Japanese Language

I  INTRODUCTION 

Japanese Language, official language of Japan, spoken by virtually all of the nation's approximately 130 million inhabitants, and by people of Japanese heritage living in Hawaii, the Americas, and elsewhere. It is also spoken as a second language by Chinese and Korean people who lived under Japanese occupation during the first half of the 20th century.


II  GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS

For most of its history, the Japanese language developed in isolation. It is therefore difficult to establish any links between the components of the Japanese language—its vocabulary, sounds, and grammar—and those of other languages.

A  Vocabulary 

Japanese has three categories of words. Native Japanese words constitute the largest category, followed by words borrowed from the Chinese language. The third category, the smallest but fastest growing, is made up of words borrowed in modern times from Western languages such as English. This third category also includes a small number of adoptions from other Asian languages.

B  Sounds  

Most Japanese syllables end in a vowel, and a syllable may consist of a sole vowel. There are five vowels in the language: a, i, u, e, and o. Vowel length often distinguishes words, as in to for door and tō for ten. The basic Japanese consonants are p, b, t, d, k, g, s, z, h, m, n, r, y, w, plus the nasal consonant that appears at the end of a syllable, as in hon (book). When preceding the vowels a, o, or u, many of these consonants can be palatalized (followed by the palatal glide y). For example, a palatalized k before each of these vowels makes a sound like kya, kyu, and kyo. When the consonants t, d, s, and z precede the vowel i, they are pronounced as chi, ji, shi, and ji, respectively. The consonant t is pronounced as ts and d as dz in front of the vowel u.

While the English language has stress accent (in which the prominence of a syllable is expressed by articulating it louder or with greater force), Japanese has pitch accent, meaning that pitch is the sole method of emphasizing a syllable. In most Japanese dialects, the pitch falls from high to low after an accented syllable. For example, in the Tokyo dialect, the word hashi (chopsticks) carries the pitch accent on the first syllable. Without the accent on the first syllable, hashi may mean bridge or edge. When it means bridge, the accent comes on the second syllable; that is, the pitch falls after shi. Edge has no accent, so it would be pronounced without any fall in pitch.

C  Grammar 

Every language prefers a certain basic word order for a sentence. In English, the sentence “Naomi uses the computer” uses the basic English word order: subject (Naomi), verb (uses), and direct object (the computer). The corresponding Japanese sentence (“Naomi-ga kompyūtā-o tsukau”) displays the language’s basic word order of subject-object-verb. In Japanese, the subject and the object are accompanied by case-marker particles: ga with the subject (Naomi-ga) and o with the object (kompyūtā-o). English exhibits a remnant of the case-marking system. English pronouns change their form according to their location in a sentence: He, she, and they are used in the subject position, but him, her, and them are used in the object position, as in the sentence, “She saw him.”

Case markers make it possible for a Japanese sentence to retain the same meaning even if the words appear out of order. For example, in the sentence above, it is possible to exchange the position of the subject and the direct object: “Kompyūtā-o Naomi-ga tsukau” still means “Naomi uses the computer.” Note that the same exchange in English results in a radically altered meaning: “The computer uses Naomi.” Japanese permits a variety of word orders as long as the verb remains at the end of the sentence. The sentence “Naomi gave the computer to Taro” can be worded in Japanese as “Naomi-ga (Naomi) Taro-ni (to Taro) kompyūtā-o (computer) ageta (gave).” This sentence also has five other word-order possibilities, including indirect object-object-subject-verb (“Taro-ni kompyūtā-o Naomi-ga ageta”) and object-subject-indirect object-verb (“Kompyūtā-o Naomi-ga Taro-ni ageta”).

The most significant part of a clause or sentence is referred to as the head, and in Japanese the head is always placed at the end. The verb is the head of a typical Japanese sentence and appears at the end, as in the example above. In a noun phrase, the head is the noun and all modifiers must precede the noun. This can mirror English, as in “new computer” (“atarashii kompyūtā”), or differ, as in “the computer that Naomi uses” (“Naomi-ga tsukau kompyūtā”).

The Japanese verb does not indicate number or gender, taking the same form whether the subject is singular or plural and whether the subject's gender is feminine, masculine, or neuter. The verb does have other inflections (word endings that indicate grammatical concepts), including inflections to show tense, negation, and aspect (duration of the activity or level of completion denoted by the verb). In Japanese it is possible to leave the subject, or any other element except the verb, out of a sentence, when the omitted elements are understood from their context. The Japanese counterpart of the sentence “Naomi uses the computer” may be expressed by saying only the verb tsukau (use), as long as the context makes it clear to the listener that the sentence is referring to Naomi and the computer.

Concepts often expressed with multiple words in other languages may take the form of a single word in Japanese. Because of this, Japanese is said to be an agglutinative language—that is, a language that forms words by combining them and by adding word components or markers, such as -ga and –ni in the examples above. For example, the English sentence “Naomi was not made to purchase a computer by Mary” contains the separate verbs was, made, and purchase in addition to negation. In the Japanese counterpart, these elements together form one complex verb: kaw-ase-rare-nak-atta (buy-made-was-not-past tense marker). Other languages that have agglutinative verb systems include the Korean language, the Turkish language, and the Navajo language (see Native American Languages).

III  WRITING SYSTEM

Traditionally, Japanese has been written vertically, with lines starting at the top right side of the page. While this writing style is still in use, another style uses horizontal lines and starts from the top left-hand side of the page, as in English.

The Japanese had no writing system until the introduction of kanji (Chinese characters) in the late 5th century. Since then, Japanese writing has used two principal systems of orthography: kanji and syllabaries (systems in which each written character represents a syllable). The kanji writing system is generally considered difficult to learn and use because of the large number of characters in Japanese and the complexity involved in writing and in reading each character. Unlike letters in an alphabet, which have no meaning by themselves, each kanji is associated with at least one meaning. For example, the basic meaning of the character  is to go. The Japanese language used to employ a large number of kanji characters, but in 1946 the Japanese government limited the number of characters for daily use to 1,850. In 1981 the government increased the list to 1,945 characters and named it Jōyō Kanji (kanji for daily use) List. The characters in the Jōyō Kanji List must be learned in primary and secondary schools, and newspapers generally limit the use of characters to this list.

Most kanji characters have two readings: the native Japanese reading and the reading that simulates the original Chinese pronunciation. If a kanji character was borrowed into the Japanese language at different times or from different Chinese dialects, it may have several Chinese readings that represent different historical and dialectal differences. For example, the character for to go, above, has one Japanese reading and three distinct Chinese readings.

The second system of writing consists of syllabaries, or kana, which were developed from certain kanji by the Japanese about 1,000 years ago. Each character in a syllabary represents a Japanese syllable and, unlike kanji, it represents a sound but not a meaning. There are two types of syllabaries, hiragana and katakana, each representing the same set of sounds. For example, the sound ka may be written with the hiragana  or the katakana , both of which evolved from the kanji . Hiragana is often used in combination with kanji in such a way that the kanji represents the root (invariant part) of a verb, and the hiragana represents the inflection, such as the verb tense. Katakana is used primarily to write words borrowed from such Western languages as the French language, the German language, and the English language. Kanji, hiragana, and katakana frequently appear in the same sentence. Along with kanji and kana syllabaries, the Latin alphabet is sometimes utilized for such elements as names of organizations. For example, companies such as Honda, Toyota, and Sony often use the Latin alphabet when their names appear in advertisements. (See also Japanese Literature)

IV  CLASSIFICATION  

Because the Japanese language seems to have developed in virtual isolation from other languages, there is no conclusive evidence relating Japanese to a single family of languages and to that family's common ancestor language. The most prominent hypothesis places Japanese in the family of Altaic languages—which include Turkish, Mongolian, and Korean (although the membership of Korean in the Altaic family is also uncertain)—and relates Japanese most closely to the Korean language. However, because elements of this hypothesis are inconsistent with some of the Japanese language's major characteristics, especially its basic system of sounds, some scholars have turned to the languages of the South Pacific, in the family of Austronesian languages, to find the Japanese language's genetic heritage. A current hypothesis among some Japanese historical linguists is a hybrid theory that accepts the fundamental relationship between Japanese and the Austronesian family, but that also hypothesizes that the Altaic family influenced Japanese, possibly through heavy borrowing of sentence structures and vocabulary. It is also important to note that on Japan's northern island of Hokkaidō, the Ainu people, who are genetically and culturally different from the rest of the Japanese, speak a language that has proven even more difficult to relate to any known language family.

V  DEVELOPMENT OF THE LANGUAGE 

The Japanese did not produce written documents, which would have provided information about the development and characteristics of the ancient Japanese language, until the introduction of a writing system from China starting in the late 5th century. With the advent of a writing system, the Japanese people began to record their language in poetry and prose. The language of that period, called Old Japanese, had a number of features that have been lost. For example, Old Japanese had eight vowels instead of the five currently used. There were also a number of grammatical and morphological (word-structure) features that no longer exist. The transition from Old Japanese to Modern Japanese took place from about the 12th century to the 16th century.

VI  VARIETIES

Japan comprises numerous mountainous islands, and this geography limited contact among the peoples living in different regions of the country. As a result, people in the various regions of Japan developed differing varieties, or dialects, of the Japanese language. Japanese has also developed separate varieties of the language for use in different social contexts; such varieties are called social styles of speech.

A  Regional Dialects 

A large number of dialects are spoken throughout Japan's four main islands (Hokkaidō, Honshū, Shikoku, and Kyūshū), as well as on the smaller islands, such as the Ryukyu Islands. Some dialects—for instance, those spoken in the southern parts of Japan, notably on the islands of Kyūshū and Okinawa—are virtually incomprehensible to the speakers of other dialects. As a result of this diversity of dialects, the Japanese use standard, or common, Japanese to facilitate communication throughout the nation. The two dialect families with the largest number of speakers are those spoken in and around Tokyo, which is regarded as common Japanese, and the dialects of the Kansai region in western Japan, spoken in cities such as Kyōto, Ōsaka, and Kōbe. Due to the spread of common Japanese through television and other mass media, most people outside the Tokyo region speak common Japanese as well as a local dialect.

B  Social Styles of Speech 

The Japanese language employs elaborate systems that express politeness and honor. Speakers must keep in mind their social standing in relation to the person addressed and to the person being discussed. This type of word marker appears on verbs, adjectives, and nouns. For example, a speaker uses the informal form of the verb to go (iku) when talking with someone close to the speaker, such as a family member, relative, or friend. If the person addressed is a stranger or is older than the speaker, the politeness marker -masu is used: iki-masu. If the person being discussed is socially superior to the speaker, the honorific form of the verb to go (irassharu) may be employed, even when the referent person is not present. When speakers use this honorific form to speak of a socially superior person and address their comments to individuals with whom they do not have a close relationship or who are older, both the politeness marker and the honorific form appear: irasshai-masu. This form, irasshai-masu, allows the speaker simultaneously to be polite to the person addressed and to show respect to the person discussed. The prefix o- (go- in some contexts) can be used with nouns and adjectives to show politeness or respect to the person addressed or discussed, as in o-tsukue (desk) and o-suki (like).

The use of pronouns varies according to social context and often according to gender. For example, males use the first-person pronoun boku in informal situations, while females use watashi, and both males and females use watashi in formal situations. The choice of some particles that appear at the end of sentences also varies by gender in informal speech. The various pronoun forms, as well as the system of politeness and honorific markers, reflect the prominent role that social-group factors play in the Japanese language. If the person addressed is not within the speaker's age or relationship group, the speaker uses the polite style of speech. Familial words also reflect this dynamic. The word speakers use for their own mother is haha, but they use okāsan to refer to the mother of others. The same dual terminology exists with the Japanese words for father, sister, brother, and other family members.


Contributed By:
Shigeru Miyagawa


Reviewed By:
Yoko Hasegawa
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