Names of Japan
Encyclopedia
There are many names of Japan in the English
, Japanese
, and other languages. The word "Japan" (or "Japon") is an exonym, and is used (in one form or another) by a large number of languages. The Japanese
names for Japan
are Nippon (にっぽん ) and Nihon (にほん ). They are both written in Japanese using the kanji
日本. The Japanese name Nippon is used for most official purposes, including on Japanese money
, postage stamp
s, and for many international sporting events
. Nihon is a more casual term and the most frequently used in contemporary speech.
Both Nippon and Nihon literally mean "the sun's origin", that is, where the sun originates, and are often translated as the Land of the Rising Sun. This nomenclature comes from Imperial correspondence
with Chinese
Sui Dynasty
and refers to Japan's eastward position relative to China
. Before Nihon came into official use, Japan was known as or . Wa was a name early China used to refer to an ethnic group living in Japan around the time of the Three Kingdoms Period
.
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 *ʼWâ or *ʼWər 倭. Carr (1992:9–10) surveys prevalent proposals for Wa's etymology ranging from feasible (transcribing Japanese first-person pronouns waga 我が "my; our" and ware 我 "I; we; oneself") to shameful (writing Japanese Wa as 倭 implying "dwarf"), and summarizes interpretations for *ʼWâ "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 倭 as shùnmào 順皃 "obedient/submissive/docile appearance", graphically explains the "person; human' radical with a wěi 委 "bent" phonetic, and quotes the above Shi Jing poem. "Conceivably, when Chinese first met Japanese," Carr (1992:9) suggests "they transcribed Wa as *ʼWâ '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 Bowing is noted in early historical references to Japan."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 逶 "winding" as "very far away" and euphemistically translates Wō 倭 as "separated from the continent."The second etymology of wō 倭 meaning "dwarf; short person" has possible cognates in ǎi 矮 "short person; midget, dwarf; low", wō 踒 "strain; sprain; bent legs", and wò 臥 "lie down; crouch; sit (animals and birds)". Early Chinese dynastic histories refer to a Zhūrúguó 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 倭 until the 8th century, when the Japanese found fault with it, replacing it with 和 "harmony, peace, balance". Retroactively, this character was adopted in Japan to refer to the country itself, often combined with the character 大, literally meaning "Great", much like the names used for many nations, to write the preexisting name Yamato (大和) (e.g., such as 大清帝國 Great Qing Empire, 大英帝國 Great British Empire). However, the pronunciation Yamato cannot be formed from the sounds of its constituent characters; it refers to a place in Japan and is speculated to originally mean "Mountain Gate" (山戸). Other original names in Chinese texts include Yamatai country
(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 日本. In time, these characters began to be read using pseudo-Chinese readings, first Nippon and later Nihon.
Nippon appeared in history only at the end of the 7th century. Old Book of Tang (舊唐書), one of the Twenty-Four Histories
, stated that the Japanese envoy disliked his country's name Woguo (倭國), and changed it to Nippon (日本), or "Origin of the Sun". Another 8th-century chronicle, True Meaning of Shiji (史記正義), however, states that the Chinese Empress Wu Zetian
ordered a Japanese envoy to change the country's name to Nippon.
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. The modern Shanghainese (呉語) (the Wu Chinese language or topolect) pronunciation of characters 日本 (Japan) is still Zeppen zəʔpən. The old Malay
word for Japan, Jepang (modern spelling Jepun, although Indonesian
has retained the older spelling), was borrowed from a Chinese language, 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.
In English, the modern official title of the country is simply "Japan", one of the few nation-states to have no "long form" name. The official Japanese-language name is Nippon koku or Nihon koku (日本国), literally "Country of Japan". From the Meiji Restoration
until the end of World War II
, the full title of Japan was the "Great Empire of Japan
" (大日本帝國 Dai Nippon Teikoku). (A more poetic rendering of the name of Japan during this period was "Empire of the Sun.") The official name of the nation was changed after the adoption of the post-war constitution; the title "State of Japan" is sometimes used as a colloquial modern-day equivalent.
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
.
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 and iippon.
The title of the dictionary (Vocabulary of the Language of Japan) illustrates that the Portuguese
word for Japan was by that time Iapam.
], this weakened into ɸ and eventually became the modern [h]. Note that modern /h/ is still pronounced [ɸ] when followed by /u/.
Middle Japanese nifon becomes Modern Japanese nihon via regular phonological changes.
, the Portuguese devised their own. In it, /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 日本. The initial kanji 日 may also be read as /ziti/ or /zitu/. Compounded with -fon (本), this regularly becomes jippon.
Unlike the nihon/nippon doublet, there is no evidence for a *jihon.
name for Japan, 日本, can be pronounced either Nihon or Nippon. Both readings come from the on'yomi
.
日 (nichi) means "sun" or "day"; 本 (hon) means "base" or "root". The compound means "base of the sun" or "sunrise" (from a Chinese
point of view, the sun rises from Japan); it is of course 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 日 plus kō 光 (light) is written and pronounced nikkō, meaning sunlight. The initial consonant of non-initial syllables in compounds often becomes voiced in Japanese, in a process called rendaku
. Non-initial hon in compounds thus often changes to bon or pon. There are therefore two possible pronunciations for 日本: Nihon or Nippon. While both pronunciations are correct, Nippon is frequently preferred for official purposes, including money, stamp
s, and international sporting events, as well as the Nippon koku, literally the "State of Japan" (日本国).
Other than this, there seem to be no fixed rules for choosing one pronunciation over the other; in some cases one form is simply more common. For example, Japanese people generally call their language Nihongo
; Nippongo, while possible,
is rare. In other cases, uses are variable. The name for the Bank of Japan
(日本銀行), for example, is given as NIPPON GINKO on banknotes, but often referred to (in the media, for example) as Nihon Ginkō.
Nippon is used always or most often in the following constructions:
Nihon is used always or most often in the following constructions:
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 (日本), which is rendered in pinyin
as Rìběn, and literally translates to "country of sun origin". Guó is Chinese for "realm" or "kingdom", so it could alternatively be rendered as "Japan-guó".
Cipangu was first mentioned in Europe in the accounts of the travels of Marco Polo
. 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 Kangnido. 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 zəʔpən. In modern Japanese, Cipangu is transliterated as ジパング which in turn can be transliterated into English as Jipangu, Zipangu, Jipang, or Zipang. Jipangu (ジパング) as an obfuscated
name for Japan has recently come into vogue for Japanese film
s, 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
ジャパン of the English word Japan is sometimes encountered in Japanese, for example in the names of organizations seeking to project an international image.
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". They have been considered to be pejorative terms when used to mean "Japan". 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" in Korean) is used only to refer to the Orient
(including both East Asia and Southeast Asia) in general, and it is not used in the more specific Chinese sense of "Japan".
In China
, Japan
is called Rìběn, which is the Mandarin pronunciation for the hanzi 日本. The Cantonese pronunciation is [jɐt˨ pun˧˥], the Shanghainese (Wu Chinese) pronunciation is Zeppen [zəʔpən], and the Min Nan
(Hokkien) pronunciation is . This has influenced the Thai name for Japan, Yipun (ญี่ปุ่น). In Korean, Japan is called Ilbon (일본/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 Malay
it is called Jepun, and in Indonesian
Jepang, during Japanese occupation in Indonesia (1942—1945) the Japanese introduced Nippon or Dai Nippon into Indonesian language, however Jepang is more common.
Ue-kok (倭國) is recorded for older Hokkien
speakers. In the past, Korea also used 倭國, pronounced Waeguk (왜국).
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, and other languages. The word "Japan" (or "Japon") is an exonym, and is used (in one form or another) by a large number of languages. The Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
names for Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
are Nippon (にっぽん ) and Nihon (にほん ). They are both written in Japanese using the kanji
Kanji
Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...
日本. The Japanese name Nippon is used for most official purposes, including on Japanese money
Japanese yen
The is the official currency of Japan. It is the third most traded currency in the foreign exchange market after the United States dollar and the euro. It is also widely used as a reserve currency after the U.S. dollar, the euro and the pound sterling...
, postage stamp
Postage stamp
A postage stamp is a small piece of paper that is purchased and displayed on an item of mail as evidence of payment of postage. Typically, stamps are made from special paper, with a national designation and denomination on the face, and a gum adhesive on the reverse side...
s, and for many international sporting events
Sport
A Sport is all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical fitness and provide entertainment to participants. Sport may be competitive, where a winner or winners can be identified by objective means, and may require a degree...
. Nihon is a more casual term and the most frequently used in contemporary speech.
History
Imperial embassies to China
The Japanese Missions to Imperial China were diplomatic embassies which were intermittently sent to the Chinese court. Any distinction amongst diplomatic envoys sent from the Imperial Japanese court or from any of the Japanese shogunates was lost or rendered moot when the ambassador was received in...
with Chinese
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
Sui Dynasty
Sui Dynasty
The Sui Dynasty was a powerful, but short-lived Imperial Chinese dynasty. Preceded by the Southern and Northern Dynasties, it ended nearly four centuries of division between rival regimes. It was followed by the Tang Dynasty....
and refers to Japan's eastward position relative to China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
. Before Nihon came into official use, Japan was known as or . Wa was a name early China used to refer to an ethnic group living in Japan around the time of the Three Kingdoms Period
Three Kingdoms
The Three Kingdoms period was a period in Chinese history, part of an era of disunity called the "Six Dynasties" following immediately the loss of de facto power of the Han Dynasty rulers. In a strict academic sense it refers to the period between the foundation of the state of Wei in 220 and the...
.
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 *ʼWâ or *ʼWər 倭. Carr (1992:9–10) surveys prevalent proposals for Wa's etymology ranging from feasible (transcribing Japanese first-person pronouns waga 我が "my; our" and ware 我 "I; we; oneself") to shameful (writing Japanese Wa as 倭 implying "dwarf"), and summarizes interpretations for *ʼWâ "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 倭 as shùnmào 順皃 "obedient/submissive/docile appearance", graphically explains the "person; human' radical with a wěi 委 "bent" phonetic, and quotes the above Shi Jing poem. "Conceivably, when Chinese first met Japanese," Carr (1992:9) suggests "they transcribed Wa as *ʼWâ '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 逶 "winding" as "very far away" and euphemistically translates Wō 倭 as "separated from the continent."The second etymology of wō 倭 meaning "dwarf; short person" has possible cognates in ǎi 矮 "short person; midget, dwarf; low", wō 踒 "strain; sprain; bent legs", and wò 臥 "lie down; crouch; sit (animals and birds)". Early Chinese dynastic histories refer to a Zhūrúguó 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 倭 until the 8th century, when the Japanese found fault with it, replacing it with 和 "harmony, peace, balance". Retroactively, this character was adopted in Japan to refer to the country itself, often combined with the character 大, literally meaning "Great", much like the names used for many nations, to write the preexisting name Yamato (大和) (e.g., such as 大清帝國 Great Qing Empire, 大英帝國 Great British Empire). However, the pronunciation Yamato cannot be formed from the sounds of its constituent characters; it refers to a place in Japan and is speculated to originally mean "Mountain Gate" (山戸). Other original names in Chinese texts include Yamatai country
Yamataikoku
or is the Sino-Japanese name of an ancient country in Wa during the late Yayoi period . The Chinese history Sanguo Zhi first recorded Yemetaiguo or Yemayiguo as the domain of shaman Queen Himiko...
(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
Kanji
Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...
, it was given the characters 日本. In time, these characters began to be read using pseudo-Chinese readings, first Nippon and later Nihon.
Nippon appeared in history only at the end of the 7th century. Old Book of Tang (舊唐書), one of the Twenty-Four Histories
Twenty-Four Histories
The Twenty-Four Histories is a collection of Chinese historical books covering a period from 3000 BC to the Ming Dynasty in the 17th century. The whole set contains 3213 volumes and about 40 million words...
, stated that the Japanese envoy disliked his country's name Woguo (倭國), and changed it to Nippon (日本), or "Origin of the Sun". Another 8th-century chronicle, True Meaning of Shiji (史記正義), however, states that the Chinese Empress Wu Zetian
Wu Zetian
Wu Zetian , personal name Wu Zhao , often referred to as Tian Hou during the Tang Dynasty and Empress Consort Wu in later times, was the only woman in the history of China to assume the title of Empress Regnant...
ordered a Japanese envoy to change the country's name to Nippon.
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
Marco Polo
Marco Polo was a Venetian merchant traveler from the Venetian Republic whose travels are recorded in Il Milione, a book which did much to introduce Europeans to Central Asia and China. He learned about trading whilst his father and uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo, travelled through Asia and apparently...
as Cipangu. The modern Shanghainese (呉語) (the Wu Chinese language or topolect) pronunciation of characters 日本 (Japan) is still Zeppen zəʔpən. The old Malay
Malay language
Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...
word for Japan, Jepang (modern spelling Jepun, although Indonesian
Indonesian language
Indonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries....
has retained the older spelling), was borrowed from a Chinese language, and this Malay word was encountered by Portuguese
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
traders in Malacca
Malacca
Malacca , dubbed The Historic State or Negeri Bersejarah among locals) is the third smallest Malaysian state, after Perlis and Penang. It is located in the southern region of the Malay Peninsula, on the Straits of Malacca. It borders Negeri Sembilan to the north and the state of Johor to the south...
in the 16th century. It is thought the Portuguese traders were the first to bring the word to Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. It was first recorded in English in 1577 spelled Giapan.
In English, the modern official title of the country is simply "Japan", one of the few nation-states to have no "long form" name. The official Japanese-language name is Nippon koku or Nihon koku (日本国), literally "Country of Japan". From the Meiji Restoration
Meiji Restoration
The , also known as the Meiji Ishin, Revolution, Reform or Renewal, was a chain of events that restored imperial rule to Japan in 1868...
until the end of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the full title of Japan was the "Great Empire of Japan
Empire of Japan
The Empire of Japan is the name of the state of Japan that existed from the Meiji Restoration on 3 January 1868 to the enactment of the post-World War II Constitution of...
" (大日本帝國 Dai Nippon Teikoku). (A more poetic rendering of the name of Japan during this period was "Empire of the Sun.") The official name of the nation was changed after the adoption of the post-war constitution; the title "State of Japan" is sometimes used as a colloquial modern-day equivalent.
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
Foreign branding
Foreign branding is an advertising and marketing term describing the implied cachet or superiority of products and services with foreign or foreign-sounding names.-English-speaking countries:...
.
Historical
PortuguesePortuguese people
The Portuguese are a nation and ethnic group native to the country of Portugal, in the west of the Iberian peninsula of south-west Europe. Their language is Portuguese, and Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion....
missionaries
Missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...
arrived in Japan at the end of the 16th century. In the course of learning Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, they created several grammars and dictionaries of Middle Japanese. The 1603–1604 dictionary Vocabvlario da Lingoa de Iapam
Nippo Jisho
The Nippo Jisho or Vocabvlario da Lingoa de Iapam was a Japanese to Portuguese dictionary published in Nagasaki, Japan in 1603. It contains entries for 32,293 Japanese words in Portuguese. Only four copies of the original 1603 edition exist...
contains two entries for Japan: nifon and iippon.
The title of the dictionary (Vocabulary of the Language of Japan) illustrates that the Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
word for Japan was by that time Iapam.
Nifon
Historically, Japanese /h/ has undergone a number of phonological changes. Originally *[pVoiceless bilabial plosive
The voiceless bilabial plosive is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is p...
], this weakened into ɸ and eventually became the modern [h]. Note that modern /h/ is still pronounced [ɸ] when followed by /u/.
Middle Japanese nifon becomes Modern Japanese nihon via regular phonological changes.
Jippon
Prior to modern styles of romanizationRomanization of Japanese
The romanization of Japanese is the application of the Latin alphabet to write the Japanese language. This method of writing is known as , less strictly romaji, literally "Roman letters", sometimes incorrectly transliterated as romanji or rōmanji. There are several different romanization systems...
, the Portuguese devised their own. In it, /zi/ is written as either ii or ji. In modern Hepburn
Hepburn romanization
The is named after James Curtis Hepburn, who used it to transcribe the sounds of the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet in the third edition of his Japanese–English dictionary, published in 1887. The system was originally proposed by the in 1885...
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 日本. The initial kanji 日 may also be read as /ziti/ or /zitu/. Compounded with -fon (本), this regularly becomes jippon.
Unlike the nihon/nippon doublet, there is no evidence for a *jihon.
Nihon and Nippon
The JapaneseJapanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
name for Japan, 日本, can be pronounced either Nihon or Nippon. Both readings come from the on'yomi
Kanji
Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...
.
日 (nichi) means "sun" or "day"; 本 (hon) means "base" or "root". The compound means "base of the sun" or "sunrise" (from a Chinese
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
point of view, the sun rises from Japan); it is of course 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 日 plus kō 光 (light) is written and pronounced nikkō, meaning sunlight. The initial consonant of non-initial syllables in compounds often becomes voiced in Japanese, in a process called rendaku
Rendaku
is a phenomenon in Japanese morphophonology that governs the voicing of the initial consonant of the non-initial portion of a compound or prefixed word...
. Non-initial hon in compounds thus often changes to bon or pon. There are therefore two possible pronunciations for 日本: Nihon or Nippon. While both pronunciations are correct, Nippon is frequently preferred for official purposes, including money, stamp
Postage stamp
A postage stamp is a small piece of paper that is purchased and displayed on an item of mail as evidence of payment of postage. Typically, stamps are made from special paper, with a national designation and denomination on the face, and a gum adhesive on the reverse side...
s, and international sporting events, as well as the Nippon koku, literally the "State of Japan" (日本国).
Other than this, there seem to be no fixed rules for choosing one pronunciation over the other; in some cases one form is simply more common. For example, Japanese people generally call their language Nihongo
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
; Nippongo, while possible,
is rare. In other cases, uses are variable. The name for the Bank of Japan
Bank of Japan
is the central bank of Japan. The Bank is often called for short. It has its headquarters in Chuo, Tokyo.-History:Like most modern Japanese institutions, the Bank of Japan was founded after the Meiji Restoration...
(日本銀行), for example, is given as NIPPON GINKO on banknotes, but often referred to (in the media, for example) as Nihon Ginkō.
Nippon is used always or most often in the following constructions:
- Nippon-koku kenpō (Constitution of JapanConstitution of JapanThe is the fundamental law of Japan. It was enacted on 3 May, 1947 as a new constitution for postwar Japan.-Outline:The constitution provides for a parliamentary system of government and guarantees certain fundamental rights...
) - Ganbare Nippon! (A sporting cheer used at international sporting events, roughly, 'do your best, Japan!')
- Zen Nippon Kūyu (All Nippon AirwaysAll Nippon Airways, also known as or ANA, is one of the largest airlines in Japan. It is headquartered at the Shiodome City Center in the Shiodome area in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. It operates services to 49 destinations in Japan and 35 international routes and employed over 14,000 employees as of May 2009...
) - Nippon-bashi (日本橋) (a shopping district in OsakaOsakais a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, a designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the biggest part of Keihanshin area, which is represented by three major cities of Japan, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe...
)
Nihon is used always or most often in the following constructions:
- Nihon-bashi (日本橋) (a bridge in TokyoTokyo, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
) - Nihon Daigaku (Nihon UniversityNihon UniversityNihon University is the largest university in Japan. Akiyoshi Yamada, the minister of justice, founded Nihon Law School in October 1889....
) - Nihon-go (Japanese languageJapanese languageis a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
) - Nihon-jin (Japanese peopleJapanese peopleThe are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...
) - Nihon-kai (Sea of JapanSea of JapanThe Sea of Japan is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean, between the Asian mainland, the Japanese archipelago and Sakhalin. It is bordered by Japan, North Korea, Russia and South Korea. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it has almost no tides due to its nearly complete enclosure from the Pacific...
) - Nihon Kōkū (Japan AirlinesJapan Airlinesis an airline headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo, Japan. It is the flag carrier of Japan and its main hubs are Tokyo's Narita International Airport and Tokyo International Airport , as well as Nagoya's Chūbu Centrair International Airport and Osaka's Kansai International Airport...
) - Nihon-shoki (an old history book, never Nippon shoki)
Jipangu
As mentioned above, the EnglishEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
word "Japan" has a circuitous derivation; but linguists
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
believe it derives in part from the Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
recording of the early Mandarin Chinese or Wu Chinese word for Japan: Cipan (日本), which is rendered in pinyin
Pinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...
as Rìběn, and literally translates to "country of sun origin". Guó is Chinese for "realm" or "kingdom", so it could alternatively be rendered as "Japan-guó".
Cipangu was first mentioned in Europe in the accounts of the travels of Marco Polo
Marco Polo
Marco Polo was a Venetian merchant traveler from the Venetian Republic whose travels are recorded in Il Milione, a book which did much to introduce Europeans to Central Asia and China. He learned about trading whilst his father and uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo, travelled through Asia and apparently...
. It appears for the first time on a European map with the Fra Mauro map
Fra Mauro map
The Fra Mauro map, "considered the greatest memorial of medieval cartography" according to Roberto Almagià, is a map made around 1450 by the Venetian monk Fra Mauro...
in 1457, although it appears much earlier on Chinese and Korean maps such as the Kangnido. 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 zəʔpən. In modern Japanese, Cipangu is transliterated as ジパング which in turn can be transliterated into English as Jipangu, Zipangu, Jipang, or Zipang. Jipangu (ジパング) as an obfuscated
Obfuscation
Obfuscation is the hiding of intended meaning in communication, making communication confusing, wilfully ambiguous, and harder to interpret.- Background :Obfuscation may be used for many purposes...
name for Japan has recently come into vogue for Japanese film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
s, anime
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
, video games, etc.
Classical flowery names
- Ōyashima (大八洲) meaning the Great country of eight (or many) islands, AwajiAwaji Islandis an island in Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, in the eastern part of the Seto Inland Sea between the islands of Honshū and Shikoku. The island has an area of 592.17 km²...
, Iyo (later ShikokuShikokuis the smallest and least populous of the four main islands of Japan, located south of Honshū and east of the island of Kyūshū. Its ancient names include Iyo-no-futana-shima , Iyo-shima , and Futana-shima...
), OkiOki Islandsare a group of islands in the southwestern part of the Sea of Japan and belong to Japan.-Geography:The Oki Islands are situated between 40 to 80 kilometers north of the coast of Honshū.The islands are of volcanic origin and have a total area of 346,1 km2...
, Tsukushi (later KyūshūKyushuis the third largest island of Japan and most southwesterly of its four main islands. Its alternate ancient names include , , and . The historical regional name is referred to Kyushu and its surrounding islands....
), IkiIki IslandIki Island is an island lying between the island of Kyūshū and the Tsushima islands in the Tsushima Strait, the eastern channel of the Korea Strait. It is currently part of Nagasaki Prefecture of Japan. The city of Iki is the centre of the local government. The island has three ports.The island’s...
, TsushimaTsushima IslandTsushima Island is an island of the Japanese Archipelago situated in the middle of the Tsushima Strait at 34°25'N and 129°20'E. The main island of Tsushima was once a single island, but the island was divided into two in 1671 by the Ōfunakosiseto canal and into three in 1900 by the Manzekiseto canal...
, SadoSado, Niigatais a city located on Sado Island in Niigata Prefecture, in the Chūbu region of Japan. Since 2004, the city has comprised the entire island, although not all of its total area of 855.26 km2 is urbanized...
, and Yamato (later HonshūHonshuis the largest island of Japan. The nation's main island, it is south of Hokkaido across the Tsugaru Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and northeast of Kyushu across the Kanmon Strait...
); note that HokkaidōHokkaido, formerly known as Ezo, Yezo, Yeso, or Yesso, is Japan's second largest island; it is also the largest and northernmost of Japan's 47 prefectural-level subdivisions. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaido from Honshu, although the two islands are connected by the underwater railway Seikan Tunnel...
, Chishima, and Okinawa were not part of Japan in ancient times. The eight islands refers to the creation of the main eight islands of Japan by the gods IzanamiIzanamiIn Japanese mythology, is a goddess of both creation and death, as well as the former wife of the god Izanagi-no-Mikoto. She is also referred to as Izanami-no-kami.-Goddess of Creation:...
and IzanagiIzanagiis a deity born of the seven divine generations in Japanese mythology and Shinto, and is also referred to in the roughly translated Kojiki as "male-who-invites" or Izanagi-no-mikoto. It is also pronounced Izanaki-no-Okami....
in Japanese mythologyJapanese mythologyJapanese mythology is a system of beliefs that embraces Shinto and Buddhist traditions as well as agriculturally based folk religion. The Shinto pantheon comprises innumerable kami...
as well as the fact that eight was a synonym for "many". - Yashima (八島)
- FusōFusangFusang or Fousang refers to several different entities in ancient Chinese literature, often either a mythological tree or a mysterious land to the East....
(扶桑) - Mizuho (瑞穂) refers to strandStrandA strand is a beach, a geological formation consisting of loose rock particles along the shoreline of a body of water.Strand or "the Strand" may also refer to:-Geography:British Isles...
of rice. - Shikishima (敷島)
- Akitsushima (秋津島) or Toyo-akitsushima (豊秋津島）, Toyo means "abundant;" akitsu means "dragonfly;" "Akitsushima" means "The Island of Dragonflies".
- Toyoashihara no mizuho no kuni (豊葦原の瑞穂の国)、Ashihara no NakatsukuniAshihara no Nakatsukuniis, in Japanese mythology, the world between Takamagahara and Yomi . In time, the term became another word for the country or the location of Japan. The term can be used interchangeably with Toyoashihara no Nakatsukuni...
, Central Land of Reed Plains (葦原中国).
The katakana
Katakana
is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet . The word katakana means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana scripts are derived from components of more complex kanji. Each kana represents one mora...
transcription
Transcription (linguistics)
Transcription in the linguistic sense is the systematic representation of language in written form. The source can either be utterances or preexisting text in another writing system, although some linguists only consider the former as transcription.Transcription should not be confused with...
ジャパン of the English word Japan is sometimes encountered in Japanese, for example in the names of organizations seeking to project an international image.
Other East Asian nations
Dōngyáng (東洋) and Dōngyíng (東瀛) – both literally, "Eastern Ocean" – are ChineseChinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
terms sometimes used to refer to Japan exotically when contrasting it with other countries or regions in eastern Eurasia
Eurasia
Eurasia is a continent or supercontinent comprising the traditional continents of Europe and Asia ; covering about 52,990,000 km2 or about 10.6% of the Earth's surface located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres...
; however, these same terms may also be used to refer to all of East Asia
East Asia
East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...
when contrasting "the East" with "the West". They have been considered to be pejorative terms when used to mean "Japan". They can be contrasted with Nányáng
Nanyang (geographical region)
Nanyang is the Chinese name for the geographical region south of China, particularly Southeast Asia. Literally meaning "Southern Ocean", it came into common usage in self-reference to the large ethnic Chinese migrant population in Southeast Asia, to be more precise, in Singapore, the Philippines,...
(Southern Ocean), which refers to Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...
, and Xīyáng (Western Ocean), which refers to the Western world
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
. In Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
and Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
, the Chinese word for "Eastern Ocean" in Korean) is used only to refer to the Orient
The Orient
The Orient means "the East." It is a traditional designation for anything that belongs to the Eastern world or the Far East, in relation to Europe. In English it is a metonym that means various parts of Asia.- Derivation :...
(including both East Asia and Southeast Asia) in general, and it is not used in the more specific Chinese sense of "Japan".
In China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
is called Rìběn, which is the Mandarin pronunciation for the hanzi 日本. The Cantonese pronunciation is [jɐt˨ pun˧˥], the Shanghainese (Wu Chinese) pronunciation is Zeppen [zəʔpən], and the Min Nan
Min Nan
The Southern Min languages, or Min Nan , are a family of Chinese languages spoken in southern Fujian, eastern Guangdong, Hainan, Taiwan, and southern Zhejiang provinces of China, and by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora....
(Hokkien) pronunciation is . This has influenced the Thai name for Japan, Yipun (ญี่ปุ่น). In Korean, Japan is called Ilbon (일본/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 Malay
Malay language
Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...
it is called Jepun, and in Indonesian
Indonesian language
Indonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries....
Jepang, during Japanese occupation in Indonesia (1942—1945) the Japanese introduced Nippon or Dai Nippon into Indonesian language, however Jepang is more common.
Ue-kok (倭國) is recorded for older Hokkien
Hokkien
Hokkien is a Hokkien word corresponding to Standard Chinese "Fujian". It may refer to:* Hokkien dialect, a dialect of Min Nan Chinese spoken in Southern Fujian , Taiwan, South-east Asia, and elsewhere....
speakers. In the past, Korea also used 倭國, pronounced Waeguk (왜국).
See also
- Japanese nameJapanese namein modern times usually consist of a family name , followed by a given name. "Middle names" are not generally used.Japanese names are usually written in kanji, which are characters of usually Chinese origin in Japanese pronunciation...
(names of Japanese people) - Japanese place namesJapanese place namesJapanese place names include names for geographic features, present and former administrative divisions, transportation facilities such as railroad stations, and historic sites in Japan. The article Japanese addressing system contains related information on postal addresses.-Administrative...
- List of country name etymologies