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Gairaigo (外来語) is Japanese for "loan word" or "borrowed word", and indicates a transliteration (or "transvocalization") into Japanese. In particular, the word usually refers to a Japanese word of foreign origin that was not borrowed from Chinese. Japanese also has a huge number of loan words from Chinese, accounting for a sizeable fraction of the language. These words were borrowed during ancient times. Modern Chinese loanwords are generally considered gairaigo and written in katakana.
Most, but not all, modern gairaigo are derived from English. Words are taken from English for concepts which do not exist in Japanese, but also for other reasons, such as a preference for English terms or fashionability.
In the past, more gairaigo came from other languages besides English. The first non-Asian countries to have extensive contact with Japan were Portugal and the Netherlands in the 16th and 17th centuries, and Japanese has several loanwords from Portuguese and Dutch, many of which are still used in Japan today.
In the Meiji era, Japan also had extensive contact with Germany, and gained many loanwords from German, particularly for medicine, which the Japanese learned from the Germans. They also gained several loanwords from French at this time.
In written Japanese, gairaigo are usually written in katakana. Older loanwords are also often written using ateji (kanji chosen for their phonetic value) or hiragana, for example tabako from Portuguese, meaning "tobacco" or "cigarette" can be written タバコ (katakana), たばこ (hiragana), or 煙草 (kanji), with no change in meaning.
For a list of terms, see the List of Gairaigo and Wasei-eigo terms.
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False cognates and wasei-eigo
Due to Japanese pronunciation rules and its mora-based phonology, many words when spoken in their entirety take a significant amount of time to pronounce. For example, a one-syllable word in a language such as English (break) often becomes several syllables when pronounced in Japanese (in this case, burēki (ブレーキ), which amounts to four moras). The Japanese language therefore contains many abbreviated and contracted words, and there is a strong tendency to shorten and simplify words. This also takes place with gairaigo words. For example "remote control", when transcribed to Japanese, becomes rimōto kontorōru (リモートコントロール), but this has then been simplified to rimokon (リモコン). For another example, the transcribed word for "department store" is depātomento sutoa (デパートメントストア), but has since been shortened to depāto (デパート). Portmanteaus, such as wāpuro (ワープロ) for "word processor", are common. Karaoke (カラオケ), a combination of the Japanese word kara (meaning empty) and the clipped form oke of the English loanword "orchestra" (J. ōkesutora オーケストラ), is a portmanteau that has entered the English language. Ordinarily, Japanese takes the first part of a foreign word, but from the English words "flannel" and "blanket" they took the second syllables, to form the gairaigo neru (ネル) and ketto (ケット) respectively.
Some Japanese people are not aware of the origins of the words in their language, and may assume that all gairaigo words are legitimate English words. For example, Japanese people may use words like teema ((テーマ, from German Thema, meaning "topic/theme") in English, or rimokon, not realizing that the contraction of "remote control" to rimokon took place in Japan.
Similarly, gairaigo, while making Japanese easier to learn for foreign students in some cases, can also cause problems due to independent semantic progression. For example, English "stove", from which sutōbu (ストーブ) derived, has multiple meanings. Americans often use the word to mean a cooking appliance, and are thus surprised when Japanese take it to mean a space heater (such as a wood-burning stove). The Japanese term for a cooking stove is another gairaigo term, renji (レンジ), from the now obsolete English genericized trademark "range"; a gas stove is a gasurenji (ガスレンジ).
Additionally, Japanese combines words in ways that are uncommon in English. As an example, left over is a baseball term for a hit that goes over the left-fielder's head, rather than uneaten food saved for a later meal. This is a term that appears to be a loan but is actually wasei-eigo, literally, "English made in Japan."
It is sometimes also difficult for learners of Japanese to distinguish between gairaigo, giseigo (onomatopoeia), and gitaigo (ideophones: words that represent the manner of an action, like "zigzag" in English — jiguzagu ジグザグ in Japanese), which are also written in katakana.
Gairaigo as a built-in lexicon of English
The English words that are borrowed into Japanese include many of the most useful English words, including high-frequency vocabulary and academic vocabulary. Thus gairaigo may constitute a useful built-in lexicon for Japanese learners of English.
Gairaigo have been observed to aid a Japanese child’s learning of ESL vocabulary. With adults, gairaigo assist in: English word aural recognition and pronunciation; spelling; listening comprehension; retention of spoken and written English; and recognition and recall at especially higher levels of vocabulary. Moreover, in their written production, Japanese learners prefer using English words that have become gairaigo over those that have not.
Misconceptions
The word arigatō (Japanese for "thank you") sounds similar to the Portuguese word obrigado, which has the same meaning. Given the number of borrowings from Portuguese, it may seem reasonable to suppose that the Japanese imported that word—which is the explanation accepted and indeed published by many. However, arigatō is not a gairaigo; rather, it is an abbreviation of arigatō gozaimasu, which consists of an inflection of the native Japanese adjective arigatai (有難い) combined with the polite verb gozaimasu. Evidence that the word arigatai was in use several centuries before contact with the Portuguese exists, for example, in the Man'yōshū. This makes the two terms false cognates.
See the list of Japanese terms mistaken for gairaigo for more examples.
Reborrowings from Japanese
Some gairaigo words have been reborrowed into their original source languages, particularly in the jargon of fans of Japanese entertainment. For example, anime (アニメ) is gairaigo derived from the English word for "animation", but has been reborrowed by English with the meaning of "animation in the Japanese style". Similarly, puroresu (プロレス) derives from "professional wrestling", and has been adopted by English-speaking wrestling fans as a term for the style of pro wrestling performed in Japan. Kosupure (コスプレ), or cosplay, was formed from the English words "costume play", referring to dressing in costumes such as those of anime, manga, or videogame characters, and is now used with enthusiasm in English and other languages.
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