Japanese

/ˌd͡ʒæpəˈniːz/

From Japan + -ese after the model of earlier Portuguese japonês, New Latin japonensis, French japonais, etc.

I’ve been studying Japanese for three years, and I still can’t order pizza in Tokyo!

A language that is primarily spoken in East Asia and is the official language of Japan.

जापानी भाषा

jāpānī bhāṣā


ruby

en-noun

ruby (countable and uncountable, plural rubies)

From Middle English ruby, rube, from Old French rubi, from Medieval Latin rubīnus.

A ruby hummer, a South American hummingbird, Clytolaema rubricauda.


furigana

Borrowed from Japanese 振り仮名 (furigana, “annotating kana”, literally “assigned phonetic character”).

bor

Furigana are indispensable for some names of people and places whose Kanji are not included among the official Kanji list, and whose sounds can be unusual and even idiosyncratic.

2014, Insup Taylor, M. Martin Taylor, Writing and Literacy in Chinese, Korean and Japanese, revised edition, John Benjamins, →ISBN, page 290:

(Japanese typography) Kana printed next to or above a kanji or other character to indicate the pronunciation.


kanji

en-noun

kanji (countable and uncountable, plural kanji or kanjis)

Borrowed from Japanese 漢字(かんじ) (kanji, “Chinese characters”), from Middle Chinese 漢 (MC xanH, “Han dynasty, China”) + Middle Chinese 字 (MC dziH, “[written] character”) (Compare Korean 한자 (hanja), Mandarin 漢字／汉字 (hànzì), Vietnamese Hán tự, Hokkien 漢字／汉字 (hàn-jī / hàn-lī), Cantonese 漢字／汉字 (hon³ zi⁶)). Doublet of hanja and Hanzi.

I know about a thousand kanji.

Any individual Chinese character as used in the Japanese language.


romaji

romaji (countable and uncountable, plural romajis)

/ˈɹəʊməd͡ʒi/

/ɹəʊˈmɑːd͡ʒi/

Transliteration from Japanese ローマ字(じ) (rōmaji, literally “Roman letters”).

ja-r

The romaji of the word ローマ字 is “rōmaji”.

The katakana and the hiragana are syllabic forms of writing derived from Chinese characters, while the romaji are the letters used in writing most European languages.

For example, in Japanese advertisements sexy and my house often appear in romaji, making the underlying concepts of eroticism and private ownership more exotic.

2006, Ralph Fasold, Jeffrey Connor-Linton, An Introduction to Language and Linguistics, page 410:

Today people ordinarily use kana-kanji conversion systems for inputting Japanese text. Because many of them can touch-type the romajis for the kanas, the O-code with kana-kanji conversion is more accessible.

2011, T Okadome, J Nakajima, S Ito, K Kakusho, “An Accessible Coded Input Method for Japanese Extensive Writing”, in Proceedings of the Workshop on Advances in Text Input Methods:

A representation of Japanese in Latin script.


kana

Borrowed from Japanese 仮名(かな) (kana, “phonetic character”, literally “borrowed character”, from the way that kana were originally Chinese characters "borrowed" for their phonetic values).

The hiragana and katakana syllabaries. These are made up of characters that represent individual syllables, which are used to write Japanese words and particles. Kana are derived from kanji.


katakana

en-noun

katakana (countable and uncountable, plural katakana or katakanas)

/ˌkætəˈkænə/

/ˌkætəˈkɑːnə/

/ˌkɑtəˈkɑːnə/

(uncountable) A Japanese syllabary used when writing words borrowed from foreign languages other than Chinese, specific names of plants and animals and other jargon, onomatopoeia, or to emphasize a word or phrase. Also used to write the Ainu language.


hiragana

hiragana (countable and uncountable, plural hiraganas or hiragana)

/ˌhɪ.ɹəˈɡæ.nə/

/ˌhɪ.ɹəˈɡɑː.nə/

(uncountable) The main syllabary for the Japanese language, used to represent native Japanese words, including particles, and when kanji is used, to represent verb and adjective endings.


Yale

Ultimately borrowed from Welsh Iâl, from iâl (“clearing, cultivated upland”). The surname is habitational. The university is named for Elihu Yale, a notable early benefactor.

A university in the eastern United States.

A romanisation scheme originating from Yale University.

A romanisation scheme designed for Mandarin.

Coordinate term: Jyutping

A romanisation scheme designed for Cantonese.

A romanisation scheme designed for Japanese.

A romanisation scheme designed for Korean.

A surname transferred from the place name.


shinjitai

Transliteration from Japanese 新(しん)字(じ)体(たい) (shinjitai).

Coordinate term: kyūjitai

However, when a traditional “correct” radical has been obscured by the postwar adoption of a simplified form (shinjitai), that radical is simply ignored.

1992, The Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese, volume 26, issue 1, page 47:

The simplified form of Japanese kanji used after 1947.


kyūjitai

Transliteration from Japanese 旧(きゅう)字(じ)体(たい) (kyūjitai, literally “old character form”).

ja-r

Coordinate term: shinjitai

Although the kyūjitai kanji were not banned, the obsolete kyūjitai kanji have become unreadable to more and more readers over time, thus making texts including them difficult for modern readers, but at least there is a recognized mapping from new form to old form.

2020, Stewart Arneil, “Encoding Disappearing Characters: The Case of Twentieth-Century Japanese-Canadian Names”, in Journal of the Text Encoding Initiative, number 12, Text Encoding Initiative Consortium, →DOI, →ISSN:

The traditional form of Japanese kanji used before 1947.


Engrish

From the mispronunciation of the word English common to Japanese speakers, who have difficulty distinguishing "L" and "R" sounds. The Japanese transliteration of the word "English", イングリッシュ (Ingurisshu) is often used for teaching purposes. In that word, /ɾ/ (romanised as "r") is pronounced instead of the English /l/.

'Why you not teach Engrish more? I must aspeak^([sic]) Engrish.' The Chelsea's resident mad painter was angry at the way Jeremy had been ignoring him.

2003, Bruce L. Russell, Channelling Henry, page 129:

(sometimes derogatory) Ungrammatical, unorthographical or nonsensical English, especially that which is found in East Asia, notably in Japan.


Nihongo

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Nihongo.wav

From Japanese Nihongo, the romaji of 日本語(にほんご) (nihongo).

(rare except in the Philippines; Japanism) Synonym of Japanese: the Japanese language.


okurigana

(orthography) In the Japanese language, the kana which follow a stem written with kanji, which record how that stem is inflected, and guides recognition of the appropriate kun'yomi reading (word stem associated with the kanji); for example, く (ku) and かべる (kaberu) in 浮(う)く (uk-u, “to float”, intransitive) and 浮(う)かべる (uk-aberu, “to float”, transitive), or む (mu) and きる (kiru) in 生(う)む (umu, “to birth”) and 生(い)きる (ikiru, “to live”). Perhaps analogous to -st, -nd in English 1st (first), 2nd (second).


moon language

(slang) Text written in an incomprehensible script, especially Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, or Hindi.


Sino-Japanese

The Chinese-derived elements in the Japanese language.

漢日詞

the Chinese-derived elements in the Japanese language


moonspeak

From moon + -speak; probably derived from the anime Turn A Gundam (1999–2000) where the inhabitants of the Moon, known as the Moonrace, have their own language, called Moonspeak by fans.

(slang, derogatory or humorous) Any foreign language deemed confusing by the speaker, especially Japanese or another East Asian language.


Japlish

(informal) A confused blend of Japanese and English; Engrish.


moonrunes

From moon + runes. Apparently coined based from moonspeak, an anime reference (of which see there), ultimately associating East Asian languages with celestial levels of foreignness.

Can anyone here read moonrunes?

I'm still learning moonrunes.

This imported box of Pocky is covered in moonrunes; I can barely read it.

(Internet slang, sometimes derogatory, sometimes humorous) An incomprehensible writing script, or the language associated with it, usually referring to Japanese, but may also refer to Chinese, Korean and other East Asian writing scripts.


extended shinjitai

en-noun

extended shinjitai (plural extended shinjitai)

Calque of Japanese 拡張新字体 (kakuchō shinjitai).

clq

An unofficial shinjitai (new character form) created by analogy.


Kansai dialect

A group of Japanese dialects in the Kansai region (Kinki region) of Japan.


katakanization

The writing of a non-Japanese word in katakana


Japonese

Borrowed from French japonais, Italian giapponese, Portuguese japonês, or Spanish japonés. Equivalent to Japon + -ese.

I'm looking for a shop (in Britain or in Europe) which imports Michael Nyman Japonese CDs on a (quite?) regular basis (not necessarely^([sic]) an on-line dealer. By the way, I already know about CD Banzai, but they have only two of them).

1995 December 3, Francesco Valvo, “where to find Nyman Japonese CDs?”, in rec.music.collecting.cd (Usenet), retrieved 2022-05-26:

Hi!
I'm Sara, a portuguese student of arts.
I'm doing a research about japonese art. I have find some bibliography about architecture and gravure, but about porcelain I couldn't find anything.
Can someone (in Japan) give some information about this matter and in general about Japonese art?
Please send me a mail.

1996 February 17, Jose Martins, “JAPONESE PORCELAIN - JAPONESE ART”, in soc.culture.japan (Usenet), retrieved 2022-05-26:

A lady I work with has a Ford Torus. She is presently living a night-mare with it.
She is trying to find a way to dump it, and buy a Japonese car or a Volvo.
Everytime^([sic]) I talk to her, the car is in the garage for something !
And when she had European or Japonese cars, she never had such problems...

1997 November 2, Jerry G., “American Cars verses the Japonese and European cars for service...!”, in alt.autos.nissan (Usenet), retrieved 2022-05-26:

(non-native speakers' English) Misspelling of Japanese.


Japonese

hi ! I have bought Overblood2 in japonese and i m^([sic]) searching a guidebook for this game, preferently^([sic]) in english
else in japonese if it is a website i have a program which approximately translate^([sic]) in english. so is there somebody who could tell me where i may found^([sic]) a free guide on internet.
thanks for attention
cheers

1999 May 3, jules, “Backups of Playstation^([sic])-games.”, in alt.games.video.sony-playstation2 (Usenet), retrieved 2022-05-26:


な-adjective

/nɑː ˈæd͡ʒɪktɪv/

Coordinate term: い-adjective

Because そう is a な-adjective, its negative form is そうじゃない, except that そうにない should be used for verbs.

2014 January 1, Yukiko Abe Hatasa, Kazumi Hatasa, Seiichi Makino, Nakama 1: Japanese Communication Culture Context, Cengage Learning, →ISBN, page 370:

(Japanese grammar) An adjective that necessitates the copula な (-na) if followed by a noun.

na-adjektiivi

adjective that necessitates the copula な if followed by a noun


い-adjective

/iː ˈæd͡ʒɪktɪv/

From Japanese い (-i) + adjective, so named because all such adjectives end in い (-i) in their imperfective positive form.

Coordinate term: な-adjective

(Japanese grammar) An inflecting Japanese adjective.


JSL

Japanese Sign Language
w:Japanese Sign Language