Since we're on definitions, I'd like to quote from Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary:
Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary said:
Main Entry: forﾂ・eignﾂ・er
Pronunciation: 'for-&-n&r, 'faﾂ¨r-
Function: noun
1 : a person belonging to or owing allegiance to a foreign country
2 chiefly dialect : one not native to a place or community : STRANGER 1c
According to this definition, it is highly likely that an American can be in a foreign country and still consider the inhabitants "foreign," because technically they are. They belong to or owe allegiance to a foreign country. Does that mean that Americans would lack a notion of relativity or linguistic logic if they thought about it this way? I think that using "foreigner" to describe an inhabitant of a foreign country, no matter where the speaker is, is perfectly legitimate, because from the relative viewpoint of the speaker, the inhabitant is still "a person belonging to or owing allegiance to a foreign country." That is, the American identifies himself with America, and all other countries are foreign. Where the American is has no bearing on that, unless he has assimilated into the once foreign culture, which would make that culture familiar, thus not foreign. The issue of whether or not it is used that way is one of pragmatics and perspective, and not a language's speaker's ability to use logic.
In my mind it's perfectly fine for Japanese people to think of ﾂ坂? as Japan when not marked otherwise. It's probably a narrowing of the original term, but then again when we say "deer" in English we don't mean "animal," but a specific animal. The same is true for "affection" not meaning "emotion" anymore, but a specific emotion. More recently, "gay" isn't generally used to mean "happy" anymore. The process is called specification, and is one of the processes of
semantic change.
Furthermore, it seems that the first dictionary entry shows the original sense of the word, while the latter definitions show the more current and widely used sense of the word. For example, look at "
enormity," "
gay," and "
comprise." These are three examples where the original meaning comes first, and the newer meanings after. You'll notice that under both the ﾂ坂?佛津ｪ and ﾅ?O(ﾂ坂??ﾂ人 headwords the "Japanese" versions come second, third, etc.
One may not like this process, or think that it is generated by the lack of reasoning power of the speakers of a language, but this is common in all languages, so it isn't fair to single out the Japanese in this regard, if in fact anyone is.
I realize that I've jumped back and forth between ﾂ坂?佛津ｪ and ﾅ?O(ﾂ坂??ﾂ人 here, but I believe that they are closely enough related that my point won't get lost in my doing so. After all, the main point is about the ﾂ坂? part of the words, so I believe I'm justified in a little jumping around between them.
Mikawa Ossan said:
But we foreigners can do so quite easily, as long as you qualify it by stating something like, ﾂ「ﾅｽ窶樞?堙個坂?倪?堙個坂?佛津ｪﾂ」, when referring to your own language in the same sense that Japanese generally do when they speak of Japanese ﾂ坂?佛津ｪ. To be more specific, the subject at school. (For my purposes here, before university, but I can make the case for University as well. It's just longer.)
Yes, but you mark it with ﾅｽ窶樞?堙個坂?倪?堙? and that is what sets it apart.
Maciamo said:
I agree with that. I noticed that the Chinese also use ﾂ坂?佛津ｪ to mean Chinese.
Yes, but it more specifically means Taiwanese Mandarin. That's context dependent, though.
Maciamo said:
When talking about my schooling in my country (in Japanese), I used the word ﾂ坂?佛津ｪ to refer to my mother-tongue's classes, and they never assumed that it meant Japanese.
I can see that, because you are obviously not Japanese, and there was most likely lexical context (alongside the visual and historical context) that showed you weren't talking about Japanese. But I get the feeling that when you say ﾂ坂?佛津ｪ to refer to your 窶｢ﾃｪﾂ坂?佛津ｪ, the Japanese think of it as ﾅ?Oﾂ坂?佛津ｪ (or maybe your 窶｢ﾃｪﾂ坂?佛津ｪ, but either way not as ﾂ坂?佛津ｪ as they think of it). When you used the word I'd guess they were taken aback at first, and then figured that you weren't talking about Japanese, unless you set it up as such. If you haven't already, ask them about that. I'd be curious to know whether I'm close on this one.
Mikawa Ossan said:
Just as Japanese do not learn 窶愿ｺ窶怒ﾅ津ｪ , but rather ﾂ坂?佛津ｪ at school, people where I grew up did not learn English (in the sense that English is taught in say Japan), but rather ﾂ坂?佛津ｪ. In this sense, it's American ﾂ坂?佛津ｪ or American English. Since Japanese lump the Japanese grammar, vocabulary, kanji, and literature that they learned at school into the term ﾂ坂?佛津ｪ, I do the same for the English grammar, vocabulary, spelling, and literature that I learned at school.
Right. In elementary/primary/grammar school we learn "language" (or at least I did). Funny, too, that we even use "grammar" to refer to elementary educational institutes, don't you think? Perhaps we aren't so logical, because certainly we don't just learn grammar at that stage or at those types of schools.
Anyway, my point wasn't that ﾂ坂?佛津ｪ=窶愿ｺ窶怒ﾅ津ｪ so much as it is used to mean 窶愿ｺ窶怒ﾅ津ｪ quite extensively, as you pointed out. The only difference between the two terms is the inclusion of literature in the former, which would account for why ﾂ坂?佛津ｪ is the term for the school subject and not just the language, but still they usually mean Japanese language and literature when they say it. That was my point in bringing it up.
Mikawa Ossan said:
I don't know whether I conveyed what I wanted to say clearly or not, but every single I put the concept of ﾂ坂?佛津ｪ in these terms in Japanese, every single person understood what I meant the first time around.
So you see, Japanese people can understand the relativity of the term ﾂ坂?佛津ｪ; it's just a matter that they never have to in their daily lives. Still, it's one of those concepts that makes perfect sense once one has been told correctly.
I never doubted that they could understand it, or that it could be used that way.
I think the issue here is one of pragmatics over linguistic logic. After all, we use many words in English that don't necessarily mean what they logically should. Does that make us all idiots? If you think so, then be careful the next time you use the word "autopsy" to refer to an examination of a dead body. How logical is it for a corpse to examine itself? Similarly, using "self-study" to refer to studying on your own is illogical.
My main point was not to say that either ﾂ坂?佛津ｪ or ﾅ?O(ﾂ坂??ﾂ人
can't refer to languages other than Japanese or the Japanese people, respectively, but that it
doesn't in general use, and that they don't violate the parts of the words in doing so. I see a huge difference there, and it doesn't involve the lack of the Japanese people's ability to use logic or think relatively.
So finally, I stand by my statement that it's perfectly legitimate for Japanese people to refer to people who aren't Japanese as ﾅ?O(ﾂ坂??ﾂ人, and that it doesn't violate the meanings of the parts of the word, and also that it doesn't indicate a lack of logical thinking ability on the part of the Japanese.
Gaijinian said:
But, is the same thing true in Chinese? No, I think ﾂ坂?佛津ｪﾂ（ﾅ｡ﾂ?ﾅ津ｪﾂ）=窶｢ﾂ≫?凖翰彙ﾂ（窶｢ﾂ≫?凖翰彙ﾂ）, China's offical language, no matter where you say it... But I'm not sure...
No. 窶｢ﾂ≫?凖翰彙 is the standard language, which is based on the Beijing pronunciation scheme (although not quite the same -- it gets complicated). ﾂ坂?佛津ｪ refers to the Taiwanese standard of Mandarin.