Paper short abstract:

In this presentation we will discuss the particularities of the transliteration of foreign geographical names in Japan. We will pay special attention to the mechanisms of, and motivations for, the choice of written form and how much the meaning of kanji influences this choice.

Paper long abstract:

In modern Japanese language, foreign proper names such as geographical names are usually written in katakana (e.g. ヨーロッパ、アメリカ、ロシア). However, this is a relatively recent practice and until the middle of the 20th century most proper names were written using kanji (欧羅巴、亜米利加、露西亜 etc.). Some of these transliterations are still in use today in their simplified forms in such compound words as 欧州 (Europe), 米大統領 (President of the US), 日露 (Russo-Japanese), etc. Most of these examples, excluding semantic loans (地中海 "Mediterranean Sea", 氷州/島 "Iceland" etc.), are traditionally considered to be phonetic loans transliterated in China and later transmitted to Japan. Consequently, the particularities of the transliteration of specific proper names in Japan, as well as the semantic aspects of the choice of written form are usually withdrawn from consideration.

Contrary to this tradition, in this presentation we will demonstrate the existence of phonetic loans, such as "Russia", "America", "Vladivostok", "Karafuto" and more, in which the meaning of the character(s) played a great, and in some cases even crucial role in the choice and/or perception of the written form. Using data from a wide range of primary sources such as geographical documents, newspapers, and diplomatic documents from the Bakumatsu to Taisho periods, we are going to look at examples of foreign geographical names in Japan and explore the following particular questions:

- What were the mechanisms of, and motivations for, the choice of written form and how much did the meaning of kanji influence this choice;

- What are the particularities of transliteration of geographical names in Japanese, and how was kunyomi involved in the process.

Paper short abstract:

This paper report an instance of the Japanese language textbook printed during the World War II. Some textbooks adopted English words to show Japanese words.This paper will examine how Japanese phonology demonstrated by Japanese American tutors is different from Japanese phonology by Japanese.

Paper long abstract:

This paper attempts to report a unique instance of the Japanese language textbook printed during the World War II mainly in the US. A number of the Japanese textbooks were printed during the period, and US and alliance military officers were said to acquire Japanese enough to interrogate Japanese POW (prisoners of War).

Whilst major Japanese textbooks were published based on some well-known Japanese textbooks such as Naganuma Japanese language textbooks, some textbook adopted English words to show Japanese words or expressions. For instance, daijobu was expressed as 'die job,' and so forth. This kind of textbook was especially designed to US military officers to attend at Japanese language school such as MIS (Military Intelligence Service) language school at University of Michigan.

This paper starts with the description of the Japanese language textbooks during the WWII and makes an assessment of the content. Based on this, I will conduct some linguistic analyses of English words in the Japanese language sentences. Emphasis will be put on the phonological analyses of the English words to examine to what extent the Japanese phonology in those days is different from the Japanese in 1940s. This paper will examine how Japanese phonology demonstrated by Japanese American tutors is different from Japanese phonology of Japanese.

What is more, analyses will be made to compare the phonological features of Japanese in Yokohama dialect published in 1853. Yokohama dialect is known as one of the textbooks on Japanese pidgin edited by Hoffmann Atkinson. Interestingly enough, the textbook was written in English. Therefore, this paper will make a comparative account of how the English phonology in Japanese sentences interacts between two materials.

Paper short abstract:

This paper addresses the problem of Irwin's classification of loanword compounds in Contemporary Japanese focusing on English origin loanword compounds, and investigates the influence of the donor language morphological and syntactic patterns (English in this research) on Japanese word formation.

Paper long abstract:

This paper addresses the problem of Irwin's classification of loanword compounds in Contemporary Japanese focusing on English origin loanword compounds, and investigates the influence of the donor language morphological and syntactic patterns (English in this research) on Japanese word formation.

Compounding in Japanese is a phenomena found in all lexical strata, such as native words (wago), Sino-Japanese (kango), mimetic and foreign (gairaigo). As Frellesvig (2010) mentions the extensive contact with cultures and languages other than Portuguese and Dutch that started in Meiji period in Japan led to the numerous loanwords from a number of European languages, English being a dominating donor language. As a result in addition to native and Sino-Japanese compounds, Japanese has acquired a layer of loanword or gairaigo compounds. However, etymologically not all loanword compounds were compounds in the donor language - English. Tracing back to the donor languages shows that some words were originally simple words later on assembled into compounds in Japanese, while others were compounds or even phrases. Irwin (2011:143) differentiates between two types of loanword compounds: imported and assembled. Imported compounds are the compounds 'borrowed directly from a donor language', while assembled compounds are the compounds 'created in Japan from two independent gairaigo'. However, in the present research we argue that Irwin's classification is not complete. Japanese actively borrows not only simple words or compounds, but also English collocations, such as 'hot coffee' or 'long hair' are also being borrowed into Japanese. Therefore, we suggest that Irwin's classification can be extended to include collocation-based gairaigo compounds, such as hottokoohii 'hot coffee' and ronguhea 'long hair' in order to better explain Japanese word formation processes.

References:

1. Frellesvig, B. (2010). A history of the Japanese language. Cambridge University Press.

2. Irwin, M. (2011). Loanwords in Japanese. John Benjamins Publishing.