Japanese gets lost in translation

Would you like a jusu with your hambaga?

By Charles Scanlon BBC Tokyo correspondent

It has been going on for centuries, but now the government says it has gone too far.

The Japanese language is being invaded by too many foreign words.

Japanese has three different scripts

For decades you have been able to order an "oranji jusu" from your local "kohi shoppu" and cheerfully ask for a "hamu ando cheesu sandoitchi".

But in recent years, the steady stream of newly coined foreign words has become a flood.

"The beauty of traditional Japanese language will be tarnished by the thoughtless use of imported words," said education minister Atsuko Toyama.

Translating back

The ministry is setting up a committee of language experts to think up good Japanese alternatives.

Japanese imports

Kohi: Coffee

Rori con: Lolita complex

Sabiro: Suit (root: Saville Row)

Parasaito shingeru: Unmarried 30-something

The Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, is said to have been moved to action after receiving a particularly incomprehensible document from financial bureaucrats.

Much used in these hard economic times are "resutora" (restructuring) for laying off employees, and rather more obscurely, "pay-off", meaning the lifting of a government guarantee on bank deposits.

Once adapted into Japanese, foreign words often become unrecognisable, both in pronunciation and meaning. The hunger for new words might actually be hindering communication with the outside world.

The process has a long history. Japanese absorbed Chinese characters in the millennium before last, and one of its three writing systems, Katakana, is reserved exclusively for the transliteration of foreign words.

Miscommunication

At the Ark Academy is Tokyo's Shibuya district, foreign language students are relieved to find so many familiar words - beeru, chikin, hambaga. But it is not easy to keep up.

"The word for England is Igirisu," says Duncan Weeks, who has been learning Japanese for two years. "But during the World Cup everyone suddenly started talking about - engu-rando as well; it can be confusing."

The mass media - known as mascomi - has been identified as one of the principle culprits. Tune in to FM radio and you will here DJs bantering away in a hybrid language bristling with English expressions.

Naoko Horiuchi has an afternoon show on Tokyo Inter-FM. In just a few minutes her rapid fire Japanese threw out "request show", "message", "birthday", "jet skier", and "marine sports".

'Trying to be American'

"Japanese people think English is cool, and I do too," says the 24-year-old DJ. "They like to follow American fashion and lifestyle - they're trying to be American maybe" she says.

Others are equally besotted with France, Italy, Brazil - but it is English words that are making all the running at the moment.

At the venerable Yomiuri newspaper, Japan's best selling paper, they like to stick with tradition.

Japan's elderly find it hard to keep up

Editorial writer Masaki Takeuchi receives numerous complaints from readers who cannot keep track. He tries to avoid foreign expressions in his columns.

"It's not easy - it's hard to go five lines without using an imported word. But elderly people don't understand them, and the meaning becomes confused - it's often far removed from the original language."

But some words are just too hard to resist. "Seku hara" for sexual harassment and "parasaito shingeru" for unmarried 30-somethings are not easily substituted.

Traditionalists fret that Japanese is turning into a confused mishmash of languages.

It will take more than a government committee to turn back the tide.