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About the Japanese Language

The origins of the Japanese language are incompletely known, and multiple theories have been proposed over the past few centuries connecting Japanese to North Asian languages, South Asian Languages, and languages in other areas. Currently, it is thought that the strongest theory among them is one of the North Asian ones, which places Japanese with Altaic languages such as Turkish and Mongolian based on the typological similarities, for example, sequential suffixation (agglutinating morphology), Subject-Object-Verb order, and vowel harmony in native vocabulary. Around the fourth and the fifth centuries AD, Chinese characters and vocabulary started to be brought to Japan. The Japanese developed man’yōgana, in which a limited set of kanji were used to write Japanese words with their phonetic contribution. Eventually, in the Heian Period (794–1185), hiragana and katakana were developed from some of the kanji characters included in man’yōgana. Most content words, such as nouns, adjectives, and verbs, have a Chinese origin due to the strong influence of China in history. However, modern Japanese also includes an increasing number of loan words from English. The Japanese language is obviously extremely complex in terms of its lexicon and writing systems, but its unique structural features also surprise many speakers of English. The following are only some of its unique features.

Word order and particles

The basic word order in English is subject-verb-object, whereas in Japanese it is subject-object-verb. The word order is rigid in English in most cases but can be very flexible in Japanese, so long as the verb is placed at the end of the sentence. For example, the English sentence Ken called Yumi can be either Ken-ga Yumi-o yonda or Yumi-o Ken-ga yonda in Japanese.

Postpositions

English prepositions such as from, in, on, at, and with correspond to postpositions in Japanese. Instead of saying from New York, they say something like New York from, or Nyū Yōku kara. Japanese and English are mirror images in this respect.

Dropping pronouns

The Japanese are not lazy people, but they like to drop personal pronouns such as ‘I,’ ‘you,’ and ‘he.’ The use of the second person pronoun anata ‘you’ is almost forbidden in conversations. To ask, ‘Is it yours?’ in speaking to Ms. Yamada, the Japanese will say, Sore wa Yamada-san no desu ka ‘Ms. Yamada, is it Ms. Yamada’s?’

Verb morphology

Japanese verbs and adjectives can be followed by numerous suffixes, one after another, just as if you are creating a necklace by putting beads together. For example, tabe is the shortest pronounceable form of the verb ‘to eat.’ However, tabe-ru means ‘will eat,’ tabe-sase-ru means ‘will make someone eat,’ tabe-sase-rare-ru means ‘will be made to eat,’ tabe-sase-rare-tai means ‘want to be made to eat,’ and tabe-sase-rare-taku-nai means ‘do not want to be made to eat.’ This feature of language is called agglutination, and it is one of the reasons many scholars think Japanese belongs to the Altaic language family.

Counters

Another feature that exists in Japanese but not in English is a category of suffixes called counters. Counters are placed after numerals in order to express the quantity or amount of people and things, and the choice of counters varies depending on the shape, size, and type of the item. For example, go-nin no hito means ‘the five people’; go-hiki no inu means ‘the five dogs’; go-dai no kuruma means ‘the five cars.’ Nin, hiki, and dai are the counters for these respective types of items.

Honorifics

The Japanese language has rich and extensive honorific systems that express respect, humility, and politeness. These systems govern speech styles through the choices of suffixes, prefixes, (pro)nouns, verbs, adjectives, and phrases that are determined based on the relationship among the speaker, the listener, and a third party with respect to the social grouping and social hierarchy. For example, a simple question like ‘Will you go?’ can be Iku no, Ikimasu ka, or Irasshaimasu ka depending on how close or distant the speaker feels to the person. English does not have such verbal suffixes for expressing politeness or respect. However, this does not mean English speakers are rude. English speakers use different strategies for expressing politeness. For example, they tend to use a longer phrase for expressing politeness: they may say ‘I’m wondering whether it is okay for me to leave now’ instead of ‘Is it okay to leave now?’ for politely asking for permission to leave. Or, they may elaborate on a statement with the addition of kind comments or brief explanations for conveying politeness in a variety of speech functions such as asking for permission, requesting, apologizing, thanking, and refusing invitations.