24.1739, Review: Historical Linguistics; Morphology; Phonology; Japanese: Irwin (2011)

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Subject: 24.1739, Review: Historical Linguistics; Morphology; Phonology; Japanese: Irwin (2011)

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Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2013 22:18:49
From: Hiroshi Matsumoto [hmatsumoto at soka.edu]
Subject: Loanwords in Japanese

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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/22/22-2846.html

AUTHOR: Mark  Irwin
TITLE: Loanwords in Japanese
SERIES TITLE: Studies in Language Companion Series 125
PUBLISHER: John Benjamins
YEAR: 2011

REVIEWER: Hiroshi Matsumoto, Soka University

SUMMARY

This monograph aims to present a comprehensive and thoroughly descriptive
analysis of loanwords in the Japanese language.  The author examines Japanese
loanwords from various angles encompassing history/historical linguistics,
phonology, morphology, semantics, and orthography.  The volume sheds light on
Japanese people’s attitudes toward loanwords as well.

Chapter 1, “Introduction,” lays out this volume’s theoretical underpinnings.
Academically, the book pertains to the research area of “lexical borrowing.”
The area of lexical borrowing belongs to the larger umbrella of “language
contact.”  After this introductory information, the author explains the five
vocabulary strata in Japanese -- (i) native, (ii) mimetic, (iii)
Sino-Japanese, (iv) foreign, and (v) hybrid -- and examines the definition of
the foreign stratum, which is also called “gairaigo.”  The author defines
“gairaigo” as “a foreign word which has undergone adaptation to Japanese
phonology, has been borrowed into Japanese after the mid-16th century and
whose meaning is, or has been, intelligible to the general speech community”
(p. 10).  The author clarifies the difference between “gairaigo” and
“gaikokugo,” as the latter is a foreign word which has not yet undergone
adaptation or whose meaning is still unintelligible to the general speech
community. This chapter also shows the academic significance of the volume by
providing the proportions of various lexical strata in Japanese over the past
century.  According to surveys examining the vocabulary used in various media
(e.g. magazines, newspapers, school textbooks, pop song lyrics, and spoken
words), the proportion of gairaigo vocabulary has risen consistently across
most media since the first survey providing token data was conducted in 1906.

Chapter 2, “A history of Japanese loanwords,” examines the foreign stratum in
Japanese from a historical point of view. According to his definition of
“gairaigo,” the author shows three major phases of Japanese loanword history
taking place “after the mid-16th century” (p. 23). The first phase deals with
the Iberian (i.e. Portuguese and Spanish) borrowings taking place from the
mid-16th to the mid 17th century. The widely comprehended loanwords from
Portuguese include both religious and secular terminology, such as “kirišito”
(now “kirisuto” for Christ), “paN” (for bread), “karuta” (for traditional
playing cards), “kaQpa” (for raincoat), “teNpura'' (for deep-fried seafood or
vegetables), “igirisu” (for England/UK), “oraNda” (for Holland), and
“porutogaru” (for Portugal). The second phase refers to the Dutch borrowings
from the mid-17th to the mid-19th century. During this 220-year period, the
Dutch were the only Europeans permitted to trade/have contact with Japan
because of the Edo shogunate’s isolation policy. The chapter shows a
comprehensive list of gairaigo examples from Dutch, such as “reNzu” (for
lens), “karuki” (for bleaching powder), “korera” (for cholera), “mesu” (for
scalpel), “biiru” (for beer), “gomu” (for rubber) “raNdoseru” (for
backpack/satchel), and “sukoQpu” (for shovel/scoop). Dutch borrowings occurred
mainly in two areas of vocabulary: medical/scientific and mercantile. The
third phase is the Western borrowings occurring from the mid-19th century to
present day. Propelled by the Meiji Restoration and following rapid
westernization policies, many loanwords flooded the Japanese language. Main
donor languages were initially those of the pre-World War I European Great
Powers that the Meiji government modeled its national institutions after:
Germany, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom. By the turn of the 20th
century, however, English inexorably became, by far, the most powerful donor
language due to the rise of American economic and political power. Again, this
chapter shows a comprehensive list of gairaigo vocabulary from each donor
language: from Russian, “uoQka” (for vodka), “ikura” (for salmon roe, although
the original Russian word refers to fish roe in general), and “noruma” (for
quota or allotted task); from French, “meetoru” (for metre), “zoboN” (for
trousers), “saboru” (for skip/miss a class or work), “bifuteki” (for steak),
“omurecu” (for omelette), “piimaN” (for green pepper), “jaNru” (for genre),
“ečikeQto” (for etiquette), and “aNkeeto” (for questionnaire); from German,
“arubaito” (for part-time job), “arerugii” (for allergy), “karute” (for
doctor’s card/note), “uirusu” (for virus), “reNtogeN” (for x-ray), and
“ryuQkusaQku (for rucksack/backpack); from English (the list shows the twenty
most frequent gairaigo due to its enormous number), “taipu” (for type),
“saizu” (for size), “šisutemu” (for system), and “biru” (for building).
Chapter 2 concludes by succinctly showing East Asian borrowings from the
mid-16th century, such as those from Chinese, Korean, and Ainu languages.

Chapter 3, “Phonology,” provides an extensive and purely descriptive account
of Japanese loanword phonology. First, the author shows both traditional and
contemporary phonemic systems in standard Japanese. Based on his definition of
“gairaigo” as having “undergone adaptation to Japanese phonology” (p. 10), the
author outlines gairaigo phonological adaptation processes in Japanese while
presuming the foreign word sources to be mainly orthographic rather than
auditory. The Japanese archipelago has no land borders with other countries,
and therefore, historically, borrowing in Japan has occurred mainly without
much direct auditory contact. More specifically, this chapter describes
gairaigo phonological adaptation processes by dividing them into two major
strategies: (i) phonetic substitution (i.e. a speaker replaces a sound in a
donor language with one in her/his native language); and (ii) epenthesis (i.e.
a speaker inserts additional phonemes).  Examples of (i) include: /f/ --> /h/
(Dutch “koffie” becomes “koohii”), /v/ --> /b/ (English “veteran” becomes
“beteraN”), /θ/ --> /s/ (English “marathon” becomes “marasoN”), and /ð/ -->
/z/ (English “leather” becomes “rezaa”). As for (ii), both vowel epenthesis
and mora obstruent epenthesis examples are shown. Then, a third and rather
minor strategy occurring in gairaigo adaptation is added: (iii) deletion,
which takes place in auditory sources. Furthermore, suprasegmental issues,
such as pitch accents, are examined.  Finally, mora-clipping processes are
depicted, while dividing them into: (a) back-clipping (i.e. “čokoreeto” -->
“čoko”), (b) fore-clipping (i.e. “puraQtohoomu” --> “hoomu”), and (c)
mid-clipping (i.e. “eNtaateemeNto” --> “eNtame”).

In Chapter 4, “Morphology, morphophonology and semantics,” the author deals
with three areas of Japanese loanword studies. As for the areas of (a)
morphology and (b) morphophonology, Irwin examines elements related to the
structure of various loanwords, such as (1) morphemes, (2) morphological
reduction, and (3) compound phenomena.  Regarding (1), morphemes, more
specifically, this chapter deals with such topics as: (1-i) a part of speech,
that is, many gairaigo functioning as nouns and verbs (e.g. “anauNsu”/“anauNsu
suru” and “puropoozu”/“puropoozu suru”); and (1-ii) prefixes and suffixes
attached to gairaigo (i.e. “amerika-sei” and “furaNsu-šiki”). Regarding (2),
morphological reduction, the author depicts various patterns where donor words
are shorn of their native morphology, such as plurals, past participles, and
possessives: “rediifaasuto” (from “ladies first”), “sarariimaN” (from
“salaried man”), and “”bareNtainNdee” (from “Valentine’s Day”). With respect
to (3), compound phenomena, this chapter presents the issues of: (3-i)
compound reduction (including both [3-i-i] compound clipping: “waapuro”
deriving from “waado” + “puroseQsaa” and “jiipaN” from “jiiNzu” + “paNcu”, and
[3-i-ii] ellipsis: “suupaa” from “suupa” + “maakeQto” and “paato” from “paato”
+ “taimu”); and (3-ii) sequential voicing, such as “amagaQpa” from “ama” +
“kaQpa”. Finally, this chapter examines the area of (c), loanword semantics.
The author examines the issues of homophony, semantic shift (i.e. “ikura”
referring to “salmon roe” deriving from the Russian word signifying “fish
roe,” and “”kaNniNgu” referring to “cheating on an examination” originally
coming from the English word “cunning”), and “semantic ally remodeled” (or
“SR”) gairaigo compounds, also called “waseieigo,” (e.g. “gasoriNsutaNdo,”
“wookumaN,” and “haroowaaku”).

In Chapter 5, “Orthography,” the author underscores the diachronic
instability, or acute historical change of gairaigo orthography, and
explicates how it changed over time. First, the author shows that modern
Japanese is written with various scripts: Chinese characters, two syllabaries
(i.e. hiragana and katakana), the Roman alphabet, Arabic numerals, and a range
of punctuation marks and typographical symbols. Irwin explains how hiragana
and katakana evolved from kanji characters (named phonograms) that were based
on their phonetic values. For example, ancient Japanese “kumwo” (cloud) could
also be written with two phonograms. The number of strokes in these phonograms
gradually decreased and resulted in hiragana and katakana beginning in the 9th
century.  Then, he shows how the three major scripts of the modern Japanese
language (i.e. kanji, hiragana, and katakana) are used with a good deal of
functional differentiations now. In contrast with modern Japanese, Irwin
explicates how dramatically the loanword orthography changed
historically/diachronically. During the Iberian borrowing phase (i.e. mid-16th
to mid-17th century), most loanwords were written in hiragana, while some were
in kanji. Though they did not invent it, Jesuit missionaries during this phase
were the first to use, in print, the diacritic “handakuten,” placed on the
h-row kana to indicate /p/.  During the Dutch borrowing phase (i.e. mid-17th
to mid-19th century), on the contrary, katakana was the main script to write
loanwords. During the Western borrowing period, research shows that
approximately 50-80% of all gairaigo were written in kanji. However, it was
Monbushō (1955) who determined the general directions and rules for post-War
gairaigo orthography and that such words be written in katakana. Finally, the
National Institute for Japanese Language (NINJAL, 1984) analyzed more
contemporary loanword spelling practice and showed how divorced the
contemporary reality was from Monbushō (1955).

Chapter 6, “Attitudes to loanwords,” examines various studies that have
surveyed people’s attitudes toward loanwords, such as BBK (2000), BBK (2003),
BBK (2008), and NINJAL (2004a). Two major results are revealed. First,
comprehension of loanwords, especially more recent ones, tends to become
weaker with advancing age. Secondly, although some people consider loanwords
as a threat to their Japanese culture and tradition in a linguistically
imperialistic light, there are still many other people who accept them as
essential in a more advanced and democratic society. Then, the author shows
that public perceptions still tend to be negative toward the use of many
difficult-to-understand loanwords in government office literature, despite
various agencies’ efforts to improve them.

EVALUATION

My evaluation examines the following elements regarding this monograph: 

(1) Main goal and significance; 
(2) Scope (how thoroughly the intended scope is covered), including the
quality of each chapter;
(3) Sequencing and organization (whether the chapters are sequenced and
organized in a natural way);
(4) Overall quality.

The main goal of this monograph is to present a comprehensive and purely
descriptive analysis of Japanese loanwords. The author sheds light on Japanese
loanwords in a systematic way and from various angles, such as historical,
phonological, morphological, and orthographic. Judging from the amount of
information included, this monograph really seems to be “the product of a
great deal of labor,” as the author writes (p. XIX in the acknowledgements
section). This volume significantly contributes to the progress of Japanese
linguistics research in the 21st century. Like other academic studies,
Japanese linguistics research also has to address many topics closely
pertinent to the needs of our rapidly changing world. This monograph by Irwin
demonstrates a great deal of significance in this time of acute globalization
and constant language contact. However, there may still be a few inaccuracies
or room for further scrutiny, especially concerning whether each of the listed
words should be regarded as a “gairaigo” or “gaikokugo.”  In Table 1.2 (p.
12), for instance, /howaitodee/ (for the semantically remodeled compound
“White Day”) and /tere/ (for “telephone” or “telephone number”) are treated as
“gaikokugo.” On the contrary, the author deals with /tere/ as “gairaigo” in
Table 5.4 (p. 187). In addition, Table 5.4, entitled “Orthographic practice
for the 20 most frequent gairaigo in magazines (extracted from NINJAL 2006a),”
shows only 18 loanwords, not 20.

Regarding the scope, the contents of this volume are rich in the areas of
history, phonology, and orthography, but on the other hand, relatively lean in
semantics and attitudes to loanwords. The area of semantics deserves one full
chapter, however, it is merely one of the four sections included in Chapter 4.
There are only four pages dedicated to it (pp. 153-157) in this volume. As a
point of comparison, in his volume about general Japanese linguistics,
Shibatani (2001) dedicates seven pages to discussing the topic of loanwords
and approximately two pages to addressing semantics-related issues.

In addition, the last chapter about people’s attitudes toward loanwords
appears as the weakest in Irwin’s monograph. If the author had intended to
explore a sociolinguistic approach to the study of Japanese loanwords through
Chapter 6, then he might have considered shedding light on, for instance,
“Wakamono-kotoba” (young people’s language) and the role of loanwords in it.
Furthermore, Irwin’s definition of Japanese loanwords as “borrowed into
Japanese after the mid-16th century” (p. 10) might require further discussion.
For instance, Miller (1967) extensively discusses Sanskrit loanwords that
entered the Japanese language during ancient times. He shows not only Buddhist
words, but also commonly-used everyday words in modern Japanese, such as
“kawara” (ceramic roof tile) and “sara” (plate).

Regarding sequencing and organization, many chapters seem naturally sequenced
and their contents are developed in a logical way. Again, the contents of
Chapter 1 (Introduction), Chapter 2 (A history of Japanese loanwords), Chapter
3 (Phonology), and Chapter 5 (Orthography) seem well written and demonstrate
very natural and logical progressions from one chapter to another. The
contents of Chapter 6 (Attitudes toward loanwords) seem a bit disconnected
from other chapters. One may question why the author wanted to include this
chapter because, in general, the very final chapter should give readers a
lasting and strong impression about the entire volume and its significance.
On the contrary, the contents of this chapter are not as clear and
well-organized as other chapters, and thus, it may give many readers a sense
of incompleteness.

As a whole, this monograph attests to the author’s hard work, providing a
great amount of detailed analyses regarding Japanese loanwords. Target
audiences of readers, such as graduate students and researchers in the area of
Japanese linguistics, will surely be inspired by the many useful insights of
this volume. Readers will be greatly intrigued, especially by Chapters 2 (A
history of Japanese loanwords) and Chapter 3 (Phonology), as they demonstrate
the author’s extremely detailed and painstaking linguistic analyses.  In spite
of some shortcomings and room for further clarity, “Loanwords in Japanese”
provides useful and timely knowledge to many readers in the midst of this
rapidly changing 21st century world.

REFERENCES

BBK (= Bunkachō Bunka Kokugoka) (2000). Kokugo ni kansuru yoronchōsa heisei
12-nen 1-gatsu. Tokyo: Ōkurasho Insatsukyoku.

BBK (2003). Kokugo ni kansuru yoronchōsa heisei 14-nen 11/12-gatsu. Tokyo:
Ōkurasho Insatsukyoku.

BBK (2008). Kokugo ni kansuru yoronchōsa heisei 20-nen 3-gatsu. Tokyo: Gyōsei.

Miller, R. A. (1967). The Japanese language. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Monbushō (1955). Gairaigo no hyōki. Tokyo: Meiji Tosho.

NINJAL (= Kokuritsu Kokugo Kenkyūjo; National Institute for the Japanese
Language) (1984). Hōkoku 79; Zasshi 90-shu shiryō no gairaigohyōki. Tokyo:
Shūei Shuppan.

NINJAL (2004a). Gairaigo ni kansuru ishiki chōsa.  Tokyo: Kokuritsu Kokugo
Kenkyūjo.

NINJAL (2006a). Gendai Zasshi 2,000,000-ji gengo chōsa goihyō kōkaiban, ver.
1.0. <http://www.kokken.go.jp/katsudo/seika/goityosa>

Shibatani, M. (2001). The language of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Hiroshi Matsumoto is Associate Professor of Japanese language and linguistics
at Soka University of America, California.  His research interests include (1)
Japanese lexicon (especially, loanwords and mimetic words), (2) various errors
and idiosyncratic features (among native and non-native speakers of Japanese),
and (3) salient linguistic characteristics of authentic Japanese language
materials such as movies, animations, newspapers, novels, and essays.








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