Japanese Language. Haruhiko Kindaichi

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called kemmei mokuroku (item-name catalogue). The word kemmei is hard to understand. Kanda Hideo, director of Ueno Library, says he wants to change it to shudai-betsu mokuroku (catalogue classified by subjects). I agree with him—that would be easier to understand.

      The reason why character words are often hard to understand is that new words are formed by indiscriminately combining two one-character words. The word shk noted above is an example. Therefore, with the exception of words often used as prefixes and suffxes, we should avoid the creation of new words as much as possible. And even those which are used as prefixes and suffxes should be reduced. For example, the sound sho, as a prefix, stands for “many”

, “first” , and “the fact” . It is best to retain only the meaning “many” and stop using the other meanings. The word shoshin (one’s belief ) with the prefix sho can be replaced by shin-nen and similarly, we can replace the word shokan (one’s impression) with kans . Shotaimen (the first meeting) and shonanoka (the seventh day after a person’s death) could be read hatsu-taimen and hatsu-nanoka respectively. If this is done, one will immediately understand upon hearing sho . . . that it is a plural of something. Thus, it will be very convenient. Even in this case, we should try as much as possible to put the prefix sho on the character words already in existence. Among the character words in Japanese, we find a large number of words that require three or four kana for transcription. No wonder there are so many words of the same sound. The proposals I have stated here—(1) to stop making new words by combining single-character words, (2) to retain only a few prefix-like words, and to attach these only to the already existing unmistakable character words —will be helpful in overcoming the difficulty.

The influence of Japanese on foreign languages

      As stated above, the Japanese language has been greatly influenced by a foreign language, that is, Chinese. But the influence exerted on other languages by Japanese has been exceedingly slight—something rare in the language of a civilized country. H. G. Wells says: “. . . her secluded civilization has not contributed very largely to the general shaping of human destinies; she has received much, but she has given little.”¹² The Japanese language, too, though it has received many loanwords from all over the world, has made few contributions to other languages.

      According to Ichikawa Sanki, Japanese loanwords in European languages are “bonze,” “inro,” “fune,” “rickshaw,” “kimono,” “soy,” “bushido,” “harakiri,” “geisha,” “Korea” (from K

rai), “moxa,” “tenno,” “judo,” and others, which are mostly names of social structures peculiar to Japan or of things related to the unique arts and customs of Japan. “Kimonoed” means to be dressed in a kimono—thus, “kimono” can also be used as a verb. Perhaps these are the most common Japanese loanwords.

      During the U.S. occupation of Japan a great many Japanese words were picked up by the Americans. In the new-words section of the New Webster’s Dictionary, I note the addition of “nisei,” “kamikaze,” “zaibatsu,” and “geta.” They are all words related to Japanese culture.

      It is the language of our northern neighbor, Ainu, that has been influenced most by the Japanese language, followed by the languages of our western and southern neighbors, namely, the indigenous inhabitants of Taiwan, the Koreans, and the Chinese.

      Ainu essentially has strong verb inflection according to person. For example, different forms of verbs are used in the sentences “I catch a bear” and “He catches a bear.” Japanese verbs do not make such changes. Thus, when first speaking Ainu, the Japanese used Ainu forms for person so poorly that it is said that part of the Ainu verb inflection has been lost.¹³ Moreover it is said that Ainu is not only becoming Japanized but the entire language is perishing under the weight of Japanese. This is perhaps an example of the greatest influence Japanese has had on another language.

      Both Korean and the language of the indigenous peoples of Taiwan have borrowed many Japanese cultural terms. Ogura Shimpei has listed examples of Yamato loanwords in his book, Chsengo Hgen no Kenky (A Study of Korean Dialects).¹⁴

      As for the influence of Japanese on Chinese, an article by Kuraishi Takeshir

called “Japanese Words that Became Chinese”¹⁵ maintains that the largest number of Japanese loanwords pertain to economics (e.g., nakagainin [broker] and torihiki [transactions]). Next in number are words relating to law and lawsuits, such as bengoshi (lawyer) and mshitate (declaration; testimony). They reveal the nature of the historical relationship between China and Japan. Besides these words, Wang Yun-wu’s large dictionary gives the following as words introduced from Japanese: (the other party), (standpoint), (convenience), (speech), (letter), and (occasion). What must be noted, however, is that these words have not been adopted into Chinese with the Japanese pronunciation. The word nakagainin, for example, has become zhongmairen, and aite has become xiang-shou. That is to say, these Japanese-created Chinese character words are taken into Chinese but assigned Chinese pronunciation. Therefore, we must say that it is not the spoken Japanese language that they have adopted, but the written one.

      Thus, there is hardly any real introduction of Japanese into the Chinese language. A rare example appears in Kuo Mo-jo’s childhood reminiscences of how, during gymnastics in elementary school, the teacher commanded, Kiotsuke, migimuke migi! (Attention! Right turn!). This was a real adoption of Japanese. However, this practice existed for only a short period of time in a certain locality. Right after the Sino-Japanese War, China, in trying to become a modern state, invited constitutional scholars from Japan to help establish the first Chinese constitution. Sanet

Keish, a student of Chinese literature, says that among the technical terms used on this occasion were tetsuzuki (procedure) and torikeshi (cancellation), which were pronounced as Yamato words.¹⁶ Of this, too, nothing now remains. The influence of Japanese on Chinese was exceedingly slight.

       Footnotes

*Seventeen-syllable

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