NEXTDo we Japanese really live in "Multilingual community"?
We are "Group-oriented" people, aren't we? We have shared the same way of thinking
with each other as "Unity People". We've been Westernized since The Meiji restoration.
Have we been influenced by not
only the U.S but other countries? Is it subconsciously?
In every country , in every age,
multilingualism is a normal part of life. Numbers provide a clue
to this: around 5,000 languages coexisting in just 200 countries.
Therefore, an enormous amount of contact is taking place. Japan
is no exception. A lagoon into which language rivers from all
over the world have flowed. Japanese is a delightful and rich
melange, a mixture of diverse sounds and shapes.
Two multilingual minutes on the Chuo Line.
by John C. Maher
〜a two minutes pause laden conversation between two young women, college students〜
| A: Ah!
Nemui....shindoi...(Ah! I'm
half-asleep...shttered...) B: Kino arukoru nomisugitan ja nai.....Kao ga masshiro da yo.....(You had too much to drink yesterday, didn't you...You're white as a sheet.) A: Honto ni? Kino, ie ni kaette terebi mita........"Ikaten"....Omoshirokunai, Kami no ke ga dorai ni natchattashi. Iya da wa.....Gakko sabotcho ka na ?...(Am I? I came home last night and watched some TV..."Ikaten."...Not very good. My hair has become dry. What a drag. Maybe I should skip school.) B: Kyo samui ne....(Pretty cold today, eh?) A: Furansugo no sa...( You know that French...?) B: Mm...demo ano pirafu ga oishikattane.(Mm...but that pilaff was really good, wasn't it?) A: Oishikatta ne. Kyo okasan sake bento tsukutta. (Yeah, it was. My mom made a packed lunch with salmon for me today.) B: Mmmm...He...(Mmm) A: So.(Yeah.) B: Mezurashii ne....Kyo doko de taberu? ( That's new......Where are you eating lunch today ?) A: Ano sensei no namae wa nandattake? Furansugo no...(What's that teacher's name ? The French..?) |
A brief examine:
The word arukoru is Dutch and it entered the country during the misnamed "closed period"(Tokugawa)along with kohi(coffee)and koppu(cup).
There are several Chinese-based words such as sen of sensei and gakko(Compare the Korean hakkyo).
The -shiroi of masshiroi is likely associated with the Mongol shiroi, Middle Mongol shiro'ai(dust, powder, pollen), and Evenki sirugi, sirgi(sand, sandbank in a river),(Miller,1971,Martin,1966).
Other multilingual elements in this sample of language include English loans as terebi and dorai.
Ikaten is a combination of the Austronesian ika (fish) and the Portuguese -ten of tempura(to mix).
From the point of view of morphology, the no of kino can be easily associated with the no, na, ni or n of Polynesian languages signifying past time, e.g. n in the Philippines and New Hebrides, na in the Solomon Islands, In Old Japanese ni, the auxiliary verb, shows a completed action as in sugu-ni (to have passed ) (sugi to pass).
From the point of view of grammar, the "nul-subject"(absence of a grammatical subject) is also typical of Austronesian and Asian languages. It is found in virtually all Philippine languages such as Tagalog and Cebuano and Ilongl as well as Korean and Indonesian and other Languages.
Sake is from the Ainu language.
The sabo- of saboru is a
new grammatical creation. You add the grammatical verb suffix-ru
to the French word sabotage. Then you have the meaning to play
truant from school or miss classes.
What is the reason for Ainu and Chinese and French vocabulary in Japanese ?
What languages are they and how and when did they come to be there ?
How come we are always told that Japanese is an isolated language ?
Perhaps, in all the fuss about "Internationalization," we ought to start by looking at the deeply "international" quality that inhabits the Japanese language: loans from the world's languages.
Can you find a more richly mixed, hybrid
language in the world than Japanese ? The mixture of languages in
Japan is the result of what linguists term "language contact":
when language and dialects in close proximity start to influence
each other. That's happening all over
Japan: then and now.
(Written by John C. Maher......a professor of linguistics at ICU university)
We Japanese don't know more of Ainu and some dialects in Japan than foreigners.
What a shame !
We've been Westernized, and become a developed country, but we are gradually forgetting our own culture and language. It's true our language has its complexity in terms of grammar and other language forms but it's very precious for us to use the correct Japanese and to succeed it to our descendants. Our internationalization have to change its direction into our own culture and mind . I think it leads to our "Individualism" in the world. Right ?
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