The word Japan is an exonym, and is used (in one form or another) by many languages. The Japanese names for Japan are (Japanese: {{Audio|ja-nihon(日本).ogg|にほん|help=no) and (Japanese: {{Audio|ja-nippon(日本).ogg|にっぽん|help=no). They are both written in Japanese using the kanji Japanese: 日本.
During the third-century CE Three Kingdoms period, Japan was inhabited by the Yayoi people who lived in Kyushu up to the Kanto region. They were called Wa in Chinese, and the kanji for their name can be translated as "dwarf" or "submissive".[1] Japanese scribes found fault with its offensive connotation, and officially changed the characters they used to spell the native name for Japan, Yamato, replacing the ("dwarf") character for Wa with the homophone ("peaceful, harmonious"). Wa was often combined with ("great") to form the name, which is read as Yamato[2] [3] (see also Jukujikun for a discussion of this type of spelling where the kanji and pronunciations are not directly related). The earliest record of appears in the Chinese Old Book of Tang, which notes the change in 703 when Japanese envoys requested that its name be changed. It is believed that the name change within Japan itself took place sometime between 665 and 703.[4] During the Heian period, was gradually replaced by, which was first pronounced with the Chinese reading (on'yomi) Nippon and later as Nifon, and then in modern usage Nihon, reflecting shifts in phonology in Early Modern Japanese. Marco Polo called Japan 'Cipangu' around 1300, based on the Chinese name, probably (compare modern Min Nan pronunciation ji̍t pún kok). In the 16th century in Malacca, Portuguese traders first heard from Malay and Indonesian the names Jepang, Jipang, and Jepun. In 1577 it was first recorded in English, spelled Giapan. At the end of the 16th century, Portuguese missionaries came to Japan and created grammars and dictionaries of Middle Japanese. The 1603–1604 dictionary Vocabvlario da Lingoa de Iapam has 2 entries: nifon[5] and iippon.[6] Since then many derived names of Japan appeared on early-modern European maps.
Both Nippon and Nihon literally mean "the sun's origin", that is, where the sun originates,[7] and are often translated as the Land of the Rising Sun. This nomenclature comes from Imperial correspondence with the Chinese Sui dynasty and refers to Japan's eastern position relative to China. Before Nihon came into official use, Japan was known as or .[8] Wa was a name early China used to refer to an ethnic group living in Japan around the time of the Three Kingdoms period. The Yayoi people primarily lived on the island of Kyushu to the Kanto region on Honshu.
Although the etymological origins of "Wa" remain uncertain, Chinese historical texts recorded an ancient people residing in the Japanese archipelago (perhaps Kyūshū), named something like *ˀWâ or *ˀWər Chinese: 倭. Carr (1992:9–10) surveys prevalent proposals for Wa's etymology ranging from feasible (transcribing Japanese first-person pronouns waga Japanese: 我が "my; our" and ware Japanese: 我 "I; oneself; thou") to shameful (writing Japanese Wa as Chinese: 倭 implying "dwarf"), and summarizes interpretations for *ˀWâ "Japanese" into variations on two etymologies: "behaviorally 'submissive' or physically 'short'." The first "submissive; obedient" explanation began with the (121 CE) Shuowen Jiezi dictionary. It defines Chinese: 倭 as shùnmào Chinese: 順皃 "obedient/submissive/docile appearance", graphically explains the "person; human" radical Chinese: 亻 with a wěi Chinese: 委 "bent" phonetic, and quotes the above Shijing poem. "Conceivably, when Chinese first met Japanese," Carr (1992:9) suggests "they transcribed Wa as *ˀWâ 'bent back' signifying 'compliant' bowing/obeisance. Bowing is noted in early historical references to Japan." Examples include "Respect is shown by squatting" (Hou Han Shu, tr. Tsunoda 1951:2), and "they either squat or kneel, with both hands on the ground. This is the way they show respect." (Wei Zhi, tr. Tsunoda 1951:13). Koji Nakayama interprets wēi Chinese: 逶 "winding" as "very far away" and euphemistically translates Wō Chinese: 倭 as "separated from the continent." The second etymology of wō Chinese: 倭 meaning "dwarf, pygmy" has possible cognates in ǎi Chinese: 矮 "low, short (of stature)", wō Chinese: 踒 "strain; sprain; bent legs", and wò Chinese: 臥 "lie down; crouch; sit (animals and birds)". Early Chinese dynastic histories refer to a Zhūrúguó Chinese: 侏儒國 "pygmy/dwarf country" located south of Japan, associated with possibly Okinawa Island or the Ryukyu Islands. Carr cites the historical precedence of construing Wa as "submissive people" and the "Country of Dwarfs" legend as evidence that the "little people" etymology was a secondary development.
Chinese, Korean, and Japanese scribes regularly wrote Wa or Yamato "Japan" with the Chinese character Chinese: 倭 until the 8th century, when the Japanese found fault with it due to its offensive connotation, replacing it with Chinese: 和 "harmony, peace, balance". Retroactively, this character was adopted in Japan to refer to the country itself, often combined with the character Chinese: 大 (literally meaning "Great"), so as to write the name as Yamato (Chinese: 大和) (Great Wa, in a manner similar to e.g. Chinese: 大清帝國 Great Qing Empire, Chinese: 大英帝國 Empire of Great Britain). However, the pronunciation Yamato cannot be formed from the sounds of its constituent characters; it refers to a place in Japan and, based on the specific spellings used in ancient documents (see also Man'yōgana and Old Japanese#Vowels), this may have originally meant .[9] [10] [11] Such words which use certain kanji to name a certain Japanese word solely for the purpose of representing the word's meaning regardless of the given kanji's on'yomi or kun'yomi, a.k.a. jukujikun, is not uncommon in Japanese. Other original names in Chinese texts include Yamatai country (Chinese: 邪馬台国), where a Queen Himiko lived. When hi no moto, the indigenous Japanese way of saying "sun's origin", was written in kanji, it was given the characters Chinese: 日本. In time, these characters began to be read using Sino-Japanese readings, first Nippon and later Nihon, although the two names are interchangeable to this day.
Nippon appeared in history only at the end of the 7th century. The Old Book of Tang (Chinese: 舊唐書), one of the Twenty-Four Histories, stated that the Japanese envoy disliked his country's name Woguo (Chinese) (Chinese: 倭國), and changed it to Nippon (Chinese: 日本), or "Origin of the Sun". Another 8th-century chronicle, True Meaning of Shiji (Chinese: 史記正義), however, states that the Chinese Empress Wu Zetian ordered a Japanese envoy to change the country's name to Nippon. It has been suggested that the name change in Japan may have taken place sometime between 665 and 703, and Wu Zetian then acceded to the name change in China following a request from a delegation from Japan in 703.[12] The sun plays an important role in Japanese mythology and religion as the emperor is said to be the direct descendant of the sun goddess Amaterasu and the legitimacy of the ruling house rested on this divine appointment and descent from the chief deity of the predominant Shinto religion. The name of the country reflects this central importance of the sun. The association of the country with the sun was indicated in a letter sent in 607 and recorded in the official history of the Sui dynasty. Prince Shōtoku, the Regent of Japan, sent a mission to China with a letter in which he called the emperor of Japan (actually an empress at the time) . The message said: "The Son of Heaven, on the Land of the Rising Sun, sends this letter to the Son of Heaven of the Land, where the Sun sets, and wishes him well".[13] [14]
The English word for Japan came to the West from early trade routes. The early Mandarin Chinese or possibly Wu Chinese word for Japan was recorded by Marco Polo as Cipangu.[15] The Malay and Indonesian words Jepang, Jipang, and Jepun were borrowed from non-Mandarin Chinese languages, and this Malay word was encountered by Portuguese traders in Malacca in the 16th century. It is thought the Portuguese traders were the first to bring the word to Europe. It was first recorded in English in 1577 spelled Giapan.[16]
In English, the modern official title of the country is simply "Japan", one of the few countries to have no "long form" name. The official Japanese-language name is Nippon-koku or Nihon-koku (Japanese: 日本国), literally "State of Japan".[17] As an adjective, the term "Dai-Nippon" remains popular with Japanese governmental, commercial, or social organizations whose reach extend beyond Japan's geographic borders (e.g., Dai Nippon Printing, Dai Nippon Butoku Kai, etc.).
Though Nippon or Nihon are still by far the most popular names for Japan from within the country, recently the foreign words Japan and even Jipangu (from Cipangu, see below) have been used in Japanese mostly for the purpose of foreign branding.
Portuguese missionaries arrived in Japan at the end of the 16th century. In the course of learning Japanese, they created several grammars and dictionaries of Middle Japanese. The 1603–1604 dictionary Vocabvlario da Lingoa de Iapam contains two entries for Japan: nifon[18] and iippon.[19] The title of the dictionary (Vocabulary of the Language of Japan) illustrates that the Portuguese word for Japan was by that time Iapam.
Historically, Japanese pronounced as //h// has undergone a number of phonological changes. Originally *pronounced as /link/, this weakened into pronounced as /link/ and eventually became the modern pronounced as /link/. Modern pronounced as //h// is still pronounced pronounced as /[ɸ]/ when followed by pronounced as //ɯ//.
Middle Japanese nifon becomes Modern Japanese nihon via regular phonological changes.
Before modern styles of romanization, the Portuguese devised their own. In it, pronounced as //zi// is written as either ii or ji. In modern Hepburn style, iippon would be rendered as Jippon. There are no historical phonological changes to take into account here.
Etymologically, Jippon is similar to Nippon in that it is an alternative reading of Japanese: 日本. The initial character Japanese: 日 may also be read as pronounced as //ziti// or pronounced as //zitu//. Compounded with pronounced as //hoɴ// (Japanese: 本), this regularly becomes Jippon.
Unlike the Nihon/Nippon doublet, there is no evidence for a *Jihon.
The Japanese name for Japan, Japanese: 日本, can be pronounced either Nihon or Nippon. Both readings come from the on'yomi.
Japanese: 日 (nichi) means "sun" or "day"; Japanese: 本 (hon) means "base" or "origin". The compound means "origin of the sun", or "source of the sun"[20] or "where the sun rises" (from a Chinese point of view, the sun rises from Japan); it is a source for the popular Western description of Japan as the "Land of the Rising Sun".
Nichi, in compounds, often loses the final chi and creates a slight pause between the first and second syllables of the compound. When romanised, this pause is represented by a doubling of the first consonant of the second syllable; thus nichi Japanese: 日 plus kō Japanese: 光 (light) is written and pronounced nikkō, meaning sunlight.
Japanese Japanese: [[wiktionary:日|日]] and Japanese: [[wiktionary:本|本]] were historically pronounced niti (or jitu, reflecting a Late Middle Chinese pronunciation) and pon, respectively. In compounds, however, final voiceless stops (i.e. p, t, k) of the first word were unreleased in Middle Chinese, and the pronunciation of 日本 was thus Nippon or Jippon (with the adjacent consonants assimilating).
Min Chinese languages still retain this pronunciation of 日本, such as Northern Min Nì-bǒ̤ng (Jian'ou dialect) or Fuzhounese Nĭk-buōng. In modern Toisanese, a Yue Chinese language, 日本 is pronounced as Ngìp Bāwn [ŋip˦˨ bɔn˥]. [21]
Historical sound change in Japanese has led to the modern pronunciations of the individual characters as nichi and hon. The pronunciation Nihon originated, possibly in the Kantō region, as a reintroduction of this independent pronunciation of Japanese: 本 into the compound. This must have taken place during the Edo period, after another sound change occurred which would have resulted in this form becoming Niwon and later Nion.
Several attempts to choose a definitive official reading were rejected by the Japanese government, which declared both to be correct.[22]
While both pronunciations are correct, Nippon is frequently preferred for official purposes,[23] including money, stamps, and international sporting events, as well as the Nippon-koku, literally the "State of Japan" (Japanese: 日本国).
Other than this, there seem to be no fixed rules for choosing one pronunciation over the other, but in some cases, one form is simply more common. For example, Japanese-speakers generally call their language Nihongo; Nippongo, while possible,[24] is rarely used. In other cases, uses are variable. The name for the Bank of Japan (Japanese: 日本銀行), for example, is given as NIPPON GINKO on banknotes but is often referred to, such as in the media, as Nihon Ginkō.[25]
Nippon is the form that is used usually or exclusively in the following constructions:[26]
Nihon is used always or most often in the following constructions:[27]
In 2016, element 113 on the periodic table was named nihonium to honor its discovery in 2004 by Japanese scientists at RIKEN.[31]
As mentioned above, the English word Japan has a circuitous derivation; but linguists believe it derives in part from the Portuguese recording of the Early Mandarin Chinese or Wu Chinese word for Japan: Cipan (Chinese: 日本), which is rendered in pinyin as Rìběn (IPA: ʐʅ˥˩pən˨˩˦), and literally translates to "sun origin". Guó (IPA: kuo˨˦) is Chinese for "realm" or "kingdom", so it could alternatively be rendered as Cipan-guo. The word was likely introduced to Portuguese through the Malay: Jipan.
Cipangu was first mentioned in Europe in the accounts of Marco Polo.[15] It appears for the first time on a European map with the Fra Mauro map in 1457, although it appears much earlier on Chinese and Korean maps such as the Gangnido. Following the accounts of Marco Polo, Cipangu was thought to be fabulously rich in silver and gold, which in Medieval times was largely correct, owing to the volcanism of the islands and the possibility to access precious ores without resorting to (unavailable) deep-mining technologies.
The modern Shanghainese pronunciation of Japan is Zeppen pronounced as /zəʔpən/. In modern Japanese, Cipangu is transliterated as Japanese: チパング which in turn can be transliterated into English as Chipangu, Jipangu, Zipangu, Jipang, or Zipang. Jipangu (Japanese: ジパング (Zipangu)) as an obfuscated name for Japan has recently come into vogue for Japanese films, anime, video games, etc.
These names were invented after the introduction of Chinese into the language, and they show up in historical texts for prehistoric legendary dates and also in names of gods and Japanese emperors:
The katakana transcription Japanese: ジャパン (Japan) of the English word Japan is sometimes encountered in Japanese, for example in the names of organizations seeking to project an international image. Examples include Japanese: ジャパンネット銀行 (Japan Netto Ginkō) (Japan Net Bank), Japanese: ジャパンカップ (Japan Kappu) (Japan Cup), Japanese: ワイヤレスジャパン (Waiyaresu Japan) (Wireless Japan), etc.
Dōngyáng (Chinese: 東洋) and Dōngyíng (Chinese: 東瀛) – both literally, "Eastern Ocean" – are Chinese terms sometimes used to refer to Japan exotically when contrasting it with other countries or regions in eastern Eurasia; however, these same terms may also be used to refer to all of East Asia when contrasting "the East" with "the West". The first term, Dōngyáng, has been considered to be a pejorative term when used to mean "Japan", while the second, Dōngyíng, has remained a positive poetic name. They can be contrasted with Nányáng (Southern Ocean), which refers to Southeast Asia, and Xīyáng (Western Ocean), which refers to the Western world. In Japanese and Korean, the Chinese word for "Eastern Ocean" (pronounced as tōyō in Japanese and as dongyang (Korean: 동양) in Korean) is used only to refer to the Far East (including both East Asia and Southeast Asia) in general, and it is not used in the more specific Chinese sense of "Japan".
In Mandarin Chinese, Japan is called Rìběn Chinese: 日本. The Cantonese pronunciation is Yahtbún pronounced as /[jɐt˨ pun˧˥]/, the Shanghainese pronunciation is Zeppen pronounced as /[zəʔpən]/, the Hokkien pronunciation is Ji̍tpún or Li̍t-pún, the standard Hakka pronunciation is Ngi̍t-pún and the Teochew pronunciation is Ji̍k púng. This has influenced the Malay name for Japan, Jepun, and the Thai word Yipun (Thai: ญี่ปุ่น). The terms Jepang and Jipang were previously used in both Malay and Indonesian, but are today confined primarily to the Indonesian language. The Japanese introduced Nippon and Dai Nippon into Indonesia during the Japanese Occupation (1942–1945) but the native Jepang remains more common. In Korean, Japan is called Ilbon (Hangeul: Korean: 일본, Hanja: Korean: 日本), which is the Korean pronunciation of the Sino-Korean name, and in Sino-Vietnamese, Japan is called Nhật Bản (also rendered as Nhựt Bổn). In Mongolian, Japan is called Yapon (Япон).
Ue-kok (Chinese: 倭國) is recorded for older Hokkien speakers.[35] In the past, Korea also used Korean: 倭國, pronounced Waeguk (Korean: 왜국).
These are historic names of Japan that were noted on old maps issued in Europe.
Unicode includes several character sequences that have been used to represent Japan graphically:
These are some of the contemporary names for Japan in different languages.
| Language | Contemporary name for Japan (romanization) | |
|---|---|---|
| Albanian | Japonia | |
| Amharic | Amharic: ጃፓን (japani) | |
| Arabic | Arabic: اليابان (al-yābān) | |
| Armenian | ճապոնիա (Chaponia) | |
| Azerbaijani | Yaponiya | |
| Bengali | Bengali: জাপান (Jāpān) | |
| Basque | Japonia | |
| Belarusian | Японія (Japonija) | |
| Bulgarian | Япония (Yaponiya) | |
| Catalan | Japó | |
| Cornish | Nihon | |
| Croatian | Japan | |
| Czech | Japonsko | |
| Danish | Japan | |
| Dutch | Japan | |
| English | Japan | |
| Filipino | Hapón (from Spanish, Japón) | |
| Finnish | Japani | |
| French | Japon | |
| Galician | O Xapón | |
| Georgian | იაპონია (iaponia) | |
| German | Japan | |
| Greek | Ιαπωνία (Iaponía) | |
| Hawaiian | Iapana | |
| Hebrew | Hebrew: יפן (Yapan) | |
| Hindi | Hindi: जापान (jāpān) | |
| Hungarian | Japán | |
| Icelandic | Japan | |
| Indonesian | Jepang | |
| Irish | An tSeapáin | |
| Italian | Giappone | |
| Kannada | ಜಪಾನ್ (jāpān) | |
| Kazakh | Жапония (Japoniya) | |
| Khmer | Central Khmer: ជប៉ុន (japon) | |
| Laotian | Lao: ຍີ່ປຸ່ນ (nyipun) | |
| Lithuanian | Japonija | |
| Malay | Jepun (Malay: جڤون) | |
| Malayalam | Malayalam: ജപ്പാൻ (jappān) | |
| Maltese | Ġappun | |
| Manx | Yn çhapaan | |
| Marathi | Marathi: जपान (japān) | |
| Mongolian | Япон (Yapon) | |
| Persian | Persian: ژاپن (žāpon) in Iran and جاپان (jāpān) in Afghanistan | |
| Polish | Japonia | |
| Portuguese | Japão | |
| Quechua | Nihun | |
| Romanian | Japonia | |
| Russian | Япония (Yaponiya) | |
| Scottish Gaelic | Iapan | |
| Serbian | Јапан (Japan) | |
| Sinhala | Sinhala; Sinhalese: ජපානය (Japanaya) | |
| Slovak | Japonsko | |
| Slovenian | Japonska | |
| Spanish | Japón | |
| Swedish | Japan | |
| Tamil | Tamil: ஜப்பான் (Jappaan) | |
| Thai | Thai: ญี่ปุ่น (yîi-bpùn) | |
| Turkish | Japonya | |
| Ukrainian | Ukrainian: Японія (Yaponiya) | |
| Urdu | Urdu: {{nq|جاپان (jāpān) | |
| Vietnamese | Vietnamese: Nhật Bản | |
| Welsh | Japan (sometimes spelt Siapan) | |
| Xhosa | Japhan |