The Soft Japanese Language

The Japanese language, the language of around a hundred and fifty million individuals and the native tongue of the Japan, Ryukyu and Bonin island inhabitants, boasts its recognition in various parts of the world and is extremely popular in the former Japanese possessions such as Korea and Taiwan. A distinct pitch system, verities of the rich script, presence of dozens of dialect and a pro-drop language has resulted in the Japanese culture being embellished with one of the richest literary heritages in the world. The Japanese language is an exotic blend of three different scripts, Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana all deriving their base from modified Chinese characters. The Latin alphabet Romaji, and Arabic numerals, besides conventional Sino-Japanese numerals also find a place of prominence in the Japanese script.

A vast and varied vocabulary of the Japanese language clearly reflects a strong presence of influence of various other languages on it. Words with high frequencies of use are derived from the Chinese, Indo-European, Portuguese and Dutch languages, the latter two having strong commercial relationship with Japan. Each syllable of the Japanese language has an even, metronome-like beat. The words and phrases become distinct through differences in pitch, stress and emphasis, much of which is typical to English. Despite the presence of dozens of dialects, there is a standard form of the language which is known as the Hyojungo or Kyotsugo being used proficiently by the elite classes of Tokyo and was separate for writing and speaking.

The literary language, Japanese translation “Bungo”, was widely used for writing before the 1900’s but, with time and evolution of the language the spoken form or “Kogo” became more eminent and was used for writing as well, the former being reduced to a measure of adding emphasis and effect by the modern Japanese writers.

Japanese is spoken in a number of ways depending upon the social state of affairs. The ‘intimate style’ is adopted for ordinary everyday conversations while the ‘polite’ form is used delightfully with cultured company. The ‘honorific style’ confers pride and reverence for the superiors and the ‘impersonal style’ finds a prominence in public discussions, meetings and speeches.

Japanese language consists of both inflected and uninflected words which end in either vowels or the letter “n”. All sentences come with the verb at the end and there are no exact expressions for “yes” and “no” i.e. the entire subject has to be repeated with the verb at the end in order to answer a particular question. The Japanese use two tables of syllables in writing symbols, its Japanese translation being known as the Kana. The kana can be hiragana and Katakana, the rounded and square shaped forms respectively and Japanese is ordinarily written with a blend of the kana and Chinese characters called kanamajiri. Development of Japan as a powerful economy, the interest of researchers and students in its rich history and culture and the presence of great works of literature has resulted in widespread popularity of the Japanese Languages.