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English Loanwords in Japanese: Why Are They Difficult for English-Speaking Students?
Author(s): Hiroko C. Quackenbush
Source: The Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese, Vol. 12, No. 2/3 (May - Sep.,
1977), pp. 149-173
Published by: American Association of Teachers of Japanese
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/489164
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JOURNAL OF THE ASSOCIATION Vol. XII, No. 2 & 3
OF TEACHERS OF JAPANESE May & September 1977
ENGLISH LOANWORDSIN JAPANESE*
WHY ARE THEY DIFFICULT FOR
ENGLISH-SPEAKING STUDENTS?
HIROKO C. QUACKENBUSH
INTRODUCTION: Native speakers of Japanese are often
unaware of the difficulty English-speaking students
experience learning English loanwords in Japanese. The
native speakers assume that English loanwords must be
easy for the students, simply because these words were
borrowed from English. They think that the loanwords
must retain most of their original form and meaning,
even after they have become a part of the Japanese
lexicon. Another reason for this view is that loanwords
are written in the Katakana syllabary which employs
fewer than fifty symbols, in contrast to the two to
three thousand complicated Chinese characters regularly
used in writing Japanese other than the loanwords from
Western languages. The true picture, of course, is that
semantic and grammatical features undergo significant
changes and rearrangements, and pronunciation is
modified to the extent that the English originals are
often difficult to recognize. It is true that the
Katakana syllabary itself is not difficult to learn,
but that does not help the students very much because
the difficulty in learning English loanwords lies somewhere
else. The objective of this article is to explore
the reasons why English loanwords in Japanese are
difficult for English-speaking students.
In SECTION I, I shall consider the nature of the
difficulty caused by non-uniformity in the process of
borrowing, and in certain cases, of creating loanwords.
In SECTION II, I shall explain the difficulty in terms
of the complexity of the Japanization rules, which
native speakers possess as a part of their linguistic
competence, and non-native speakers must acquire as an
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150 HIROKO C. QUACKENBUSH
important skill. In SECTION III, I shall analyse the
difficulty viewed from the aspects of production and
recognition of loanwords primarily in written forms.
Throughout the paper my primary concern will be the
formal changes between the English words and their
corresponding Japanese forms. Equally interesting
problems involving semantic features of loanwords, such
as 'specialization', 'widening', or transformation of
various semantic features, will be left aside in this
paper.
SECTION I. Non-uniformity in the Japanization Process.
There is a significant number of loanwords in
Japanese which cannot be economically described by a
set of rules because of the variety of means by which
the loanwords have been borrowed. Some of the more
significant factors which have determined the Japanization
process are listed below:
(a) Reflecting the attitude of the time toward
loanwords, different sets of rules were applied to
loanwords at different periods. For example, when
'truck' was first borrowed it came into the
language as /toroQko/, and later /toraQku/ was
adopted. This latter Japanese form reflects the
greater present-day effort to imitate English sounds
more accurately.
(b) Some words came in primarily through the
oral medium: /o:rai/ all right; /papuko:N/ popcorn;
while others were introduced through the written
medium: /haNma:/ hammer; /rajio/ radio; /raberu/
label.
(c) Some loanwords have their Japanized forms
based on American English rather than British:
/saQka:/ soccer; /kakuteru/ cocktail; /naNseNsu/
nonsense.
(d) Some words have been truncated: /depa:to/
department-store; /suto/ strike; /infure/ infZation;
/nisu/ varnish; /ero dakusoN/ erotic production;
/masu komi/ mass communication.
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ENGLISH LOANWORDS
(e) Abbreviations are common: /jaru/ Japan
Air Lines; /o:eru/ office lady.
(f) There are many blends which combine English
with native Japanese elements: /toNkatsu/ < /toN/
pig + /katsu/ cutlet; /deNki sutaNdo/ < /deNki/
electricity + /sutaNdo/ stand = floor lamp; /demoru/
/demo/ demonstrate + /ru/ (Japanese verb inflection).
(g) Some words came to have variant forms. In
many cases the differences were due to the kinds of
loan phonology, one being conservative and the other,
innovative: /ci:muovti:mu/ team; /iNki iNku/ ink;
/bode:^bodi:/ body.1
(h) When there are alternative forms, the situation
is further complicated by disagreements among
the guidelines given to the public. For example,
the Japanese Language Council and N.H.K. (Japan
Broadcasting Corporation) recommend different forms:
veil raincoat aluminium
Japanese Language be:ru re:Nko:to aruminiumu
Council
N.H.K. ve:ru reiNko:to aruminyu:mu
(i) There are some "made-in-Japan" English loanwords,
for example, /naita:/< night + er = nighttime
baseball game; /bijinesu hoteru/ < business
hotel = hotel used by businessmen during their
business trips; /romaNsu ka:/ < romance + car =
train or bus with double seats.
These are, then, examples of various types of loanwords
which, because of their non-uniform manner of
adaptation to Japanese, cannot be described by productive
rules which apply to present-day borrowings.
Therefore students must learn these loanwords as individual
items just as when they learn native Japanese vocabu-
lary.
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152 HIROKO C. QUACKENBUSH
SECTION II. Some Japanization Rules.
As shown in Section I, the process of adaptation of
English words to Japanese is by no means completely
uniform. However, the bulk of the borrowings tend to
follow certain general rules. In other words, the
majority of educated native speakers of Japanese would
produce the same Japanized form of a totally new English
word, especially when both its pronunciation and spelling
are given. The rules which are discussed in this
section are some of the most basic and general rules
which are currently productive. The aim of this section
is to illustrate that these rules are fairly simple in
their basic forms, but must be modified into a more
complex set in order to take care of the details. The
learning difficulty is increased by the fact that these
rules are not stated solely in terms of phonological
changes; consideration of spelling and conservative vs.
innovative phonology must also be taken into account,
making the students' task of internalizing these rules
a major problem.
1. Syllable Restructuring:
When English words enter Japanese, the most
significant thing which takes place is the restructuring
of the English words in terms of Japanese syllable
structure. Incoming English words are made to conform
to the following permissible syllables in Japanese:
1. Short syllables 2. Long syllables2
a. V a. V:
b. CV b. CV:
c V .VN c. V:N
d. CVN d. CV:N
e. VQ (CV) e. V:Q
Q () f.CVQ() f. :Q
These Japanese syllables in turn consist of the
following types of mora which serve as a unit of length
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ENGLISH LOANWORDS
and as the basis for the Katakana orthography.
Katakana symbols
a. V consisting of vowel alone 7'
b. CV consisting of consonant
plus vowel
c. N mora nasal
d. Q
e.
'1r·7jT j-
etc.
>
mora obstruent
vowel length
The syllables ending in the mora obstruent /Q/ must
always be followed by a syllable which has an initial
consonant. Otherwise all other syllables listed above
can occur alone or in any combination to form Japanese
words, allowing only two kinds of consonant cluster /NC/
and /QC/.
Examples are given below in order to illustrate how
one-syllable English words are made to conform to the
basically open syllable structure of Japanese. The
spaces are inserted to indicate mora divisions.
Short Syllable Words:
Japanese
CVCV
CVN
CVQCV
CVCVCV
CVCVN
CVCVQCV
CVCVCVNCV
CVCVCVCV
CVCVCVNCV
pa su
pe N
pe Q to
su ri ru
pu ra N
su te Q pu
su to re su
su pu ri N gu
CVCVCVQCV su to ri Q pu
cvc -)
ccvc -)
cccvc -C
English
pass
pen
pet
thrill
plan
step
stress
spring
strip
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HIROKO C. QUACKENBUSH
CVCVCV
CVNCV
CVQCVCV
CVCVCVCV
CVCVCVCV
CVCVNCV
CVCVQCVCV
cvcvcvcvcV
CVCVCVNCV
te
ha
mi
su to
N do
Q ku su
te ki su to
to
fu
su
ra
re
ra
su ku
su pu
CCVCCC CVCVNCVCV su fi N ku su sphinx
Long Syllable Words:
cv CV:
VC V:CV
CVC -> V:CV
CV:N
- CVCV:CV
CVCV:N
Japanese
ki :
o : ru
u : ru
to: N
English
key
all
wool
tone
ke : to
ri : N
skate
clean
cccvc - CVCVCV:CV
CVCVCV:N
CVCC - CV:CVCV
CV:CVN
su to ri : to
su ku ri : N
to
v .
Si
: su to
: zu N
In order to account for the process of adaptation to
Japanese syllable structure as shown above, we need at
cvcc ->
cvccc 4
CCVCC cccvcc
-
test
hand
mix
text
bu ru
N do
Q ku su
ri pu to
ri N to
trouble
friend
slacks
script
sprint
CCVC su
ku
street
screen
toast
season
154
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ENGLISH LOANWORDS 155
least the following four groups of rules: (1) nasal
rules, (2) consonant gemination rules, (3) vowel
insertion rules and (4) glide syllabification rules.
(The rules are informal and stated in most general
forms.)
(1) NASAL RULES:
A. Nasal Rule (preconsonantal):
[ + nasal ] 4 N/_C
When English words enter Japanese, the
preconsonantal nasals /m, n, q/E are
interpreted as allophones of the mora nasal
/N/J.
English Japanese
lamp raNpu
tent teNto
trunk toraNku
lens reNzu
B. Nasal Rule (word-final):
n N
03 Ng
B4n] [:
A somewhat different rule applies in the
case of word-final nasals. /m/ remains as /m/j
while /n/E is interpreted as /N/j, and probably
owing to the spelling /Q/E becomes /Ng/J.
English Japanese
ham hamu
pen peN
king kiNgu
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156 HIROKO C. QUACKENBUSH
Important exceptions are /piNpoN/J = pingpong,
/hoNkoN/j
= Hong Kong, etc.
(2) CONSONANT GEMINATION RULES:
VC -- VQC
Certain consonants in some English words
undergo gemination. This rule together with the
vowel insertion rule, which will follow, changes
the VC syllable pattern of English words to the
VQCV pattern of the Japanese syllables. In the
following discussion, gemination rules applicable
to one-syllable words are considered.
A. Gemination in one-syllable words with
single final consonant.
VC# -e VQC#
In the most general form of this rule,
the vowel is one of the short vowels /I, £,
,a A, a, o, u/E, and the consonant (after the
vowel) is an obstruent except the continuents
/s, z, e, d/.
English Japanese
I bit biQto
e set seQto
ae bat baQto
A cut kaQto
a* hot hoQto
o hot hoQto
u foot fuQto
p tip ciQpu
t mit miQto
k kick kiQku
b Bob boQbu
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ENGLISH LOANWORDS 157
d
g
v
s
v
c
s
z
9
bed
bag
rush
touch
badge
bus
Liz
bath
beQdo
baQgu
raQsu
taQci
baQ3i
basu
rizu
basu
* American pronunciation of orthographic o
B. Gemination in one-syllable
consonant clusters.
words with final
vcc# - VQCC#
In the case of word-final consonant clusters,
an obstruent which is followed only by a nasal or
a liquid or /s/E is geminated, but not such
sequences as st and sk as in test or task.
English Japanese
haQpuN
kaQpuru
ciQpusu
riQtoru
taQkuru
boQkusu
reQsuN
haQsuru
happen
couple
chips
little
tackle
box
lesson
hustle
pn
pl
ps
tl
kl
ks
sn
sl
C. Geminate Devoicing Rule (applies only in
conservative phonology).
C -+ [ - voice ]
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158 HIROKO C. QUACKENBUSH
Voiced geminate consonants are an illegal
surface form in native Japanese. Therefore the
devoicing rule is applied to the derivation of
the consonant gemination rule. Devoicing
regularly applied to early loanwords, but in
innovative loanword phonology this devoicing
rule does not apply. Alternative forms--one
with voiced geminates and one with voiceless
geminates--are often found as shown below:
Japanese
English Innovative Conservative
bag baQgu baQku
badge baQji baQci
bulldog burudoQgu burudoQku
(3) VOWELINSERTION RULES:
A. 0 - V/C_ (C)
In order to conform to the basic CV pattern
of Japanese syllable structure, a vowel is
added to every consonant except nasals (see Nasal
Rule, above) when the consonant is not already
followed by a vowel.
The vowel inserted is the high back vowel /u/
in most cases. However, after dentals /t, d/ the
vowel is /o/, and after palatal affricates /c, j/
the vowel is /i/. Therefore the basic rule above
has to be modified as A(i), A(ii), A(iii) and
applied in that order.
A. (i) 0 / t
(ii) X i /__ (
(iii) X - u/ C (#)_ (C
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ENGLISH LOANWORDS
trick > toriQku
dry > dorai
pocket > pokeQto
ride > raido
bench > beNci
change > ceN3i
There are a fair number of exceptions to the
modified rule: Many words have /tsu/ rather
than the expected /to/.
tree tsuri: suit su:tsu
tour tsua:
two tsu:
bucket baketsu
cutlet katsuretsu
In certain loanwords the vowel /i/ rather
than the expected /u/ is added after the velar
stops and the palatal sibilants.
Innovative
ink
cake
text
squash
brush
iNku
tekusuto
sukaQsu
braQSsu
Conservative
iNki
ke:ki
tekisuto
sukaQsi
brasi
(4) GLIDE SYLLABIFICATION RULES:
Glide -> [ + vocalic ]
In Japanese the glides have restricted distributions:
/w/ occurs only before /a/, and /y/ occurs
only before /a, o, u/. Therefore the glides in
English words before the vowels, whose Japanese
equivalents are other than the ones mentioned above,
are either (i) deleted as in the case of /w/ before
/u/j or /y/ before /i/j, or (ii) syllabified as in
the cases of /w/ before /i, e, o/j and /y/ before
/e/j. The application of these rules follows the
vowel transfer rules. (See (5): VOWELTRANSFER
RULES.)
t > to
d> do
v V.
C > C1i
V V.
J > JJ1
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HIROKO C. QUACKENBUSH
A. Glide Deletion Rule:
Ly
B. Glide Vocalization Rule:
(i) w > u/_ except before /a/
(ii) y - i/_e
English Japanese
watt
wit
wood
wet
water
waQto
uiQto
uQdo
ueQto
uo: ta:
English Japanese
young
yeast
youth
yellow
yoke
yaNgu
i:suto
yu:su
iero:
yo:ku
2. Segment Transfer:
In addition to the four groups of rules which
convert English words to the Japanese syllable structure,
we need two other groups of rules which make English
words conform to Japanese segmental phonology. One
group of rules converts English vowels to Japanese
vowels, and another group of rules converts English
consonants to Japanese consonants.
(5) VOWELTRANSFERRULES:
A. /V/E
and
are
/i,
o: ,
-4 /V/J
Since Japanese has a five-vowel system,
vowel length is phonemic, English vowels
interpreted as one of the short vowels
e, a, o, u/ or the long vowels /i:, e:, a:,
u:/ or sequences of these vowels.
160
0 / -:u
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ENGLISH LOANWORDS
Short Vowels
Engli
I > i gin
e > e pet
e > a pat
A) luncl
a hota> o
0> hot
u > u foot
Lsh
1
Long Vowels
i >
e >e
9r
ar
Or
u >
a:
o:
U:
green
mate
circus
bar
fork
ball
boat
boots
Diphthongs
aI
aU
oI
> ai
>au
>oi
ice
now
oil
B. Palatalization of Velars:
The important feature about /a/E is that it
palatalizes the preceding velar stops /k, g/
before it is interpreted as /a/j. Most English
words having the /-ki C-/ sequence become
/-kyaC-/ in Japanese. On the other hand there
161
Japanese
JiN
peQto
paQto
raN~i
hoQto
hoQto
fuQto
guri :N
me: to
sa :kasu
ba:
fo ku
bo :ru
bo: to
bu: tsu
aisu
nau
oiru
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HIROKOC. QUACKENBUSH
are a fair number
does not apply.
English
catalogue
calendar
catholic
camera
canvas
catch
gang
gap
gasoline
gas
gallon
of words to which this rule
Japanese
katarogu
kareNda:
kasoriQku
kamera
kaNbasu
kyasoriQku
kyamera
kyaNbasu
kyaQci
gyaNgu
gyaQpu
gasoriN
gasu
garoN
C. English Unstressed Vowels:
While most English vowels are substituted by
the "closest Japanese sound", in the case of the
unstressed vowels it is the spelling rather than
the sound which is the primary determinant for
the substitution. As shown in the following
examples, orthographic i, e, o are replaced by
Japanese /i, e, o/j respectively.
English
i
e
tennis
alibi
gossip
television
camera
Allen
Japanese
tenisu
aribai
gosiQpu
terebi
kamera
areN
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ENGLISH LOANWORDS
0 gasoline
nation
Nixon
mascot
gasoriN
ne: soN
nikusoN
masukoQto
(6) CONSONANT TRANSFER RULES:
A. Some of the English consonants "merge" and
are replaced by a single Japanese consonant.
/s, e/ > /s/
/z, d/ · /z/
/1, r/ /r/
/, Z/ >// /
slow
buzzer
lice
page
throw
gather
rice
beige
B. Some English consonants are replaced by
Japanese sounds in distributions which are
limited to loanwords. English /f/E is replaced
by Japanese /f/j which is phonetically a
bilabial fricative [p]. In native Japanese
this sound [p] occurs as an allophone of /h/
only before /u/.3
English
fan
feet
fool
felt
four
Japanese
faN
fi: to
fu:ru
feruto
foa
C. English//v/E is usually replaced by Japanese
/b/j [b] in conservative phonology, while
Japanese /v/ [b] is more frequent in innovative
phonology. Therefore the application of
this rule is an optional rule in loanword
phonology as a whole.
/vE/
- /b/E J
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164 HIROKOC. QUACKENBUSH
Innovative Conservative
Venus vi:nasu bi:nasu
viola viora biora
video video bideo
curve ka: vu ka: bu
serve sa:vu sa:bu
D. The native phonotactic rules apply to some
CV sequences which are illegal in the native
system. These rules, however, are often waived
in the phonology of more innovative speech.
Innovative Conservative
ti ti:mu ci:mu team
tu tu: tsu: two
si si: si: sea
se se:ku se:ki (milk) shake
di di:zeru ji:zeru diesel
bodi: bode: body
du du: dzu: do
zi ziQpa: "iQpa: zipper
je %eQto zeQto jet
E. The rest of the English consonants after the
applications of the above rules, are replaced by
their Japanese equivalents on a one-to-one
correspondence basis.
/ptkbdgmns zh/
/ p t k b d g m n s z h /j
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ENGLISH LOANWORDS 165
SECTION III. Production and Recognition.
Sequences of Katakana symbols and sequences of
Japanese sounds are essentially isomorphic in their
relationship to each other; each of the Katakana symbols
and a few combinations of them stand for certain moras.
Therefore neither the operation of assigning Katakana
symbols to moras, nor the operation of rewriting
Katakana symbols back into moras causes much trouble.
ri : da : i : ku ba Q ku
~ ' i -f- _ a /v
However, between the production and recognition of
loanwords there is a considerable difference in the
nature and also in the degree of difficulty in each of
the operations.
If the process of the production of loanwords is
regarded as the application of Japanization rules to
English words, then the process of loanword recognition
can be regarded as the reversal of the production
process, i.e., the application of Japanization rules in
reverse. What is involved in each operation is explained
and the difficulty in each operation is examined in the
following discussion.
1. Production of Japanized Forms:
For the production of English loanwords from
English originals, the student must be able to reproduce
the Japanized forms from memory, especially if the words
are irregular ones as shown in Section I. If he does
not know the loanwords, he must apply the Japanization
rules to the English originals. He will succeed in
producing correct forms only when particular English
words follow the currently productive rules. As shown
in Section II, the rules themselves are complicated,
especially because of modifications which were made on
the basic rules in order to take care of small, but
nevertheless important, groups of words. The application
of the rules is difficult sometimes because of the
optionality of certain rules which results in creating
doublets and alternative forms, some of which are not
in actual use.
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166 HIROKO C. QUACKENBUSH
2. Recognition of English Originals:
Recovery of English originals is much more
complicated and difficult than the production process.
This is because of the following reason: most of the
Japanization rules in Section II are in the direction
of convergence. For example, the phonemic distinction
between the liquids /1/E and /r/E is neutralized, and
both become /r/j in Japanese. Given the Japanese /r/j
the recovery process is divergent in nature. English
phonemes cannot be uniquely recoverable from the
Japanese /r/j.
More specifically, the rules in Section II produce
the following Japanese segments, or sequences of
segments: The arrow indicates the direction of changes
brought about by the rules.
(1) Nasal Rules:
mC nC rC n# #
NC N Ng
(2) Gemination Rules:
d g ]
Qd Qt Qg Qk Q3 Qc
(3) Vowel Insertion Rules:
i u o
(4) Glide Syllabification Rules:
w y
u ~ i
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ENGLISH LOANWORDS 167
(5) Vowel Transfer Rules:
i I e a A o r o: a U u rar
111uv w 11wi: i e: e a o: o u u: a:
kae gma
ka kya ga gya i e o
(6) Consonant Transfer Rules:
s z d r 1 fu hu v b
s z r j fu v b
ti ci tu tsu di 3i zi je se si si
P\1\ lN P i i\ 1\ V44ti ci tu tsu di de 3i zi je ze se se si si
p t k b d g m n s z hptkbdgmnnzh
ptkbdgmnnzhp t k b d g m n s z h
When the student wants to derive English segments or
sequences of segments from Japanese he will face the
following alternatives: Notice that this is a much more
complicated operation than applying rules to English to
derive Japanese forms.
m n ) n n m s 8 z d r 1 j z fu hu v b
\tt t t tt V tV t t t,t tt
N(C) N# n m s z r j fu hu v b
d t g k
d (Q)d (Q)t t g (Q)g (Q)k k
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HIROKO C. QUACKENBUSH
V v
b ^ p j C
b (Q (Q) (Q)j ( Q)c
ti ci tu tsu de di ]i zi
tN t t't /t/ttti ci tu tsu de di ]i zi
Y v v .
je ze z se se s i si
ttt t t\t t tje ze z se se s si si
yi i 0 I e ye e a A a a ar ar or o o:
Vr Vtr Stt! 2tY V? Mti: i e: e a a: o:
\t tv wo U: U
Given the English words bag, bug, back and buck,
they all become /baQku/j. The student could produce the
correct Japanese form if he applied the Japanization
rules correctly.
bag back bug buck
/b eg bae k bA g bA k/
4 1u!11 i . I
/baQk I au ba
b b b
i d ,II I
/baQku baQku baQku baQku/
However, given the Japanese
cally 32 different sequences of
English
gemination
devoicing
V. insertion
V. Transfer
C. Transfer
Japanese
form /baQku/, theoretisegments
are possible,
although ultimately reverse derivations will lead to
168
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ENGLISH LOANWORDS 169
only a few alternatives. Among them are bag, bug, back
and buck. Since the rules do not help dissolve the
ambiguities, the student must decide, using other
criteria, which one of the four possibilities the
Japanese loanword came from.
b a Q k u
ffi ffi l )
I
b a k -' p
At
U
Many examples of this type are easy to find.
/paQto/ pat, pot, pad, pod, putt
/raNpu/ lamp, lump, ramp, rump
/basu/ bath, bus, bass
Let us take another example. This time the English
original is a compound - "volley ball". First let us
examine how the expression became /bare: bo:ru/J.
Since the game of volley ball was introduced to
Japan as an American sport, the American pronunciation
for the vowel for the first syllable was adopted as the
source and the Japanese /a/J was provided as the substitute.
(This practice contrasts with the British vowel
/o/ which is the basis for the pronunciation of 'volley'
as used in the game of tennis where the Japanized form
is /bore:/.) The Japanese assigned /re:/J rather than
/ri:/J for the sound of the second syllable. This is
presumably the spelling pronunciation given to such
words as honey = /hane:/J, money = /mane:/J and Stanley
= /sutaNre:/J.
The /o/ in ball was interpreted as the long vowel
/o:/, the vowel /u/J was inserted by the vowel insertion
rule. /1/E in both volley and ball became /r/j. The
pitch accent replaced the stress accent of English. This
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170 HIROKO C. QUACKENBUSH
is roughly how voZZey baZZ became /bare: bo:ru/ in
Japanese.
The process described above is what a student must
follow to derive the Japanized form, unless he can
recall the Japanized form as an item, without going
through the derivation process.
v o 1 1 e y b a 1 1
/v a 1 I
a e :
b r I
I I I I
, I I I
b a r e :
I J %.
\ 3~~~c~ 1/I
I I I
I I I I
b o : r u
*,`- )L-
English
Vowel insertion
Vowel transfer
Consonant transfer
Accent placement, etc.
Japanese
Katakana representation
To recover the English voZZey baZZ from the Katakana
representation of the Japanized form /bare: bo:ru/j is a
very difficult and time-consuming operation, for each of
the segment's possible sources, including the zero /0/,
has to be considered, as shown below:
< L
- /
^s - )t
/b a r e :
b - a - 1 _ e
v- 7 r I
r--- 1 rn f b
o : r u/
b-o : _-1 U
v o : r
\_ v^ v^- <
A
To be sure, the English rules that one has as one's
linguistic competence help eliminate or block some
illegal forms from surfacing. For example, to decide
whether the word-final /u/j is from /U/E, or if this is
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ENGLISH LOANWORDS 171
the paragogic /u/j, the native phonotactic rule
eliminates the possibility of the word-final /U/E, since
there is no word-final /U/ in English.
After searching for possible sound combinations, one
can get several different possibilities. For the first
word /bare:/j an English source might be any one of
ballet, valley, volley, or even Barry or barley, if one
relaxed the Japanization rules. The possible English
sources for the second word /bo:ru/J are ball, bowl and
vole. See below:
/b a 1 e/ ballet /b o: 1/ ball
/v ae 1 I/ valley /b o 1/ bowl
/v a 1 I/ volley /v o 1/ vole
Barry
barley
Again, contextual constraints of English help decide
the right combination as volley ball. Nevertheless,
even with the contextual clues, mistakes can occur and
the procedure is time-consuming.
CONCLUSION: By examining
(a) the nature of the borrowing of English words
by Japanese,
(b) a few of the internalized rules which native
speakers use to adapt English words, and
(c) the problems inherent in trying to deduce the
English original from the Japanese borrowing,
I have pointed out some of the problems faced by native
speakers of English in learning Japanese words which
were originally part of their language.
My concluding remark is, then, that since English
loanwords are difficult and complicated for Englishspeaking
students, those who teach Japanese should
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HIROKO C. QUACKENBUSH
consider devising more systematic methods of presenting
loanwords to students. Some basic understanding of the
nature of borrowing should be given to students.
Exercises inrewriting English words in Japanized forms
or in identifying the English source should perhaps be
more carefully planned in order to reduce the students'
major burden in learning English loanwords.
THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY
NOTES:
* This is an expanded version of a paper originally
presented at the Eighth Congress of the Linguistic
Society of Australia, 26th - 28th August, 1976, held at
the University of Adelaide. In this paper I have used
the following notations:
/X/ ... X is an English segment in a broad
phonetic notation.
/X/J ... X is a Japanese segment which is ready
to be rewritten by K4takana syllabary.
The subscripts E and J are omitted when
redundant.
1. I have used these terms rather loosely: innovative
phonology tends to adopt many of the features which
do not exist in the phonology of the native vocabulary,
while conservative phonology adheres more closely to the
restrictions of the phonology of the native vocabulary.
2. The syllable patterns V:Q and CV:Q are rare;
they occur mainly in onomatopoetic (gisei) and impressionistic
(gitai) words, e.g., /hi:Qto/ a scream,
/so:Qto/ quietly.
3. e.g., [puku] for /huku/ to blow, but [haku] for
/haku/ to wear.
4. Although in the innovative phonology the
distinction is made between /b/ and /v/, and these are
represented by different Katakana symbols, the actual
pronunciation is not necessarily clearly differentiated
by Japanese people.
172
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ENGLISH LOANWORDS 173
5. e.g., /beQdo ^ beQto/ bed, but /heQdo t
*heQto/ head.
REFERENCES
Arakawa, Sobei. 1967. Gairaigo jiten. Tokyo: Kadokawa
Shoten.
Lovins, Julie B. 1975. Loanwords and the Phonological
Structure of Japanese. Indiana University Linguistic
Club.
McCawley, James D. 1968. The Phonological Component of
a Grammar of Japanese. The Hague: Mouton & Co.
Miller, Roy Andrew. 1967. The Japanese Language.
University of Chicago Press.
Ohso, Mieko. 1973. "A Phonological Study of Some
English Loanwords in Japanese". Working Papers in
Linguistics. No. 14, 1-26. The Ohio State University.
Quackenbush, Edward M. 1974. "How Japanese Borrows
English Words", Linguistics: An International Review, 131.
Takebe, Yoshiaki. 1968. "Hyokiho-gairaigo", Koza
Nihongo Kyoiku, No. 4, 23-35. Waseda University Language
Teaching Research Center.
Yazaki, Genkuro. 1964. Nihon no gairaigo. Tokyo:
Iwanami Shoten.
Weinreich, Uriel. 1953. Languages in Contact. The
Hague: Mouton & Co.
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