JAPANESE LANGUAGE INVADED

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 137, 26 June 1937, Page 11

JAPANESE LANGUAGE INVADED

Influence of the Films

jHE JAPANESE LANGUA.GE, epoken and written, is constantly being enlarged by the adaptation of foreign words. Oue or two thousand Buch words and phrases, usually unrecognisable in. their Japanese pronunciation, are in common. use. If one adds technical terms and words which are less frequently used ' it ds ' probable that a list of several thousand Japanese words of Western, mostly English origin. could be compiled. There are .several reasons- for this wholesale borrowing of foreign" eipressions. The Japanese language is lacking in equivalents for many contemporary politncal, economic and philosophieal terms, So that the simplest procedure has been to take over the. proper foreign word, of ten in abbreviated form and always with a new tfnd speeifically Japanese aeccnf and intonatioh. The wide popularity of cinema .films from Hollywood, and the numbers of Japanese who have relurned from a period of Tesidence in Califomia and Hawaii have helped to spread the use of Amorican words, including American slang. "O.K." for instance, is part of the everyday voeabulary- of the Japanese taxi-cab driver. Western teehnical, scientdfic and engineering phrases natnrally had no place in the voeabulary of pre-Meiji Japan, and have been taken over wholesale. Foreign words have been part of the general invaeion of Japan by foreign ideas, foods, clothes. and customs. It is noteworthy that with words, as with more material inventions, the Japanese are "seldom satisfied .with mere invention. The new words are ofteb' clipped to the first syfiable, and are so changed in pronuseiation that few Japanese realise they ara foreign. And the thousands of foreign terms which have made their way into Japanese conversational use do not make the Japanese language appreciably .easier to learn. •" A good familiar specimen of a foreign expression in Japanese use is the cry "Orai," whieh is the recognised signal from the uniformed girl eonduc- ,

tor on a Tokio bus to the driver to proceed. "Orad" is derived from "All right." It is not infrequently modified still further ihto "Kice" or "Ice." ? On the eve. of the last American Preeidential election a Japanese newspaper ptlblished pictures of the candidates, captioned, respectively "Mr. Ku" and "Mr. Ra." Mr. Ku could, with a little difficulty, be idenfified as Prosidenf Koosevelt. Mr. Ka could, with still more .thought, be recognised as Mr. Landon, the Japanese recognising no difference between the pronunciation of "r" and " 1 " and frequently confusdng the two eonaonants in speech and writing in foreign langqages. .A "moho" in Japan is a modorn boy, a "moga" a modern girl; here new human types are represented by abbreviations. A department store is a "departo," an apartment house an "aparto"; "ero" stands for erotic: a "pamfu" is a pamphlet; "ajito" is agitaticn; a "dema" is a demagogue, and so cn ad infinitum. Some naturalised > expressions are so complicated that they . might inspire a learned essay on etymology. Such a one is "ideorohiuie," derived from the conibination of "ideology " and "kime." meaning princess. This : signifies a woman who is disposed to argument — not ' a desirable type according to the traditional Japanese conception of ethics. Often the sound relationships , bqtween the original word and its Japanese equivalent is very remc^e. So a carpenter sometimete speaksi.of a ' ' hensu" (fence) and a tailor may refer to "hahtsu," meaning pants. The "Who 's Who" section of a Year Bcolr is called the "Fuzfu." A foreigner would not win the least comprehension if he should pronounce these imported words in their natural and proper original way. .A request for tea with lemon in a Japanese teahouse would elieit onlv blank ineomprehension, unless some understanding Japanese came to the Teseue and told th!e. puzzled waitress that what was desired was "remon," heavily accented on the second syllable.