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Englanese: English Loanwords and the Japanese Language
| Article
# : |
14998 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
9 / 1988 |
4,947 Words |
| Author
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James Stanlaw
James Stanlaw is assistant professor of anthropology at
Illinois State University. |
His demeanor and his Sony company pin indicated he was an executive who commanded attention when he spoke. I was listening to him, too, albeit from a distance--two seats away on the Green Coach, a bullet train heading for Kyoto. "We import too many of them from the Americans," he declared authoritatively, eliciting nods of agreement from a pair of traveling companions. "If you want to know my opinion, that is what I think." "And we seem helpless to stop this invasion," added the man seated across from him. "We're at their mercy." Puzzled, I wondered just what his product was. Where did the Untied States still hold such a leading edge that these veteran Sony bureaucrats could become so demoralized? I felt mixed emotions (I didn't know whether to feel pride or shame) when I discovered they were lamenting the number of English loanwords heard everyday in the modern Japanese language.
There is certainly a large linguistic trade deficit between the two countries, and if words were currency, one wonders how Japan would stay solvent. While Americans have imported Japanese products in record quantities, most American consumers know few words of Japanese save for sayonara, karate, and the usually mutilated geisha, sumo, or sukiyaki. And while it is true Americans have added sushi and sashimi to the linguistic diet, most Americans' knowledge of Japanese barely goes beyond trying to pronounce the name of the manufacturer of their latest camera, VCR, or stereo.
In Japan, on the other hand, the number of words that have been taken in from English is extensive. The presence of some of these is not surprising: terebi for television, tobako (tobacco) for cigarettes, and the myriad of baseball terms (e.g. homu ran for home run or sutoraiku for
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