In Japanese, yankii-zuwari ヤンキー座り, meaning literally "yankee sitting," translated to "delinquent squat," because yankii ヤンキー means "delinquent," and also known in English as the "slav squat," refers to a way to sit on the floor: by squatting with your knees apart.
It's also romanized yankee-zuwari.
Manga: Rokudenashi Blues, ろくでなしBLUES (Volume 25, Chapter 仏の顔も･･･)
Definition
Literally, yankii-zuwari means "yankee sitting," as in the act of sitting like a yankee.
The term "yankee," katakanized yankii ヤンキー, refers to someone from the U.S.A. An American. However, in Japan it's synonymous with "delinquent," furyou 不良.
The reason for this is that, after the World War II, delinquents started copying the style of American soldiers, like wearing loose pants, pompadour, and dying their hair blond. This style was called "yankee."
Anime: Kyou kara Ore wa!! 今日から俺は！！ (Episode 1)
Presumably, these "Japanese yankee" squatted on the floor to talk a lot, to the point the term yankii-zuwari started referring to this squat.
In English, around the internet, people call this a "slav squat" due to countless memes about slavs squatting like this to talk, just like Japanese delinquents, and sometimes you may hear something like a true slave squats with their heels on the floor or something like that.
Japan isn't a slavic country, and yankees aren't slavs, so clearly that has nothing to do with this article.
Right: Hokuto Takeshi 北斗武士
Middle: uh... what was his name again... I forgot. Hokuto's henchman.
Left: Kamiyama Takashi 神山高志
Leftmost: Maeda Akira 前田彰
Anime: Sakigake!! Cromartie Koukou, 魁！！クロマティ高校 (Episode 16, Stitch)
- Context: delinquents sitting in yankii-zuwari, while Kamiyama, who isn't a delinquent, sits in taiiku-zuwari 体育座り.
Typically you'll see delinquents squatting in anime while chatting in some hidden part of school while smoking and plotting to fight other schools, etc., or, perhaps, when members of a biker gang (bousouzoku 暴走族) make their entrance.
- Context: high school delinquents drinking and smoking in spite of being in high school.
Anime: Saiki Kusuo no Psi-Nan, 斉木楠雄のΨ難 (Episode 17)
- Context: baseball bats are a preferred weapon of delinquents.
Anime: Gabriel DropOut, ガヴリールドロップアウト (Episode 7, Stitch)
- Context: a sukeban スケバン (type of female delinquent) posing in front of her bike.
- A female biker gang is also called a "ladies," redhiisu レディース.
Since the squat is associated with delinquents, sometimes a character doing it just hints they're a mean-looking delinquent sort of character.
Anime: Hisone to Maso-tan ひそねとまそたん (Episode 1)
Disambiguation
The yankii-zuwari is sometimes also called:
- unko-zuwari
うんこ座り
"Poop sitting." Poop squat, in the sense of squatting to defecate.
However, yankii-zuwari typically refers to squatting with knees apart, while unko-zuwari could include any squatting in general.
Anime: SSSS.DYNAZENON (Episode 2)
- Context: this is NOT how a delinquent squats.
Also not to be confused with:
Anime: Hinomaru-zumou 火ノ丸相撲 (Episode 1)
- sonkyo
蹲踞
Squat used in sumō 相撲 wrestling, with heels not touching the floor, and thighs horizontal.
Anime: Hisone to Maso-tan ひそねとまそたん (Episode 5)
- emu-ji-kaikyaku
Ｍ字開脚
Opening your legs like the letter M.
Anime: Zombieland Saga: Revenge (Episode 7)
Historically, squatting on the floor was a reverence called dogeza 土下座. Nowadays this term refers to a different gesture, however.
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