are very few people in Japan who speak any language besides Japanese, perhaps one in ten or twenty thousand. This does not necessarily apply only to Japan. There must be exceedingly few people in the world who can speak Japanese in addition to other languages. They are chiefly those who live in Korea, Taiwan, Brazil, and Hawaii. In Japan, a person like Hattori Shir
In brief, Japanese occupies a clearly defined linguistic region, and within that sphere functions in good order—a characteristic that should not be overlooked.
“Degeneration” of the language
Since Japanese functions with hardly any contact with other languages, one would expect it to possess special characteristics. Theoretically, one would suppose Japanese to receive little influence from and assert little influence on other languages. At present, many so-called intellectuals and cultured people take every opportunity to complain that Japanese has degenerated. They worry as if the Japanese people would perish unless urgent measures were taken. But their fears are, as they were from the start, quite unnecessary, for Japanese is not so easily influenced. Actually, a careful look reveals more instances of firmness than frailty.
For example, the word “Christmas” was introduced from English. The Japanese write it kurisumasu in katakana and use it that way. There are people who say that kurisumasu is a foreign word, but those very people pronounce it ku-ri-su-ma-su, inserting three u’s which are not in the English word at all. Far from speaking English, they are pronouncing a word changed to conform to Japanese standards of pronunciation. The power of assimilation exhibited here is astonishing. Linguist Shibata Takeshi hopes that Japanese will eventually change its sound system under the increased influence of Western words,1 but his expectation seems unlikely to be realized.
According to American linguist Mario Pei, the natives of Hawaii cannot pronounce the sound s or the consonants by themselves without attaching vowels to them. So when they want to say, “Christmas in December,” they say kekemapa kalikimaka.2 It is surprising to learn that kekemapa is an imitation of “December,” and kalikimaka of “Christmas.” However, an American would likely find little difference between the Japanese kurisumasu with three u’s and the Hawaiian kalikimaka.
Before the war, when there were a great many Japanese in Manchuria, it is said that when a wife of a Japanese offcial wanted to buy some vegetables from a Chinese grocer, she would say something like the following:
Nde tfu to iiyande shsh katai katai, meiy? Don’t you have the thing that looks like tfu (bean-curd) but is a little harder? (She is asking for konnyaku, a starchy, jelly food.
(Nde, iiyande, meiy are Japanized Chinese words.)
Nde chaga daikon naka tonneru yde. Pshin. This radish is hard and fibrous and not good, so make it cheaper. (Nde, chaga, yde, pshin are Japanized Chinese.)3
If people carried on conversations like this one everywhere in Japan, both the Japanese and Chinese languages would go to ruin. Or if all the Japanese were like the Japanese in Hawaii, most of whom are able to use both Japanese and English, Japanese would surely be greatly influenced by English. But actually Japanese is not. In fact we can say that most languages of the world other than Japanese are in a far more unstable condition.
Ogata Tomio articulated the following point in a round-table discussion, and I think it is worth heeding.
The disorderly state of languages is common all over the world. The United States is very much concerned about it, saying it enviesEngland. But the English, too, say their language is in disorder. It’s really a common problem everywhere.4
The Japanese language is said to be in disorder, but unlike many languages this state of disorderliness came from within. This problem will be discussed in the next chapter.
Influence from foreign languages
The Japanese language has had little contact with other languages because the people did not move after they had migrated to the Japanese islands and, until the last war, had not been invaded by other peoples. Consequently, it is quite natural that Japanese was not influenced by other languages. It should be noted that only in its contact with Chinese did Japanese receive a great influence — especially on its vocabulary. However, it should be kept in mind that this direct influence from Chinese occurred hundreds of years ago, and that there has been no such influence since.
We can divide the Japanese vocabulary which we use today into Yamato words; jiongo or Chinese character words; Western words; and the compounds of and words transformed from these words. Western words have been introduced chiefly from Europe since the 17th century and are commonly written in katakana. Chinese character words are those introduced directly or indirectly from China since the introduction of Chinese culture in ancient times, or are words contrived in Japan through imitation. Chinese character words are commonly written in kanji (Chinese characters). Yamato words are either words that existed before other word-types had entered Japan, or else words subsequently based on them. Chinese character words represent sixty to seventy percent of the total vocabulary, according to the Dainihon Kokugo Jiten (The Large Japanese Dictionary).5 Hayashi
In this respect Japanese contrasts with Chinese, German, and French, which have few words of foreign origin. The following languages are said to be rich in words of foreign origin: English (from French and other languages), Korean (from Chinese), Vietnamese (Chinese), Thai (Indian), Persian (Arabian), and Turkish (Arabian and Iranian).
Why did Japanese adopt many foreign words? Umegaki Minoru, an authority on words of foreign origin, gives the following reasons:
| (1) | There was a propensity in the Japanese character to adopt foreign culture. |
| (2) | The Japanese language has qualities that facilitate adopting foreign words. For example, the lack of inflection in nouns. |
| (3) | When Japan adopted Chinese characters (for Japan did not possess its own writing system), Chinese terms naturally entered the language. |
| (4) | As foreign culture was more advanced than Japanese culture, the people felt loan words superior to indigenous terms. |
Chinese character words—merits and demerits
At any rate, Japanese was greatly influenced by Chinese in the past. As a result, a large number of Chinese character words and similar character words coined in Japan have entered the vocabulary. This phenomenon parallels the pervasive influence of ancient Chinese culture on the lives of the Japanese.
In what ways did Japanese change with the introduction of Chinese vocabulary?
In the first place, it became possible to express abstract ideas which had been hitherto inexpressible. “Loyalty
In the second place, expressions which had once necessitated many Yamato words became short and crisp. For example, before the introduction of Chinese character words, the Japanese expression for eleven was towo amari fitotu (one more than ten) and for twelve it was towo amari futatu (two more than ten). These became jichi and jni.
When such words