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 as i (stomach), ch (intestines), and kakuran (cholera) were first introduced, the Japanese translated them as: monohami (food container) for stomach; kuso bukuro (a bag for excrement) for intestines; and kuchi yori shiri yori koku yamai (a disease that breaks through mouth and bottom) for cholera. All these can be found in the Chinese-character dictionary of the Heian period (794–1160), Ruiju Mygish.7 The Japanese translations of these words, however, failed to gain popular usage. For one thing, people felt that medical expressions should be foreign and important-looking. But more than that, it was probably because Yamato words were long and cumbersome.
This reasoning can also be applied to the great number of Chinese character words coined as translations for European words in the Meiji period. For instance, some poets referred to tetsud (railroad) as kurogane no michi (a road of black iron) and denshin (telegram) as harigane dayori (communication through wire), each of which was quite a mouthful. In this respect, too, we are grateful for Chinese character words.
In the third place, the Chinese character word strongly influenced Japanese through its own characteristic sound system. Literary critic Kamei Katsuichir
Although the Yamato words are exceedingly elegant, they are too weak to express strong emotions like anger, distress, and jealousy. The Yamato words lack elements that express such accents, but a strong emphasis can be attained by using Chinese characterwords. Through the simplicity and strength of these words, we can express human emotions effectively.8
The Chinese character word has thus contributed to the development of the Japanese language. On the debit side, however, it has unfortunately encouraged the proliferation of homonyms and the creation of expressions that need to be seen in their written forms to be understood. Sweden’s Bernhard Karlgren, a Chinese linguist, talks about the strange fact that since homonyms abound in Chinese, sometimes one cannot make himself understood orally and must write out the words. This is all the more true with Japanese. The following exchange is not a mere creation by a novelist, but a typical example of what happens every day in the life of a Japanese:
Son: Father, to you a love affair is only a kind of shk (disgraceful conduct), isn’t it?
Father: Shk?
