:20