Loanwords in Japanese: Helpful, Harmful, or Neither?

Jeﬀrie Butterﬁeld

Abstract
People borrow words from other languages for several reasons, one of the main being tocommunicate a thing or an idea that does not exist in their own language or culture. These borrowed
words are referred to as loanwords and they can help to enrich and develop the language into which
they are borrowed. However, in recent years in Japan, an extensive number of loanwords are usedeven when suitable equivalents in Japanese already exist. This sudden inﬂux of loanwords has been
the root of communication problems all throughout Japanese society. In this paper, I explore thehistorical and sociolinguistic factors that have led to the significant use of English loanwords inJapanese and consider the eﬀects of English loanword usage on the Japanese language, Japanesesociety, and on the English competency of language learners in Japan.
Ⅰ. Introduction
Throughout time languages have developed and changed when speakers of different languages
interacted through trade, migration, and conquest, among other things. Languages expand when
vocabulary for various things and concepts that did not exist in a language or culture are introduced
into a language. When a word for an idea, thing, or concept that did not previously exist in alanguage is borrowed and begins to be used by speakers of that language, it can take many years to
spread among the speakers of that language and ﬁnally be understood, especially in the past before
the advent of print media, radio, television, and the internet. As words ﬂow through society fromspeaker to speaker, their meanings and nuances can increase, decrease, and change. When a wordtakes on a completely new meaning, it is referred to as semantic expansion. People can create newmeanings for words sometimes intentionally or unintentionally. New meanings can be createdunintentionally when people use a word in a semantically incorrect way, which can then spreadthroughout society and become standard. When a word loses a particular meaning, it is called－ 15 －

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semantic narrowing, which occurs when people stop using a particular meaning of a word.
Languages can also change when people who speak diﬀerent languages interact, exposing eachother to words for diﬀerent things and ideas that may not exist in their respective languages orcultures. When people use words from a diﬀerent language it is often called borrowing and the wordborrowed is often referred to as a loanword. There are many deﬁnitions of what a loanword is andscholars generally fail to come to an agreement regarding the exact meaning.
Put simply, a loanword is a word adopted from another language. This deﬁnition, however, canbe problematic for several reasons and leaves many questions to be answered. For example, what
does it mean to adopt a word? According to Cambridge Dictionary (2023), adopt means “to choose
someone or something or take something as your own.” Based on this deﬁnition, when a word isadopted it becomes part of the language into which the word is used.
However, several questions still remain. For example, what is the diﬀerence between a foreign
word and a loanword? There is no universally accepted explanation of what the actual diﬀerence isbetween a foreign word and a loanword. A foreign word is a word from another language and aloanword is a word adopted from another language, but at what point does a foreign word become aloanword, a word adopted into a language, a word that now belongs to that language? Because there
is no clear distinction between what foreign words and loanwords are, it is diﬃcult to classify them.
It is easy for most people to understand that a foreign word is a word from a diﬀerent language.
However, is difficult to comprehend what a loanword is because it is not clearly defined andloanwords start out as foreign words. A loanword should be deﬁned as a word adopted from anotherlanguage that is intelligible to the majority of the speakers of the language into which the word isadopted. How a loanword is deﬁned becomes extremely important because if a foreign word is only
understood by a small amount of people but is used throughout society, whether it be in the news
media, at city oﬃces, or at schools, it can lead to signiﬁcant communication problems.
Irwin (2011) deﬁnes a loanword in Japanese as “a foreign word which has undergone adaptation
to Japanese phonology, has been borrowed into Japanese after the mid-16th century and whose
meaning is, or has been, intelligible to the general speech community” (p. 10). In Japanese there arethree types of words: wago, words of Japanese origin, kango, words of Chinese origin, and gairaigo,
words of Western origin. Although words of Chinese origin are technically of foreign origin, they are
not categorized as such (Loveday, 1996).
Ⅱ. Reasons for Loanword Usage
In the past people borrowed words for ideas, things, and concepts, that did not exist in their－ 16 －

Loanwords in Japanese（Butterfield）

language or culture, whereas in more recent years people borrow words for diﬀerent reasons. With
the exception of technology and science related words, a significant amount of loanwords areborrowed because of their allure. In Japan, the main reason people use loanwords even when aperfectly suitable equivalent in their own language exists is to show that they have a certain level ofknowledge of a foreign language and may know words that other people do not know, therefore
causing them to appear ostentatious.
There are, however, a variety of other reasons that words are borrowed from other languages.
For example, they are borrowed to make distinctions in meaning, and emphasize or call attention tosomething (Loveday, 1996). Loanwords are sometimes used in advertisements as emphasis or foraesthetics. Having too many kanji or Japanese characters can make something diﬃcult to read or
create a very rigid image. Loanwords are sometimes used to blur a meaning when the meaning issomething negative or sensitive.
According to Jinnai (2007), Japanese people tend to speak vaguely and leave the interpretation
to the person they are speaking to. He also explains that because words formed from kanji are
extremely vivid and leave little room for interpretation, there has been an increase in new katakana
words that are not well understood. Another reason that people use loanwords is to avoid using
taboo Japanese words. For example, there are several loanwords used regarding the elderly andpeople with disabilities, (Jinnai, 2007). The number of places and situations in which loanwords areused is endless. They are used in company meetings and presentations, university lectures, school
lessons, speeches, and TV shows, just to name a few.
Loveday (1996) points out that “the borrowing of items for referents already encoded inJapanese demonstrates that cultural contact is not the sole motivation for contact with English” (p.
83). Cultural contact is less a factor for borrowing than the reasons mentioned above. The number offoreigners living in Japan is extremely low so the amount of cultural contact with people who speakother languages is minimal.
Ⅲ. Loanwords and their Effects on the Japanese Language
There are various theories as to when Japanese became a fully-fledged language. It is often
hypothesized that it was sometime during the Yayoi Period. Japanese as the national language ofJapan is an ideological construct that did not exist prior to Japanʼs modernization (Heinrich, 2012),
which coincided with Japanʼs westernization and took place in many forms. According to Ueno
(2001), the increase in the usage of western loanwords in Japanese could be seen as a sign of Japanʼswesternization. Because Japan did not have its own writing system, it borrowed character scripts－ 17 －

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known as kanji from the Chinese language. Kanji on mainland Japan date back to the ﬁfth century
and the ﬁrst Japanese writings can be traced back to the eighth century (Loveday, 1996). Academic
words of western origin were translated into Japanese using kango from the Meiji Restoration.
Kango began to increase from the Nara Period, but apart from the period during World War Ⅱ,
loanwords of Western origin have continued to be adopted into the Japanese language since the
Meiji Period (Ueno, 2001).
Even though Japanese and English are not geographically adjacent languages, English has had asignificant effect on the Japanese lexicon, especially since World War Ⅱ and the American
occupation. During World War Ⅱ, English was viewed as the language of enemy in Japan andseveral measures were taken in order to prohibit its usage. Because of the governmentʼs policies
regarding English, company names, baseball words, school names, stage names, and other names ofEnglish origin were replaced with Japanese words. Some sport names and words related to various
sports were also changed. “ラグビー” (ragubii) [rugby] and “スキー” sukii) [skiing], for example,
were changed to “闘球” (toukyuu), and “雪滑” (yukisuberi) (Oishi, 2007). The characters “闘” (tou)and ”球” (kyuu) literally mean ﬁght ball, or ﬁght for the ball. “雪” (yuki) and “滑” (suberi) meansnow and slide, or to slide on the snow. Some of the words that were changed during the war were thebaseball words “ストライク” (sutoraiku) [strike] and “ファウル” (fauru) [foul]; they were replacedby the words “よし一本” (yoshi ippon), literally meaning “good one” and “だめ” (dame), meaning bad(Oishi, 2007). The word “ニ ュ ース” (nyuusu) [news] is a commonly used word in Japan and has
been in use since before World War Ⅱ. However, similar to the other words of English origin that were
replaced by Japanese words, the word “ニュース” (nyuusu) [news] was replaced by the Japaneseequivalent “報道” (houdou) (Oishi, 2007).
Following the end of World War Ⅱ there was a signiﬁcant increase in foreign words, which
would later become loanwords, words adopted into the Japanese language. Because there were noclear restrictions in place regarding the use of foreign words in Japanese society, people were free to
use them as they pleased. This led to a tidal wave of foreign words used in stores, advertisements,
team names, and product names, among other things, and this situation has continued virtuallyunhindered until the present.
The number of loanwords entering the Japanese language increased signiﬁcantly after Word
War Ⅱ, but there has also been a dramatic increase in recent years, not only because of science andtechnology related words that have entered the Japanese language. The use of technology, such as
the internet, has given people access a wide range of information in a variety of languages. The
Japanese government and various schools have increased their emphasis on the importance ofEnglish education. The weight placed on the importance of English can be evinced by the fact that－ 18 －

Loanwords in Japanese（Butterfield）

English is taught in elementary, junior high, and high schools and is a subject on university entrance
exams. Also, there has been an increasing amount of universities that provide programs with mostor all of their courses taught in English. This increased exposure to English has increased peopleʼsknowledge of English and therefore their ability to use it, at least at the vocabulary level, withrelative ease when speaking with other native Japanese speakers. People are able to make use of
their knowledge of English vocabulary words in a variety of ways and settings. For example, atcompany meetings, when speaking with friends, and when writing newspaper articles, news scripts,
or blogs. This usage has caused waves of loanwords to flow through Japanese society andsigniﬁcantly impact the Japanese language.
The majority of the words that have entered the Japanese language in recent years have comefrom English and when new words are created they are often made by combining loanwords (Ueno,
2001). Most loanwords in Japanese begin as nouns, but they can function as adverbs or adjectives,
and they are sometimes changed to function as verbs or the verb “suru” [to do] is added toverbalize them. There are two types of loanwords: new words used to describe new things and newwords to describe old things (Jinnai, 2007). In most cases problems occur when new words are used
to describe old things, especially when suitable Japanese translations already exist. There has been asignificant increase in loanwords to describe things even though there are preexisting Japanesewords that are suﬃcient. For example, “公民館” (kouminkan) has been replaced by “コミュニティー
センター” (komyunitii sentaa) [community center], and “さじ” (saji) has been replaced by “スプーン” (supuun) [spoon] (Jinnai, 2007).
According to Aitchison (2013) “language might be slowly evolving to a more eﬃcient state. We
might be witnessing the survival of the ﬁttest, with existing languages adapting to the needs of thetimes” (p. 7). Some Japanese words are shortened by using one loanword or by combining morethan one loanword or parts of those words, so in some sense Japanese is becoming more eﬃcient.
New words are often made using shortened versions of foreign words or loanwords. However, even
if the part of the word is the exact same in Japanese, it is often quite diﬀerent in English, so it does
not necessarily lead to a higher level of understanding of the meaning of the word. For example, thewords “パソコン” (pasokon) [personal computer], “エアコン” (eakon) [air conditioner], and “リモコン” (rimokon) [remote control]” all contain “コン” (kon), but each of the meanings is signiﬁcantly
diﬀerent in English (Ueno, 2001). At ﬁrst glance, although the “kon” part of each word may look thesame, the meaning is not always the same and may not necessarily lead to a greater understandingof English.
Even if loanwords are longer and more characters are required to write them, there is a trend
to use them because they are different, more attractive, and make the speaker or writer of the－ 19 －

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loanword appear intelligent or to have an elevated status. It would be assumed that when a writer iswriting they would choose the shortest, easiest option that they are most familiar with and that aspeaker would choose the shorter Japanese word instead of the longer loanword. However, in recent
years loanwords tend to be used even if they are longer and contain more characters.
The use of English loanwords has affected the Japanese language in a variety of ways. For
example, it has aﬀected Japanese grammar and Japanese pronunciation (Ueno, 2001). However, themost signiﬁcant impact that English loanwords have had on the Japanese language is by far the
replacement of Japanese words. Even within Japan, Japanese is being used less and less and it islosing its status and power to English (Ueno, 2001). There are even some Japanese companies, suchas Rakuten, who have declared that the common language at their company would be English.
Heinrich (2012) states that “As powerful symbols of nationhood, national languages take their
particular shape as a result of discursive solutions to the historical, social and political contexts fromwhich they emerge” (p. 6). Because of the extensive use of foreign words and loanwords in Japan,
Japanese, the national language of Japan, has continued to weaken and lose signiﬁcance because it isbeing overtaken by English.
Sanseido (2020) published a dictionary called コンサイスカタカナ語辞典 [Concise Dictionary of
Katakana Words], which consists of 58,500 entries, 49,300 of which are katakana words, and theremaining 9,200 are abbreviations based on the Roman alphabet and symbols. The number of entries
in this dictionary provides an indication of the scale of loanword usage in Japanese. Brysbaert et al.
(2016) conducted an experiment to find out how many words the average adult knows. They
provided participants with a list of 61,800 lemmas, which are the uninﬂected basal forms of a word.
Based on the data that they collected they concluded that the average 20-year-old adult knows
approximately 42,000 lemmas. Based on the estimates published by Brysbaert et al. (2016), if theaverage Japanese person is expected to understand common Japanese words plus all of the foreign
words and loanwords that are used in society, it is highly unlikely that the majority of the foreign
words and loanwords will be well understood or understood at all.
Language, similar to other things, changes over time, but “large numbers of intelligent people
condemn and resent language change, regarding alterations as due to unnecessary sloppiness,laziness, or ignorance” (Aitchison, 2013, p. 4-5). There are many diﬀerent opinions about whether
loanwords are improving Japanese or destroying it (Jinnai, 2007). Some people despise the use of
loanwords and how it is changing the Japanese language, whereas other people welcome it with open
arms. As a result of loanword usage, the Japanese language is slowly changing, morphing into
something that is only a shell of its former self. Unless government action is taken in order toprevent the use and further spread of loanwords, the Japanese language will continue to be in peril.
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Loanwords in Japanese（Butterfield）

In addition to the number of Japanese words being replaced by loanwords and therefore
disappearing from the Japanese language, the population of Japan is decreasing at a staggering rate.
This means that the number of Japanese speakers is declining, further putting the Japanese
language at risk of becoming extinct. Judging from the fact that many loanwords are replacing
Japanese words and are the source of communication problems throughout society, it appears thatloanwords are more harmful than helpful to the Japanese language.
Ⅳ. Loanwords and their Effects on Japanese Society
In 1991, the government talked about how loanwords would be written, but they did not consider
whether they should be used or not (Jinnai, 2007) or whether their use should be prohibited. In 1995,
the government discussed the increase in the use of loanwords and foreign words in Japanese. The
Agency of Cultural Aﬀairs (1995) posted a report of the meeting and in the report they mentioned
the results of a public opinion poll taken the same year regarding the use of loanwords and foreign
words in Japanese. Approximately 45% of the respondents answered that it would be alright if
loanwords and foreign words increased slightly and 30.4% said that they felt that loanwords should
not increase more than now. 13.1% responded that they do not mind how much loanword and foreign
word usage increases, 6.6% stated that loanword and foreign word usage should be decreased, and5.0% responded that they are not sure. Overall, the attitudes toward loanword and foreign word
usage in Japanese seemed to be quite positive, with very few of the respondents holding negative
feelings towards loanwords and foreign words. The report goes on to mention that some people feelthat the overuse of loanwords and foreign words needs to be prevented when a suitable Japaneseword exists, when their usage creates communication breakdowns with other generations, and whenthe meaning is different from the source word, which will not only create problems for people
learning that language, but also lead to the destruction of the Japanese language.
The report points out that there are times when it is necessary to use loanwords and foreign
words in order to communicate certain nuances and concepts. It states that sometimes the Japanesetranslation is more diﬃcult to understand than loanwords or foreign words, but that people should
decide which words to choose based on who they are communicating to and what their objective is.
Finally, the report concludes that broadcasting agencies, newspapers, and government agencies andso on should not use loanwords and foreign words when it can be communicated in Japanese.
However, despite the fact that government made this suggestion, there are no laws in place, such as
the Toubon Law in France, to prevent the use or overuse of foreign words and loanwords. The
governmentʼs suggestion was extremely vague so it did not seem to lead to any improvement to－ 21 －

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speak of.
In 2002, the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics formed a committee inorder to come up with a solution for how to deal with loanwords commonly used in the public spherethat were not well understood. The committee created a list that consisted of 176 words (National
Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics, 2006), but it was criticized by some as being notuseful because of the minimal amount of words (Aizawa, 2012). The committee came up withtranslations and explanations for each of the words on the list in order to make it easier for people tounderstand them. However, it is highly likely that the majority of people in Japan have not seen thelist or even know of its existence. If the average person does not see the list, it will not create adeeper understanding of each of the words and all of the committeeʼs eﬀorts will have been in vain.
The number of entries in the Concise Dictionary of Katakana Words is suggestive of thenumber of foreign or loanwords in use in Japanese. Even if only a small portion of the 49,300 words
in the dictionary are words that are commonly used in society, that is still a signiﬁcant amount ofwords for Japanese people to remember. Furthermore, the committee formed by the National
Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics only had 176 words on their list, which is a far cry
from the amount of foreign words and loanwords used in Japan and the number of words in theConcise Dictionary of Katakana Words.
Loanwords are sometimes the cause of communication breakdowns (Jinnai, 2007). Due to theprevalent use of loanwords in various media, including television, magazines, and newspapers, somepeople have to use a dictionary in an attempt to understand what is being said or written. Some mightﬁnd it preposterous that an adult living in a country that has a language that they are a native speakerof would have to use a dictionary in order to comprehend a TV program. According to Jinnai (2007),the elderly are the least familiar with loanwords so they are the people who are having the mostdiﬃcult time with them.
In 2013, a 71-year-old man named Hoji Takahashi sued Japanʼs national broadcast organization,
NHK, for their overuse of English words, which he claims caused him mental distress. Takahashiʼslawyer, Mutsuo Miyata, said that “With Japanese society increasingly Americanised, Takahashi
believes that NHK, as Japanʼs national broadcaster, shouldnʼt go with the trend, but remain
determined to prioritise the use of Japanese, which he thinks would go a long way toward protecting
Japanese culture” (BBC, 2013). NHK acknowledged using commonly used words of non-Japaneseorigin, but rejected the claim that they overused them (Japan Times, 2013). Kiyofumi Saito, thepresiding judge in the case, ruled that it is not possible to prove that emotional distress can becaused as a result of the use of foreign words (Japan Today, 2014). Judge Saito stated that NHK did
not infringe on Takahashiʼs rights (Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 2014).
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Loanwords in Japanese（Butterfield）

Although Takahashiʼs rights may not have been infringed upon, most would agree that not
being able to understand a TV program in your own country whose national language you speak
because of the overuse of foreign words or loanwords would cause emotional distress. This lawsuit
demonstrates the problematic nature of foreign words and loanwords and reveals that if checks andbalances are not in place to prevent things like this from occurring, this will continue to happen andJapan will slowly descend into linguistic chaos.
Takahashi remarked that “Young people can probably understand a lot of this stuff, but for
older people like myself, when I hear “asurito” (athlete) and “konpuraiansu” (compliance), I donʼtknow what it means” (Japan Today, 2014). Several public surveys have been conducted regarding
peopleʼs intelligibility of and thoughts towards loanwords and results revealed that there is diﬀerence
in intelligibility based on peopleʼs ages. If a signiﬁcant amount of foreign words or loanwords areused in succession in, say, for example, a news program or speech, the overall intelligibility would
signiﬁcantly decrease. There are a variety of opinions regarding loanword usage, with some people
outright criticizing any use of loanwords, and other people being quite receptive to their usage. Somepeople think that loanword usage is destroying the Japanese language because loanwords continue
to replace Japanese words, and others think that loanwords are enriching the Japanese language.
Some people refrain from using foreign words and loanwords, but others, such as Tokyo
Governor Yuriko Koike, well known for overusing loanwords and foreign words in the media, prefer
to use them. At a news conference held on March 23, 2020 (Tokyo Metropolitan Government, 2020),
she used many foreign words, such as “ロックダウン (rokkudaun) [lockdown]” and “オーバーシュー
ト (oobaashuuto) [overshoot],” to discuss the current state of the coronavirus. When she was giving
her speech, she would use a foreign word and include the Japanese translation. For example, before
she said “lockdown” she stated the meaning in Japanese, “都 市 が 封 鎖 さ れ て い る (toshi ga fuusa
sareteiru) [the city is on lockdown]. Because she is saying the meaning in Japanese, there is no needfor her to use foreign words. It is equivalent to saying the exact same thing twice.
In response to the use of foreign words related to the coronavirus, Defense Minister Taro Kono
tweeted, “クラスター 集団感染” (kurasutaa shuudankansen) [cluster] “オーバーシュート 感染爆発”(oobaashuuto kansenbakuhatsu) [overshoot] “ロックダウン 都市封鎖” (rokkudaun toshifuusa)[lockdown] “ではダメなのか。なんでカタカナ ?” (de wa dame na no ka. nande katakana?) [Arethese not okay? Why katakana?] (Kono, 2020). Here he is questioning why the foreign words“cluster,” “overshoot,” and “lockdown” are being used when there are suﬃcient Japanese terms thatcan communicate those concepts.
In the past it took a considerable amount of time for foreign words to spread throughout acountry. Often times particular words may be popular in circles or professions but would rarely－ 23 －

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make their way to the general population. With the proliferation of the internet, social media, andnews media, new words can spread in an instant. What may have taken tens of years for a word to
spread among the speakers of a language in the past may now take a matter of days, hours, minutes,
or even seconds. Nowadays, through the internet and various social media platforms, and foreign
language education at elementary, junior high, high schools, and universities, people have exposureand access to various languages and words on a daily basis.
Sometimes it only takes one event for a foreign word used only in certain groups to become wellknown throughout the general population and eventually replace the original Japanese word. For
example, during World War Ⅱ, the word “生命線” (seimeisen) [lifeline] was used, but the English
word “lifeline” became widely used following the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake (Ueno, 2001).
When one media outlet uses a particular word in order to sound intelligent or to make their
newscasts sound more interesting, other media outlets will pick up on that and mimic them. The
same can be said about the word “pandemic.” Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, the word“pandemic” was rarely used in Japan. However, even though the word pandemic can be expressed inJapanese, it became a keyword to describe the spread of the coronavirus.
The main people disseminating foreign words and loanwords are people in media and government
oﬃces who can reach a large number of people very easily, such as newscasters, journalists, magazine
editors, government oﬃcials, people involved in the creation of TV shows, anime creators, and so on.
Even children are constantly bombarded with loanwords all throughout their daily lives. Japanese
animation is littered with loanwords and foreign words that children do not understand. Sometimes
they are used for design purposes and other times they are used because of the appeal of using
something diﬀerent. It is not strange, for example to see “敵：ヴィラン” (teki: viran) [villain: villain]on a sign in a Japanese animation. Here, too, even though the Japanese word “teki” is suﬃcient to say“villain,” they still included the English word “villain.”
Ⅴ. Loanwords and their Effects on English Competency
According to Daulton (2008), “Because of the vast number of English words that have been borrowed,
Japanese have access to countless potential cognates, which include high-frequency and academic
words. English loanwords are a built-in lexicon of English words have yet to encounter” (p. 4). It would
be assumed that because the majority of new words introduced into the Japanese language are ofEnglish origin that it would lead to an increase in English competency. However, in actuality, this is not
the case. Even though a signiﬁcant number of loanwords are used in Japanese, it has not led to a highlevel of English proﬁciency, high scores on standardized tests, such as TOEIC (Butterﬁeld, 2019), or－ 24 －

Loanwords in Japanese（Butterfield）

a high degree of pragmatic competence (Butterﬁeld, 2020).
A report published by Educational Testing Service (2022) on TOEIC test takers worldwide
revealed that 33% of the test takers from Japan were scientific/technical professions and theiraverage test score was 561, not signiﬁcantly better than speakers of languages in which loanwords
are not used as extensively as Japanese. This could be due to a variety of factors. For, example,
English is not used by many of the test takers from Japan. 43% of the test takers from Japan
reported only using English between 1 to 10% in their daily lives. Also, 39% of the test takers fromJapan reported that the skill that they used most frequently was reading, which would not result in
an increase in listening ability, and therefore a high score on the listening section of the TOEIC Test.
Despite the fact that so many loanwords are used in Japanese and that English words can beseen and heard all throughout Japan, it is not leading to a substantial level of intelligibility among thepeople being exposed to them. Just because loanwords exist in various forms and mediums all
throughout Japanese society does not necessarily mean that they are well understood. Even if they
were well understood by English language learners in Japan, it does not mean that they loanwords
share all of the same meanings as the original English word, which may not result in improved
English ability, and instead may lead to confusion.
In addition to the meanings that loanwords share with the source words, they can sometimes
take on new meanings for several reasons. One could be that the ﬁrst person who used it did nothave a thorough understanding of the meaning and used it incorrectly, therefore setting up the word
for failure from the start. When loanwords of English origin and their source words have diﬀerent
meanings, it can be extremely problematic for language learners.
Assuming that a particular English word used as a loanword in Japanese shared all of the exact
meanings in Japanese, it may not share all of the same pragmatic usages, which is another factor
that may impede English language learners in Japan from fully utilizing the loanwords in Japaneseand not reﬂect a score increase on standardized tests that measure English proﬁciency. Many words
are only used in very speciﬁc contexts and it is possible for a loanword to be used in less or more
contexts than the source word. When a loanword is used in less ways that the source word, it iscalled contextual narrowing, and conversely, when it is used in more contexts, it is called contextual
expansion. Contextual narrowing and expansion only become problematic when, for example, English
language learners use a particular meaning of a word in a particular context that is not appropriate
or natural. Another problem that exists in Japan is the creation of Japanese words using English
words or parts of English words. These are called Wasei-Eigo, which are pseudo loanwords, andliterally means Japanese-made English.
Another problem that may be preventing language learners in Japan from getting higher scores－ 25 －

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is pronunciation. Assuming that a loanword of English origin shares the same meanings andpragmatic usages in English and Japanese, it still may not be heard and recognized on the listening
section of the TOEIC Test if the English and Japanese pronunciations are not similar. A common
factor that is often cited for the fact that the number of loanwords in use in is Japan not leading to ahigher proﬁciency among English language learners is the sheer amount of loanwords being used.
The number of loanwords in use in Japan seems to be increasing year by year, but English
proficiency does not appear to be improving. The 49,300 entries in Sanseidoʼs (2020) Concise
Dictionary of Katakana Words indicate the enormous scale of foreign words and loanwords in use inJapan. The newest version of the dictionary includes terms that have appeared in society more
recently as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, such as “pandemic,” “social distancing,” and“telework.” Because of the astonishing number of and speed with which foreign words and loanwords
are introduced into and ﬂow through Japanese society, it is extremely diﬃcult for the average person
to understand of all of them, even superﬁcially.
Although the number of business people who use or are exposed to English on a daily basis isquite low, scores on standardized tests such as the TOEIC Test are extremely important. According
to a questionnaire conducted by the Institute for International Business Communication (2013),
41.7% of the companies surveyed answered that they sometimes use applicantsʼ TOEIC scores as areference when making a hiring decision and 27.6% responded that they do use it as a reference.
The average score that companies wanted for new graduates was 565. Having a thoroughunderstanding of loanwords as well as their semantic and pragmatic similarities and diﬀerences isimportant not just for the sake of getting a high score on a test, but also because it could aﬀect
whether language learners receive a job or not.
If the TOEIC scores of test takers in Japan were significantly higher or lower than otherspeakers of languages in which loanwords are not used in large numbers, it would indicate a positiveor negative correlation between loanword usage in Japanese and overall English ability. However,
because the TOEIC scores of Japanese test takers are not notably diﬀerent from test takers fromcountries in which loanwords are not used nearly as much as in Japan, it suggests that loanwords
are neither noticeably helpful, nor harmful to English language learners.
Ⅵ . Conclusion
It is often said that a language dies when the last speaker of that language dies, but just like living
humans are slowly dying, languages can also be in the process of dying. This can be said about theJapanese language. There is an abundance of loanwords that are used in the Japanese language that－ 26 －

Loanwords in Japanese（Butterfield）

are replacing their Japanese counterparts even when perfectly suitable equivalents exist. Languages,
just like humans, are alive, and they are constantly changing, developing, and deteriorating. Whenthe change is subtle, happening over an extended period of time, it becomes diﬃcult for the current
speakers of a language to realize how drastically their language has changed. However, when thechanges occur radically over a short period of time, they are easier to recognize. Due to the sudden
inﬂux of foreign words and loanwords, Japanese is changing at a signiﬁcant rate so the changes areaxiomatic. The large amount of foreign words and loanwords in use in Japan makes it diﬃcult forpeople to develop a deep understanding of all of the words being used.
In the past there had been proposals of changing the national language of Japan from Japanese
to English. This, obviously, did not gain traction and was not accepted by the Japanese government,
but currently because of the lack of legislation to prevent the use of foreign words and loanwords inthe media, at schools, public places, and so on, it appears that there is a tacit acceptance by thegovernment that it is acceptable if English replaces Japanese. Without some type of legislation toprohibit the use of foreign words and loanwords, Japanese words will continue to be replaced by
English words and the Japanese language will no longer be recognizable.
One of the premises of successful communication is that both interlocutors understand the words
being uttered by the other person. If for some reason the words are not understood, it will often resultin a communication breakdown, which can lead to a variety of issues. The overuse of loanwords inJapanese society is causing communication problems in various situations across a broad range ofage groups. Because of the signiﬁcant number of loanwords in use in Japanese, the problems createdby the inability for people to understand each other cannot be easily solved. It is important forpeople who disseminate information, such as journalists, newscasters, and government oﬃcials who
use foreign words and loanwords to consider who their audience is, the problems that may arise as
well as the consequences. Their actions can either contribute to the destruction of the Japanese
language or help to save it.
There have been different groups that have been created in hopes of saving the Japanese
language, but their eﬀorts have had little success. Because of their lack of reach and overall positive
public attitudes towards foreign word and loanword usage in society, they seem to be ﬁghting alosing battle. Without some type of top-down government legislation, there is little hope that theJapanese language will survive in the future. It does not appear that the majority of the generalpublic find the changes to the Japanese language undesirable, which is why the situation has
escalated to where it has.
An extensive public survey comparing the intelligibility of a Japanese word and a foreign wordor loanword should be conducted and then used to create a comprehensive list of words that are－ 27 －

研究紀要

第 99 号

permissible and not permissible to use. These words would then have to be referenced before
making a speech or creating a TV program and so on in order to avoid using words that are notwell understood by the general public. Without the creation of such a list, it is highly unlikely thatthe number of people complaining about their inability to comprehend a TV show will decrease. Ifsuch a list is not created, the use of foreign words and loanwords will be left to the discretion of theperson, organization, news outlet, and so on that is releasing the information. It is often the news
outlets that constantly overuse foreign words and loanwords and that echo the words used byvarious government oﬃcials.
In order for successful communication to occur, both interlocutors need to understand the words
being used. As Bybee (2015) states, “Language is conventional. What this means is that it has to be usedin pretty much the same way by speakers and listeners in order for it to be eﬀective as communication”(p. 5). However, as shown by several public surveys, even loanwords that are frequently used inJapanese society are not well understood. If both speakers do not understand the words being used,
it will result in a communication breakdown. Words are used to communicate and when those words
are not understood, they do not serve a purpose. Because there are so many foreign words andloanwords in use in Japan, many are not well understood, and they are constantly competing forsurvival with Japanese words.
The government needs to conduct a public survey in order to determine which foreign words
and loanwords are well understood by the majority of the population and which are not. After
determining this they should prohibit the use of the foreign words in order to avoid communication
problems and to further prevent the destruction of the Japanese language. However, because of theextensive amount of loanwords in use in Japanese society, such a large-scale, thorough survey isvirtually impossible. Had the government acted faster, the situation would not have progressed asmuch as it has.
If the government fails to put a law in place that prohibits the use of foreign words in the news
media, schools, and city and government oﬃces that are not well understood, the current situation
will continue to worsen until the Japanese language is ﬂooded with even more unintelligible foreign
words. The lack of legislation by the government demonstrates that it is underestimating the
problem and until the problem is taken seriously and addressed, foreign words and loanwords willcontinue to replace Japanese words, resulting in the demise of the Japanese language.

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Loanwords in Japanese（Butterfield）

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