Who Named Japan - Japan?

Eelco · 21 Nov 2004

More pages on Japanese names...

There's also a nice explanation on where the name Japan came from on Japan FAQts

If you'd like to know more about the origin of some of the names the Japanese use for different countries has a look at Lesson 7 of the Japanese 101 course there. (It's a series of translation exercises, so the names are all written in Japanese. Sorry about that.)

You'll notice that many country names come from Portuguese, since that was their first contact with Europe.

Glenn · 21 Nov 2004

I think it's also worth noting that the Japanese themselves use "Japan" to refer to their country at times, i.e. "Pop Japan TV," and "Japan Times," both written entirely in katakana. It seems as though they have no problem with it.

ToMach · 21 Nov 2004

Legends say that prince Shōtoku Taishi 聖徳太子 (574-622) sent a letter to the Chinese Emperor, where he calls himself by the title "emperor of where the Sun rises" (日出處天子). From approximately this period, China began to call Japan "日本國", and no more 倭國 (jap. wakoku, chi. woguo) as before.
In 7th Century Chinese 日本 was pronounced *nit-pon (ripen in modern standard Chinese), which became nippon in Japanese.
In Chinese, we have the following phonetic evolution (@=neutral vowel, sounds like "uh" in English, r=retroflex fricative, which sounds approximately like "gee") :
*nit pon kw@k > *rit pon kw@k > *ri p@n kwo
This sounded like "gee-puhn-kwo" to the ears of early explorers, and gave birth to the names "Jipango", "Zipanguo", etc.
"Japan" is clearly derivated from this Chinese pronouciation, but from which Chinese dialect (or other Asian language) it was borrowed is still unclear.
By the way, the original Japanese word for "Japan" is Yamato.

In general, for the names of forign places, we should consider 4 categories:
1) Ancient names with a history behind it : names borrowed at ancient times, when maybe the original name was more or less different. This is the case of English names for Korea, Japan, China, etc.
2) More recent borrowings, which underwent a process of adaptation : some words cannot be correctly pronounced by the speakers of the borrowing language, or they are reshaped to meet the rules of one language. This is why a lot of places end in -ia in English
3) Spelling pronunciations : place names are read with the rules of the borrowing language. For example, Paris is read in English as it is spelled, "parisss", but the original pronunciation is "pari". See also "Mexico".
4) New creations, like "Indonesia", "Micronesia", "Australia", "America".
Of course some place names can combine these processes.

jbelkin · 22 Nov 2004

When I started this thread, I was merely curious why the Japanese government also used Nippon - even though they obviouly had no problem with being called Japan as that is part of the official name of the county.

Thank you for all the answers - somewhere it got sidetracked into "arrogance, imperalism," etc ... I think the bottom line - yes, countries get misnamed for whatever reason by that country/lanuage but by now, if they really hate - they make sure it's changed to what they prefer and most countries go along like Mynamar/Burma, SriLanka/Ceylon. If the country accepts the name (in any language), then by now - they must be okay with it. Now I'm sure there re examples of counties that still loath each other where the name is "those idiots over there," but that's not what I was trying to ask here - again, thanks for all the help!

Toshi · 13 Dec 2004

Brooker said:
bossel wrote....

Also, the official name of Mexico is "Los Estados Unidos de Mexico" which means "The United States of Mexico" because Mexico is also made up of many states. So it could also be accurate to call Mexico "The United States".

Weird, huh?

hey i didnt know that thats interesting calling mexico the united states lol i learned something new!

lexico · 24 Jul 2005

ToMach said:
In general, for the names of forign places, we should consider 4 categories:
1) Ancient names with a history behind it : names borrowed at ancient times, when maybe the original name was more or less different. This is the case of English names for Korea, Japan, China, etc.
2) More recent borrowings, which underwent a process of adaptation : some words cannot be correctly pronounced by the speakers of the borrowing language, or they are reshaped to meet the rules of one language. This is why a lot of places end in -ia in English
3) Spelling pronunciations : place names are read with the rules of the borrowing language. For example, Paris is read in English as it is spelled, "parisss", but the original pronunciation is "pari". See also "Mexico".
4) New creations, like "Indonesia", "Micronesia", "Australia", "America".
Of course some place names can combine these processes.

As for the reading of Paris Fr. /pari/ ~Eng. /pae'r@s/, couldn't it be the case that the borrowing of the place name 'Paris' occurred before French underwent the change in speech habit of muting stops and fricatives in the word-final position ? Or that since the Norman French were established a tradition of enunciation took root thus disregarding the innovations experienced by Parisian French later ? (When did the final stops/fricatives become mute actually ?)

Interesting examples when Amerinidian place names were borrowed via the French colonialists; Arkansas /a':rk@sa:/

How about Fr. Anglais /ang-gle/ "English" > (unknown Amerinidan) *ang-ki~*yan-ki >> (derrogatory form of Anglais) *yan-ki > (Southern Slang) Yankee "Americans of British descent" "Northerners" by extension ?

Silverpoint · 25 Jul 2005

Brooker said:
Once again, that's the best pronunciation the Japanese could come up with using their alphabet and it's still obvious that they were making an effort to pronounce "England".

Forgive me if I'm wide of the mark here, but it's always been my understanding that the Japanese were trying to pronounce "English", not "England" when they created the word "igirisu". This would certainly be more plausible given that the sound is much closer.

The real problem with "igirisu" is that it is freely used by Japanese people to mean England, Great Britain or the United Kingdom, all of which of course are different entities. However, this is not a problem which is limited to Japan. The majority of people from other countries (including English speaking countries such as the US or Australia) don't seem to know the difference either.

Brooker · 25 Jul 2005

Silverpoint said:
The real problem with "igirisu" is that it is freely used by Japanese people to mean England, Great Britain or the United Kingdom, all of which of course are different entities. However, this is not a problem which is limited to Japan. The majority of people from other countries (including English speaking countries such as the US or Australia) don't seem to know the difference either.

I know the difference between England and Great Britain, but, and please forgive my ignorance, what's the difference between Great Britain and the United Kingdom? I thought they both referred to England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Scotland. I'm guessing that maybe the United Kingdom also refers to places like India and Canada? But that doesn't seem right. That would be the Commonwealth, right? It's so confusing. Please inform me.

I remember some Japanese people being confused about the difference between America and The United States, when, for practical purposes, there is no difference, but I can see how it's a little unclear. It's just two versions of the same full name, "The United States of America."

I've always thought that was kind of a lame name for a country. Why not call Washington State, "The Combined Counties of the Northwest," or something. It's more of a description than a name.

Silverpoint · 25 Jul 2005

I'm assuming everyone is familiar with the shape of the countries but in case you're not, please refer to the map for reference.

England: Occupies the southern and eastern portion of the larger of the two islands.

Great Britain: The largest of the two main islands (comprising England, Scotland and Wales)

United Kingdom: Great Britain, plus Northern Ireland (the pale coloured area on the map)

The British Isles: Both large islands plus any small surrounding islands.

I'd give a little more background, but I have to go to work ;-)

Brooker · 25 Jul 2005

So the only difference is that The United Kingdom includes Northern Ireland.

Silverpoint · 25 Jul 2005

The difference between Great Britain and the UK? That's correct yes. Although most people refer to us as British, for many official purposes, UK is used. For what its worth the full name of our country as it appears on my passport is "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland")

Mycernius · 1 Aug 2005

Silverpoint said:
The difference between Great Britain and the UK? That's correct yes. Although most people refer to us as British, for many official purposes, UK is used. For what its worth the full name of our country as it appears on my passport is "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland"

Just a little fact for you. the official title for the UK ("The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland") is the third longest country title in the world. The one with the longest is Libya which is:
"Al Jumahiriyah al Arabiyah al Libiyah ash Shabiyah al Ishtirakiyah al Uzma" which means:
"Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya"

Useless fact of the day

Brooker · 1 Aug 2005

Here's another useless fact....

The original name of Los Angeles is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reyna de Los Angeles de Porciuncula".

On September 4, 1781, the Pobladores, a group of 12 families - 46 men, women and children led by Captain Rivera y Moncada - established a community in the area discovered by Portola, and named it El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reyna de Los Angeles de Porciuncula, after the nearby river. Over time, the area became known as the Ciudad de Los Angeles, "City of Angels," and on April 4, 1850 became the City of Los Angeles.

http://www.laavenue.com/LAHistory.htm

EdZiomek · 2 Aug 2005

Origins of Japan

As I have mentioned on other threads on this great website, the American Indian tribes had flavors of all three names for Japan...

Nippon Neponset

Neehan-Nihon Nihantic or Niantic

Japan Shippan

All three of these Indian tribal names occur only on the East Coast of Long Island or Connecticut, facing the rising sun and the Atlantic ocean. In fact, they may be the only tribes in the entire United States with these names. I find that remarkably close in linguistic connectivity.

In the Valley of Mexico, one area facing the East, the rising sun, was a hill named... Tepechpan, Holy Hill of the Rising sun, I believe.

And the "Brendan" map that Columbus used to find the land mass, "three weeks West of the Canaries", was labeled... Chpan on the Eastern coast.

After all my amateur research, I truly believe the "Origin" can be understood from the division of the two syllables..... She pan, Jah pan, Yah pan

Sheee meaning "spirit" in many cultures, Chinese for instance- "Shee-gon", "body-spirit" for example, (and like the wind-sound on the top of the mountain--- shhhhhhhhhhh)

and "Pan" meaning "Place of" ...

The accrued meaning of "Place of the Spirits" meant... "Land where the spirits come to", and in effect, "Place of the rising sun".

The spirit rises out of the ocean each morning and is "born" in a new day.

The original myth and legend was probably true... the world had one language at one time... that is my opinion.

Ed Z

Melchior · 12 May 2006

Where did the word "Japan" come from?

I wasn't sure where to ask this, so if a mod wants to move it feel free.

The Japanese refer to themselves as 窶愿ｺ窶怒ﾂ人, and call their language 窶愿ｺ窶怒ﾅ津ｪ. Before that, if I'm not mistaken, the old word for Japan was 窶堙｢窶堙懌?堙

So where did Japan/Japanese come from? It's funny how cultures refer to other cultures with their own word (We refer to Español as Spanish, Japanese refer to English as 窶ｰpﾅ津ｪ). But in those cases at least they sound similar, Japan sounds nothing like Nihon.

I can't find any information about the word Japan.

Davey · 12 May 2006

I found this somewhere :

The origin of this word is mysterious. Some people say that the name `Chipangu' used by Marco Polo is not the origin of `Japan'. They claim that "Japan" came from Malaysian `Jih-pun' or something similar, which came from the southern Chinese dialect reading of Nippon.

Others say that when Marco Polo visited China, Chinese pronunciation was close enough to modern Mandarin that the character for "day/sun" was a retroflex fricative, something like the "Z" in "Zaza Gabor," or "j" and "r" pronounced simultaneously and held for a syllable. The character for "origin/root/bookscroll" was read something like "pun" (as in modern Mandarin, though it sounds more like the English word "bun" to English speakers), so Marco Polo did the best he could in Italian with what sounded to him like "jrjrrrpun". The weakest part of this account is the attribution to M. Polo; perhaps it was somebody who came along later?

Mycernius · 13 May 2006

Old thread, but why not

Brooker said:
On a bit of a tangent... I always thought it was strange that America doesn't really have a name, it has more of a description. For example, Canada, Panama, those are names just like Steve or Bill, but U.S.A. just means that we have (50) states, which are united, and we're in the continent of America.
Also, the official name of Mexico is "Los Estados Unidos de Mexico" which means "The United States of Mexico" because Mexico is also made up of many states. So it could also be accurate to call Mexico "The United States".
Weird, huh?

I usually refer to the USA as the US, but I am guilty of refering to US citizens as Americans. What would you prefer Americans or United Statians, or even Statians. Look on the bright side, I read that the early congress once debated to use Freedonia, then you would be Freedonians or freedish

Kintaro · 13 May 2006

Statists.

Best thing I can think of when referencing Americans and only people of the USA, and not Canada or Mexico or Argentina for that matter.

Maybe because they're so attached to the values and ideas of their nation state that I think Statist is the best term out there. The American Dream, The American Way of Life, as if we're emulating them, it's often the reverse, they have to emulate the world and slap a star (5 pointed, not six) on it to make things work.

Davey · 13 May 2006

haha, I was already surprised.. wow the thread because big so fast

JimmySeal · 13 May 2006

Silverpoint said:
Forgive me if I'm wide of the mark here, but it's always been my understanding that the Japanese were trying to pronounce "English", not "England" when they created the word "igirisu".

Igirisu is a Japanese attempt at pronouncing the Portuguese word "Inglez."

I remember some Japanese people being confused about the difference between America and The United States, when, for practical purposes, there is no difference, but I can see how it's a little unclear. It's just two versions of the same full name, "The United States of America."

There's a big difference. One is a huge landmass occupying two continents, the other is a country within that landmass. I try to make it a point to refer to my home country as ﾆ但ﾆ陳?椎?ﾆ谷ﾂ坂?｡ﾂ衆ﾂ坂? whenever it won't get in the way of the conversation. Unfortunately for the time being, "American" is the only reasonable word for someone from the US and it will have to serve the dual purpose of meaning "americano" and "estadounidense."

The generally accepted theory is that the Japanese came up with the word 窶愿ｺ窶怒ﾂ坂? which passed through a dialect of Chinese before heading west, eventually losing whatever ﾂ坂? contributed to the pronunciation. The Chinese wouldn't start calling Japan "the place where the sun rises" because of Prince Shotoku's letter. That was an insult to the Chinese. Remember also that Japanese mythology claims that Japan was created by the sun god and that surely contributed in some way to the name 窶愿ｺ窶怒.

MajideSaiaku · 13 May 2006

senseiman said:
I think it is an interesting subject too. There are a lot of interesting historical connections that explain how countries are called in different langauges.
The Japanese do this just as much as anybody else too. The Japanese word for England is "Igirisu", which doesn't even come close. I don't see the big deal. The very name of my home country (Canada) comes from a similar mistake, it was the name of a small Algonquin (I think) village that some early Europeans mistook for the name of the entire land.
If we all used standardized "correct" names for each others countries around the world I think we would all be loosing an interesting part of our linguistic heritage.

At least japan has a name for England, I've yet to meet a Japanese who knew of scotland or even what to call it....i guess we get lumped together in Ingirisu.

Great britain and united kingdom are indeed different.

great birtain is the name of one of the main large islands, united kingdom is the name of the country.

Calling the UK England is the same as folk calling The Netherlands, Holland, when in fact Holland is just an area within the Netherlands.

huayue · 19 Jun 2006

eh...
ﾅ陳ｴ窶藩?青･这样....

Glenn · 19 Jun 2006

You gonna finish that thought? haha

huayue · 20 Jun 2006

ye...before this ,i did not know about it....☝

Ewok85 · 20 Jun 2006

Surprised no one has mentioned the Japanese use of 英国米国韓国中国豪州仏国 etc

Who Named Japan - Japan?

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