Japanese English

Japanese English trade names may cause some amusement for those accustomed to other meanings.

Japanese English (JE) refers to the varieties of English mainly used by non-native speakers in Japan. This may include English learned as a foreign language, its fashionable use in the media and advertising (often called 'Engrish' to mimic how Japanese-speakers non-fluent in English may pronounce 'English'), or the use of English as a working language in certain institutions such as research centres or publications like the Japan Times.

When used for a communicative purpose, such as in English-language newspapers, this variety is typically very similar to American English in vocabulary, grammar and spelling. However, there are a number of words used in JE which either originate in Japan or have developed a separate meaning: for example, prefecture does not refer to a political district in native English-speaking nations. Police box is used as the translation for 交番 kooban, but in fact this is a local police station, rather than a callbox specifically for contacting the police, as in the UK. Another example is dust box, Japanese English for what many English speakers might call a waste bin or a trash can. The expression rarely appears in Japanese itself, which prefers 塵箱 gomibako.Additionally, many English words exist in Japanese, but these loanwords are considered part of its vocabulary, just as many Japanese words such as karate form part of English.

An alternative term sometimes applied to JE is Japlish. Since Jap is racist English slang for a Japanese person, many authors may avoid this term. Alternatively, it has been used to refer to English loanwords in Japanese itself (和製英語 wasei-eigo - literally 'made-in-Japan English') - words not used in a way that English speakers would readily understand.

More commonly, English in Japan takes the form of what is colloquially known as Engrish, a term whose spelling mimics the supposed Japanese inability to articulate the difference between English [r] and [l]. The acceptability of this term is debatable; many Japanese may consider it derogatory, while others may not. It is most widely used by English speakers as a humorous slang term. Furthermore, it is sometimes used to refer to other versions of English in East Asia, e.g. as spoken by Chinese or Korean user of English.

Origin of the term 'Engrish'

The term originates from the fact that Japanese and a few other East Asian languages do not distinguish the phonemes /r/ and /l/ as in English - thus it could be described as an Anglocentric reference, identifying a difference as a deficiency relative to English. Writers attempting to render JE on paper tend to either eliminate the letter l and replace it with r, or else mix them randomly, producing such words as rice for lice. Furthermore, Japanese users of English sometimes mix up the two, leading to mis-spellings in English.

Japanese has an /r/ phoneme which is phonetically often similar to the pronunciation of t or d in American English, where these occur before an unstressed syllable: e.g. city or butter. This sound is known to phoneticians as a flap and transcribed as [ɾ] but is only one of several variants of r found in Japanese. Another is the similar alveolar lateral flap [ɺ]. Some speakers will also pronounce it as a [d] in word-initial position, and some forms may be perceived by English speakers as an [l]. The confusion arises because phonetically the Japanese /r/ is articulated similar to the prounciation of English [l], but phonologically serves as an /r/. Therefore, misinterpretations involving /r/ and /l/ may be as much due to listeners' misperceptions as speakers' approximations.

English language learning in Japan

English is a compulsory subject in Japanese schools from the age of 11; students who enter university are also obliged to take an English course in their first year, assessed through the TOEIC exam. However, although the Japanese government has issued guidelines requiring a focus on real-life communication skills, most teaching is still very 'traditional': a focus on learning grammar rules and on reading the language, with Japanese as the medium of instruction used by almost exclusively Japanese native-speaking teachers. This means that exposure to native English can be limited for many learners, who may have few opportunities to practice listening and speaking.

Wasei-eigo

Parking ticket machine in Osaka, Japan. Above the English version is katakana - パーキング・チケット paakingu chiketto, the wasei-eigo term.

Engrish can also refer to the Japanese pronunciation of English loanwords or a Japanese dialect with a number of English loanwords. Because Japanese has only five vowels, and few consonant clusters, English loanwords are often pronounced in a manner that sounds unusual and even humorous to English speakers. For example, in spoken Japanese, guitarist Eric Clapton becomes エリック・クラプトン Erikku Kuraputon, Australia becomes オーストラリア Oosutoraria, and "McDonald's" becomes マクドナルド Makudonarudo, which is often further abbreviated to マクド Makudo or マック Makku. Japanese uses over 600 imported English words in common speech, sometimes in abbreviated form. Examples are ハンカチ hankachi for "handkerchief", フォーク fooku for "fork", テーブル teeburu for "table", プロレス puroresu for "pro wrestling", and so on. The more outlandish and humorous the pronunciation change is, the more likely it is to be considered Engrish. Even fairly logical English loanwords in Japanese will often sound foreign and unintelligible to an English speaker, such as the use of チーズ chiizu for "cheese" when taking a photograph. These pronunciation changes are linguistically systematic and are completely unrelated to the speaker's intelligence.

Popular culture

Engrish features prominently in Japanese popular culture, as some young Japanese people consider the English language to be highly fashionable. Japanese has assimilated a great deal of vocabulary from the English language, and many popular Japanese songs and television themes feature disjointed phrases in English amongst the mostly Japanese lyrics. Japanese marketing firms helped to create this popularity, and have subsequently created an enormous array of advertisements, products, and clothing marked with English phrases that seem highly amusing or inexplicably bizarre to a native English speaker. These new English terms are generally short-lived, as they are used more fashionably than meaningfully. Many times English is just used in advertising or on products as an attempt to look modern and is not actually an attempt to communicate.

See also

• Japanese popular culture
• Culture of Japan
• Japanese language
• English language
• Lingua franca