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| A page from the
Man'yōshū, the oldest anthology of classical
Japanese poetry. |
Japanese
The Japanese language is very different from English and
most other European languages. Like Finnish, Turkish,
and Korean, Japanese is an agglutinating language, with
two (phonologically distinctive) tones like
Serbian/Croatian and Swedish. It is a language where
sentences need no subject and adjectives can have past
tenses.
History
Little is known of the language's prehistory, or when it
first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from the 3rd
century recorded a few Japanese words, but substantial
texts did not appear until the 8th century. During the
Heian period (794–1185), Chinese had considerable
influence on the vocabulary and phonology of Old
Japanese. |
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Sentence structure
Japanese uses three separate writing systems: hiragana,
katakana, and kanji. The first two are phonetic systems
(writing that shows the pronunciation of Japanese
words), and kanji is the Japanese variation of Chinese
characters (which show the meaning of Japanese words).
The three systems are used interchangeably, and all
three systems can often be found in the same sentence.
The three systems are each reserved for different
purposes.
In English, the order of the words is very important.
For example, the sentences "Is it?" and "It is." mean
different things. In Japanese a lot of these differences
are made by adding or changing the endings of words.
Japanese often use titles of the person referred to
where pronouns would be used in English. For example,
when speaking to one's teacher, it is appropriate to use
sensei (先生, teacher), but inappropriate to use anata.
This is because anata is used to refer to people of
equal or lower status, and one's teacher has higher
status. |
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Politeness
The Japanese language can express differing levels in
social status. The differences in social position are
determined by a variety of factors including job, age,
experience, or even psychological state (e.g., a person
asking a favour tends to do so politely). The person in
the lower position is expected to use a polite form of
speech, whereas the other person might use a plainer
form. Strangers will also speak to each other politely.
Japanese children rarely use polite speech until they
are teens, at which point they are expected to begin
speaking in a more adult manner. |
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Study by non-native speakers
Many major universities throughout the world provide
Japanese language courses, and a number of secondary and
even primary schools worldwide offer courses in the
language. This is much changed from before World War II;
in 1940, only 65 Americans not of Japanese descent were
able to read, write and understand the language.
International interest in the Japanese language dates
from the 19th century but has become more prevalent
following Japan's economic bubble of the 1980s and the
global popularity of Japanese popular culture (such as
anime and video games) since the 1990s. Close to 4
million people studied the language worldwide in 2012.
In Japan, more than 90,000 foreign students studied at
Japanese universities and Japanese language schools,
including 77,000 Chinese and 15,000 South Koreans in
2003. In addition, local governments and some NPO groups
provide free Japanese language classes for foreign
residents. In the United Kingdom, study of the Japanese
language is supported by the British Association for
Japanese Studies. In Ireland, Japanese is offered as a
language in the Leaving Certificate in some schools. |
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