Tag: Japanese

矮 in the world is this happening? All dwarfs are not created (or translated) equally.

In the field of astronomy, the term dwarf star has a long history. That history dates back far before the word police would raise their eyebrows and raise a fuss about dwarf being offensive.

That history has followed the term into the Japanese language, where the expression 矮星 has long been used and is still used to refer to dwarf stars, including on numerous pages of the website of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan.

In the age of the word police, however, the demotion of Pluto to the status of dwarf planet presented an opportunity for the authorities (at least here in Japan) to make allow the politics of correctness to intrude into language. The result is that the term is treated differently between Japanese and English.

Whereas 矮星 is accepted for dwarf star in Japanese, 矮惑星 for dwarf planet is avoided, surely for fear that the word police would coming knocking on the door of offensive transgressors. The NAOJ website gives a nod to the dwarf planet use in English, but avoids mention of 矮惑星 in Japanese, preferring to use the safer English term dwarf planet in running Japanese text, rather than use the dreaded 矮 character.

One example, from a FAQ page of the NAOJ website:

太陽系のdwarf planetとは、「太陽の周りを回り」「十分大きな質量を持つために自己重力が固体としての力よりも勝る結果、重力平衡形状（ほぼ球状）を持ち」「その軌道近くから他の天体が排除されていない」「衛星でない」天体である。

[from https://www.nao.ac.jp/faq/a0508.html]

Another method used to avoid 矮 is to call these dwarf planets 準惑星.

I guess the only thing that language realists can be thankful for is that the language revisionists have not banned 矮星 for dwarf star, but perhaps the day will come when we will see that character banned in dwarf stars as well. Time will tell.

The Misconception of Kanji Characters as Ideograms

By William Lise

There is a persistent myth regarding the role of kanji characters used to write Japanese as being ideograms that represent meaning directly, without relation or connection to a specific word or words in Japanese. This misunderstanding has largely been discredited, but it lives on, promoted by some people who believe that kanji provide a method of representing meaning superior to alphabetic orthography used in most languages because the characters lead the reader directly to the meaning.

Many of the believers of this attractive kanji ideogram myth who I have heard expounding on this mistaken theory appear to not to be very skilled at the Japanese language itself, and many I have seen are not functional in spoken Japanese; yet they profess a liking for kanji characters. A kanji dilettante such as this—a member of what I will call The Kanjidilettanti—can occasionally find indirect support from people who should know better: beginning or highly inexperienced Japanese-to-English translators, who sometimes can be heard to claim that they know the meaning of a kanji or kanji compound but don’t know or cannot remember the reading thereof. I say nonsense; well, I say something slightly more descriptive, but let’s keep this discussion family-friendly.

One time I heard a native English-speaking Japanese-to-English translator claim that he knew that 集積回路 means integrated circuit, even though he could not remember that it is read しゅうせきかいろ, therefore affirming his view that kanji are ideograms. Hang on just a minute, Kyle Kanjidilettante! All you are saying is that the compound 集積回路 is for you a logogram for the English expression integrated circuit, which comprises two specific words, thereby invalidating the assertion that kanji are ideograms. You only get arrive at the meaning of integrated circuit if you know those words and their meaning, independent of the kanji. Whether kanji stand for Japanese words or English words, they are logograms. The people who find that disappointing might better busy themselves with other aspects of Japan that they imagine as being exotic or superior.

LRT joins SNS as a Japanese logogram

Executive Summary: Both SNS and LRT have become proper Japanese logograms.

SNS has for years been used as the Japanese logogram for the Japanese word エスエヌエス (ESUENUESU), which is Japanese for social media.

I suspect that few Japanese users of the initialism SNS realize what it stands for, and it should be no surprise that few native English speakers use the initialism, although strictly speaking it does have an origin that can be initialized as SNS. But to everyday walking-around people, it’s social media.

The pronunciation of SNS as the Japanese word ESUENUESU is now accepted, is used by countless media, and can even be seen on government websites, without explanation. For example, on https://www.soumu.go.jp/main_sosiki/joho_tsusin/security/kids/sns/index.html, a page aimed at providing guidance to children in using social media, we find “SNS（エスエヌエス）を使うときの注意”

Enter LRT, which to many in-the-know native English speakers is the initialism for light rail transit. The recent introduction into Japan of this tram-like system has caused LRT to pop up frequently in the news, and accidents involving run-ins with cars have boosted its frequency of occurrence in the media.

As far as I can tell, and certainly on various Japanese-language NHK and Nikkei media, the initialism LRT is voiced as エルアールティ(ERUAARUTEI), and is most often followed with a gloss (both in print and orally) of 次世代型路面電車. Well, yes, it could be called that (next-generation streetcar), but readers and listeners are not given any hint as to what LRT stands for. This makes LRT a logogram for the Japanese expression 次世代型路面電車, and there is no chance of any significant number of native Japanese speakers ever learning what LRT actually stands for, nor will they think of anything but 次世代型路面電車 when they see or hear the Japanese logogram LRT. But that’s just fine, because LRT is Japanese.

I would advise English translators to gloss LRT with its expansion, and to never use SNS unless you are addressing or writing for an audience that would recognize it, and that is quite rare.

Leveraging the katakana advantage

The Japanese word police have for a while been saying that the Japanese name of diabetes (糖尿病) should be changed, basically because the middle character means urine, which has an unpleasant and dirty feeling. There was concern over prejudice against diabetic people because of this.

As reported by NHK on September 22 (https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20230922/k10014204001000.html), the Japan Association for Diabetes Education and Care (公益社団法人 日本糖尿病協会) has now announced a proposal to change the name of the disease in Japanese to the phonetic katakana rendering of the English name diabetes, (DAIABETEISU), from which one cannot even ascertain that it is a name of a disease. It also says that one reason is that there are numerous patients not exhibiting sugar in their urine, but my guess is that the overwhelming concern is the impression feared given by the character for urine. They arguably could have devised another, more-descriptive and more-understandable name in Japanese, but it looks like a win for katakana.

In writing this, I vividly recall when ホームレス people (or, in some circumstances, 路上生活者) were 浮浪者 and reported as such in the news, and when お手伝いさん were 女中.

I suppose an official adoption of this newspeak term DAIABETEISU will require the association to change its name, which currently includes the character for urine.

Language on the move.