وام واژه ها درزبان ژاپني

Loan-Words in Japanese

The Japanese language is full of loan-words, perhaps more so than in any other language. Professor Rajabzade tells us that the number of these imported words, which deal mostly with some aspect of modernism or Western lifestyle, reached 30,000 in the 1980ʹs. Most of these, called gairaigo in Japanese, are originally English, but they have been adapted to the Japanese phonology. For instance radio has become rajio and automation has been transformed into otomeshon. One can also find in Japanese loan-words from other European languages and also from the Middle East. Pirafu (from the English pilaff, which is itself a corruption of the Persian polow) and kiyosuku (from kiosk in English and ultimately from kushk in Persian) are two such words. In this paper, the author examines the question of loan-words in Japanese in depth and at length, and starts off with a historical account of how Japan borrowed Chinese ideograms in the 3rd century to produce a writing system of its own (which has become known as kanji) and how later two phonetic alphabets (hiragana and katakana) were developed to record,the pronunciation of foreign words. With the arrival of the first European traders and Christian missionaries in Japan in the middle of the 16th century, a few European words found their way into Japanese, but this trickle became a torrent after the Meiji Restoration in 1868, when Japan decided to modernize its society and catch up with the West. Many of the first loan-words were for things which had not existed in Japan previously, but the author finds that some Japanese citizens are now using foreign loan-words for objects or practices which already have a Japanese name, for example kisu (= to kiss) in place of the Japanese seppun. This is not only a linguistic phenomenon but also a sociological one, and cannot be explained on purely linguistic grounds. According to the author these users of foreign terms may be trying to impress their listeners with their modern attitude and worldliness. Much debate is currently going on in Japan about the question of loan-words and the difficulties of the Japanese script, and the author believes that the question is far from settled and in the meanwhile, fresh borrowings of foreign words into Japanese will continue.