Why does Japanese have so many loan words? (外来語, “gairaigo”)

Anyone who has studied Japanese knows that the language contains loanwords called 外来語 (“gairaigo”), which words ‘borrowed’ from another language and imported into Japanese. As part of this transition, the works take on a new spelling and pronunciation, which can be a shortened version or one containing syllables from multiple words. The meaning itself can change, sometimes dramatically.

To give a simple example, “サーバ” (saaba), derived from english “server”, is used to mean a computer-related server. However, I’ve never seen it used to refer to the “server” in a restaurant.

In this post, rather than focus on these words themselves (you can see this page for many more examples), I’d like to focus on the fact there are very many of them in modern Japanese, and they are increasing at great speed. These days it is not uncommon to come across two, three, or move gairaigo used in a single sentence.

This is something that has caught my interest for quite some time, especially because a large percentage of the words are from my native English. I had a few theories about why, so I decided to post a question on Oshiete Goo in Japanese and see what sort of response I would get.

I received only two answers, but both were quite thought provoking. I’ve decided to the entire second response (first listed on the page) in English here, written by someone with the username “phj”. I’m not sure of his/her background, but it’s written quite eloquently. Besides being a good opportunity to practice my translation skills, I hope this gives many of my readers an opportunity to see what a Japanese person feels about gairaigo and their relation to Japan and Japanese culture. There are many different perspectives on this topic, and I don’t expect phi’s comments to be authoritative, but they are informative nonetheless.

For the translation, I’ll quote the original Japanese and translate line-by-line, for those interested in comparing.

 

そもそも日本語は「常にリフレッシュされる外来語を取り入れるのに便利なようにした」言語であると言っても過言ではありません。

I feel that it’s no exaggeration to say that Japanese has always been a language which has actively tried to facilitate the process of importing words from other languages which are constantly evolving.

助詞を利用した文法構成のゆるさ、カタカナ・ひらがなの書き分けによる外来語の峻別、漢字の読みの多様性、などで、漢字を受容したときから大和言葉と統合できるように言葉を進化させてきたのが、日本語であるといえます。

It can be said that since the introduction of Kanji from Chinese, Japanese has evolved itself in many ways in order to integrate foreign words into traditional Japanese: the flexibility of a grammar utilizing particles, diversity in Kanji readings, and a strict distinction of loanwords via hiragana and katakana alphabets.

しかし、それだけでは外来語が増えるわけではありません。外来語がなぜ増えるか。それは日本人が「新しい知識・概念・思想」として外国のものを自分に常に取り入れているからです。

But that alone isn’t sufficient to create new loanwords. What is the other reason? It’s the Japanese people’s commitment to importing things from other countries: new concepts, ideas, and knowledge.

日本人は「思想は外国からやってくる」ものだとおもっており、儒教思想・仏教思想・西洋思想、アメリカ思想などを効率よく学ぶために、外来語を常にとりいれているのです。

They believe that “new ideas come from outside Japan”, and consciously import terms from other languages in order to efficiently learn things like Confucianism, Buddhism, and Western (especially American) ideologies.

たとえば「サスティナビリティ」という言葉が最近流行っています。日本語にすると「持続可能性」となります。

For example, the loanword word “sustainability” has become popular recently. This word corresponds to the Japanese phrase ”持続可能性”.

これは地球温暖化の問題の本質が「人類の生活がこのままどこまで持続可能か？」というところから、引用されるようになった言葉であり、日本でサスティナビリティといえば、原則的「温暖化に関する持続可能性」に特化されています。

This term became quoted in the context of the problem of global warming, in the vein of “How long can humanity sustain our current lifestyles?”, and so it has taken on the nuance of meaning “sustainability related to global warming” rather than sustainability in a general sense.

このような表現を常に外国語から借りてきて、その時代に合うように利用するのが日本語だといえます。

By frequently borrowing expressions like this from other languages, Japanese is able to stay modern and keep up with the times.

日本人は「思想」がだいすきです。しかもその思想持ってきて切れるのは外国だと思っています。今は欧米の思想が一番有利だからみんな西洋風の言葉を利用して、カタカナでその思想らしきものも利用しようとするのです。

I feel that the Japanese people love ideas, and foreign countries bring new ideas to them. At present, the most advantageous ideas are those from the West, so we all try and use Western words and express Western-type ideas by using katakana.

 

Translation notes:

1) I’ve made an attempt to make a natural-sounding translation, while keeping mostly to the literal meaning of the original text.

2) Besides the explicit example of ‘sustainability’, the only usages of loanwords in phi’s post are for アメリカ (America) and リフレッシュ (refresh), the latter used as a verb in the first sentence to describe how foreign languages are constantly changing.

3) The second to last sentence has the phrase “持ってきて切れる” which is very likely a typo with the intention of “持ってきてくれる”, and I have assumed this in making the translation.

 

References

https://oshiete.goo.ne.jp/qa/8909665.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gairaigo_and_wasei-eigo_terms