Language Police

The National Institute for Japanese Language is seeking to eliminate the use of 32 English words or phrases that have become a standard part of the daily Japanese language.

In its third meeting on alternative words, the institute brought its list of purged English to 141, with future meetings still in store.

"We plan to create a booklet listing all the words we have produced in our three meetings so far and hand this out to municipal governments across the country," a spokesman for the institute said.

The MDN points out that some Japanese are getting a little piqued at the influx of English words into the Japanese language. But that's like Americans insisting that all some varieties of foreign cuisine be restricted. Japan is awash in a sea of foreign terms. How many times have I struggled to teach my students a difficult vocabulary word, only to try turning it into katakanese--"GA-RA-N-CHI"
and realize that they are quite familiar with it. Then you teach them the spelling: "guarantee." (That, by the way, is an example of a foreign loan word passed from France to English, proof that's what good for the goose is good for the gander.) Language is like the free market. People adopt what they want, what is useful. Just as you can't change the ultimate value of something by sticking an artificial price on it, you can't dam the flow of language.

There are thick, fat dictionaries of gairago, "from outside words," in every bookstore. I believe that these words have become as Japanese as '(head) honcho" or "typhoon," originally Japanese, have become English. Most Japanese use them liberally and unselfconsciously, and I suspect that those who oppose them are a tiny, uptight, minority. Just as long as they don't get their own soundtrucks and blast their slogans on city-streetcorners, like other tiny, uptight minorities in Japan (virulent, return-Japan-to-Imperial-rule-and-restore-the-glory-of-the-military ultra right wingers for you non-Japanese residents).

Then again, I can sympathize with those who think there are just too many English words in Japanese. There are many words that there must be Japanese equivalents for, but are almost always rendered in English. Some of these are not flattering to foreigners. For example, some Japanese refer to RE-PU (pronounced ray-pu) and seem at a loss for a native term. Is this a suggestion that the act itself is a foreign imposition? That the Japanese were ignorant of the possibility of the occurence until hairy barbarians began raping the delicate womanhood of Yamato? Or is it that the depiction of the act as a crime against women with rights equivalent to men make more mechanical (tsukkomi--'penetration') or vague (onna o okasu--'forcing women') terms impractical.

I think that the Japanese, adapters par excellence (oops, there I go again with loan-words) will avoid working themselves into a lather like the French have. Actually, the Japanese tried this once before during the war years (even baseball, besu-boru, was rendered into the clumsy but persistent yakyu), which is another reason why attempts to strong-arm language use is impractical. It brings up unpleasant memories of a past that most Japanese would like to remember in only the most selective terms. So if you visit Japan, and are searching for the right word, you might get lucky if you do what the M*A*S*H* character Frank Burns suggested: just speak really slowly, with a Japanese (rather than Korean) accent. Between the fact that all Japanese have several years of English under their belts and the ubiquity of English loan words, you may very well connect.

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[jodi]

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Uninspired

OK So I'm a little tired and kind of lazy tonight thus the uninspiring blogging. (Sorry!) But to make it up to you all, I do suggest you check out The Tanuki Ramble which has some interesting posts up today. I promise I will return tomorrow with more inspiring commentary! (Thank you in advance for your forgiveness!)