Image of Japan among Slovenes: Borrowed Words of Japanese Origin in SLOVENE Chikako SHIGEMORI BUČAR University of Ljubljana, Slovenia chikako.bucar@guest.arnes.si Abstract This paper presents the process and mechanism of borrowing from Japanese into Slovene. Japan and Slovenia are geographically and culturally quite distant, and the two languages are genealogically not related. Between such two languages, not many borrowings are expected, but there is a certain amount of borrowed words of Japanese origin in today's Slovene. The focus of this paper is on the words of Japanese origin that are well integrated in today's Slovene. Firstly, the process of borrowing is analysed: there are three main phases for successful borrowing from Japanese into Slovene, but during the process, some obstacles may hinder the completion of this process, so that further creative use of some borrowed words in the Slovene environment cannot be expected. The second part of this paper will closely look at the loanwords of Japanese origin which are already recorded as headwords in today's dictionaries of Slovene. The loanwords are analysed in relation to the borrowing process and adjustments, their semantic fields, and wherever possible, their diachronic changes in use, and other specifics. At the end, the image of Japan seen through the borrowing process and consolidated loanwords is summarized, and possible development of borrowing in the near future is predicted. Keywords: loanwords; Slovene; Japanese; borrowing; derivation; number and gender Povzetek Članek v prvem delu obravnava postopek in mehanizem izposojanja iz tujega jezika v slovenščino, zlasti v primeru izposojanja iz jezika, ki je kulturno in jezikovno oddaljen, kakor je japonski. Drugi del članka je pregled izposojenk, ki imajo svoj izvor v japonkem jeziku in so danes že gesla v slovarju slovenskega jezika. Sledi analiza izposojenk glede na postopek vključevanja v slovensko besedišče in semantično polje, v katerem deluje posamezna beseda. Analiza vključuje, kolikor je možno, spremembe in rabe posamezne izposojenke skozi zgodovino ter druge značilnosti. Na koncu je povzetek današnjega stanja izposojenk in njihove rabe, ki ponuja določeno podobo japonske kulture v slovenski družbi. Ključne besede: izposojenke; slovenščina; japonščina; izposojanje; izpeljava; število in spol Acta Linguistica Asiatica, 9(1), 2019. ISSN: 2232-3317, http://revije.ff.uni-lj.si/ala/ DOI: 10.4312/ala.9.1.75-88 76 Chikako SHIGEMORI BUCAR 1 Introduction Japan and Slovenia are geographically and culturally quite distant, and the two languages, Japanese and Slovene, are genealogically not related. Between such two languages, not many borrowings are expected, and yet, there have been indirect and direct contacts of the two cultures and nations, particularly after the end of Tokugawa era in 1868. Therefore, borrowings of originally Japanese words do exist in contemporary Slovene. Most of the borrowings from Japanese into Slovene occurred in the 20th and 21st century. From the linguistic point of view, the borrowing mechanism is quite interesting in the case of Japanese words into Slovene, since the phonetic and lexico-grammatical differences between the two languages demand various adjustments for the borrowed words to become loanwords in the Slovene local environment. The focus of this paper is on the words of Japanese origin that are well integrated in today's Slovene. Firstly, the process of borrowing is analysed: there are three main phases for successful borrowing from Japanese into Slovene, but during the process, some obstacles may hinder the completion of this process, so that further creative use of some borrowed words in the Slovene environment cannot be expected. The second part of this paper will closely look at the loanwords of Japanese origin which are already recorded as headwords in today's dictionaries of Slovene. The loanwords are analysed in relation to the borrowing process and adjustments, their semantic fields, and wherever possible, their diachronic changes in use, and other specifics. At the end, the image of Japan seen through the borrowing process and consolidated loanwords is summarized, and possible development of borrowing in the near future is predicted. 2 Process and mechanism of borrowing Figure 1 is a schematic summary of the process of borrowing from Japanese into Slovene. There are three main phases for each word, usually a noun, to be accepted as a loanword into Slovene (a., b. and c. in Figure 1). If a borrowed word reaches the last phase (c), we can say that it has fully become a loanword in Slovene, i.e. it is used freely and creatively in the Slovene context. Image of Japan among Slovenes: Borrowed Words of Japanese Origin in Slovene 77 Figure 1: Three phases for successful borrowing 2.1 Gender and number assignment The first phase (a.) of borrowing is the assignment of gender and number to the new borrowed word. The Japanese langauge has no category of number or of gender. On the other hand, since the categories of number and gender exist in Slovene, every Japanese noun to be used in the context of Slovene must be categorized into one of the numbers (singular, dual or plural) and genders (masculine, feminine or neutral). The gender and number of each new word is usually decided according to the phonetic form of the word. Since most of the Japanese syllables are open and end in one of the five vowels a, e, i, o or u, the gender is assigned according to the ending vowel, i.e. -a as feminine, -e, -i, -o and -u as masculine. The assignment of number is basically singular. Words with the moraic nasal /N/ (-n) at the word end is also categorized as masculine (See Table 1)1. Exceptional cases are given with examples on the right side of Table 1: under @ <5> when a word with a final vowel -e is interpreted as a plurale tantum (example: karaoke), and under @ <3> , <6> and <11> when nouns with a final vowel -a, -e or -o are interpreted as masculine with slightly different ways of declension.2 Most of the gender and number assignment is done according to the morphological rules u nder ® in Table 1, that is, originally Japanese words are usually categorized as feminine or masculine in gender, and in most cases singular in number. 1 This table was made to present all theoretically possible solutions of the gender and number assignment, from <1> to <13> in the table, but for <2> and <8> no example exists. For detailed explanation, please also refer to Shigemori Bučar (2011). 2 @ <3> is a case when a noun with a final vowel -a is interpreted as masculine and assigned the second masculine inflection in Slovene. @ <6> and <11> are cases when the last vowel of a longer noun is observed as a non-voiced or unaccented -e or -o and declined differently from the cases under @ <4> and <10>. For details, please also refer to Shigemori Bučar (2011). 78 Chikako SHIGEMORI BUCAR Table 1: Possible solutions of gender and number assignments to nouns of Japanese origin in Slovene (Shigemori Bučar (2011, p. 251)) Word ® © © ending by morpholo- example* plural inter- example additional rules example in Jap. gical rules; singular pretation and interpretations -a f.sg. <1> [+anim] gejša -e [-anim] ikebana -e n.pl. <2> / m.sg. <3> [+anim] jakuza -e -e m.sg.(-j-)<4> anime -ja f.pl. <5> karaoke karaok šitake šitak m.sg. <6> [+anim] kamikaze -a -i m.sg.(-j-)<7> cunami -ja / -Vi>-Vj m.sg. <9> samuraj -a -o m.sg.(-j-)<10> go -ja m.sg. <11> kimono -a -u m.sg.(-j-)<12> tofu -ja -n m.sg.(-j-)<13> šogun -a * Each example is shown in its nominative and genitive form 2.2 Orthographic adjustment The second phase of the borrowing from Japanese into Slovene is the orthographic adjustment (b. in Figure 1). There are some examples of words that end in the vowel sequence -ai in Japanese, for which the -i at the end is replaced with a -j in the Slovene orthography (under @ <9> in Table 1, example: samuraj). This replacement, which may be called "slovenization" in writing and speaking, occurs most probably because of similar Slovene words with the ending -aj /-ai/ (e.g. čuvaj 'custodian'; papagaj 'parrot'), and because the borrowed words may then be declined more easily in the same manner as the existing Slovene words, i.e. čuvaj [nom], čuvaja [gen], čuvaju [dat]; samuraj, samuraja samuraju. Today's most frequent and worldwide way to romanize Japanese is the Hepburn romanization developed in the late 19th century. On the other hand, the modern Slovene uses a set of Latin alphabet called "gajica" (Gaj's alphabet) devised by Croatian linguist Ljudevit Gaj in 1835, based on Jan Hus's Czech alphabet. The principle of Gaj's alphabet is that every sound should have only one letter. Japanese consonants for which digraphs are used in the Hepburn system, i.e. ch, ts and sh, are rewritten in the course of borrowing by one letter in Slovene, in case of ts by c, in case of ch and sh with a caron (or a hachek=inverted circumflex), č and š (examples: tsunami — cunami; matcha — mača3; shiitake —šitake4). The sound spelled j /3/ in the Hepburn system is 3 Here is an additional adjustment with the glottal stop, described in the followig paragraph. 4 Here, too, is an additional adjustment with the long vowel, described in the following paragraph. Image of Japan among Slovenes: Borrowed Words of Japanese Origin in Slovene 79 written with the corresponding ž or with the digraph dž in Slovene. The letter y is not used in Slovene (except for foreign proper nouns), and the sound represented by y in the Hepburn system is spelled with j in Slovene (example: yakuza — jakuza). Other disputable points in orthography and phonology are the opposition of long and short vowels: this distinction in Japanese is not expressed in everyday press in English, German etc., and since Slovene also has no distinction of long and short vowels, the originally Japanese loanwords lose this distinction in the Slovene environment (i.e. budo -— budo). A similar problem exists with the glottal stop usually romanized in the Hepburn system as a double consonant. The Slovene authority is of the opinion that a double consonant of foreign origin must be rewritten with a single consonant. Therefore, loanwords are spelled (and pronounced) mača for matcha, šitake for shiitake. Orthography is closely connected to phonology. Some cases at this phase of borrowing changes the phonetic form of the borrowed word, and its consequence is the audial and morphological 'deformation' (from the standpoint of the original language) or 'integration' (from the standpoint of the new langauge into which the word is being borrowed). The "slovenized" forms may sometimes trigger association with similar lexical items in Slovene, for example, sushi -— suši, which is similar to the Slovene verb sušiti 'to dry'. The nominalization of this Slovene verb leads to the noun suša "draught", of which the dative or locative form would be suši, which may confuse some users of the Slovene language when they encounter a new loanword suši to indicate a Japanese dish. 2.3 Lexical and morphophonological obstacles If a borrowed noun cannot be used freely in the new environment due to some lexical or morphophonological conditions, it leads to the question of whether or not the word will gain its position as a loanword. The following conditions may decide if a word can completely integrate into the Slovene language or not: A. lexical space B. morphophonological clearness C. possiblilty for further derivation The first condition above, A, has been explained in the previous section with the example suši. If the place to be accepted, in this case the Slovene lexicon, is "crowded", it is difficult for the new word to gain its position as a part of the lexicon. There are cases when a new word may be too short or too long, or phonologically strange or impossible to be used in the new environment (condition B above). Ukiyo-e is such an example. According to the corpus Gigafida5, this word is used only in this form (in 5 The Gigafida corpus is an extensive collection of Slovene text of various genres, from daily newspapers, magazines, all kinds of books (fiction, non-fiction, textbooks), web pages, transcriptions 80 Chikako SHIGEMORI BUCAR nominative) without any declined case forms. In fact, the morpheme e, "picture" in Japanese, is very short and there is already a headword "e" in Slovene dictionaries (an interjection). Besides, this short borrowed word is used in the Slovene environment only as a terminology in art history, in combination with the concept ukiyo. Though there have been exhibitions of the Japanese woodcut prints in Sovenia, and this genre of art has become quite popular in Europe and also in Slovenia, the word is not found in the existing Slovene dictionaries as a loanword. For a comparison, a similar word composition yamato-e, in the partly slovenized form jamato-e, was used in 1999, according to the corpus Gigafida, but much less often than ukiyo-e. 2.4 Derivation of adjectives and further development On the other hand, flexibility and creativity of the users of Slovene can be felt in cases when new words are derived from the loanwords of Japanese origin (condition C above). The derivation is possible when and only when a loanword is felt quite integrated and used frequently in the new Slovene environment, so that there is the urge among the users to derive new words according to the Slovene grammatical rules. In case of the present research, there are some adjectives derived from loanwords of Japanese origin (phase c. in Figure 1): haiku -— haikujevski/haikujski "of haiku, in the manner of haiku" samuraj -— samurajski/samurajev "of samurai, samurai's" kamikaze -— kamikazov/kamikazin "kamikaze's" Both words of the first example are mentioned in the present Slovene etymological dictionary as a subentry under the headword haiku, and it seems that the two forms are competing with each other. The second and third examples are found in the dictionary of Slovene orthography, ePravopis Slovenian Normative Guide6, both as headwords. According to the existing dictionary entries, some other loanwords from Japanese are used as adjectives in their noun forms, without deriving a new adjective. In the traditional Slovene grammar, such adjectival use of a noun, usually placed before the head noun of the phrase, is not recommended, but such expressions are gaining ground in Slovene due to the recent influence from the English language, e.g. shiatsu: V Švici je opravila študij shiatsu terapije in zdrave prehrane. (=In Switzerland she completed the study of shiatsu therapy and healthy diet.). Similarly, there is an adjectival use of the of parliamentary debates and similar. It contains almost 1.2 billion words, or exactly 1,187,002,502 words. (accessed 16.9.2018: http://eng.slovenscina.eu/korpusi/gigafida) 6 ePravopis Slovenski pravopis 2014 - 2017, Inštitut za slovenski jezik Frana Ramovša ZRC SAZU Image of Japan among Slovenes: Borrowed Words of Japanese Origin in Slovene 81 noun sumo: sumo borec (sumo wrestler in English), but in this case, there is also an entry in the dictionary as one word, i.e. a further derivation in Slovene: sumoborecJ 3 Loanwords of Japanese origin in Slovene dictionaries The abbreviated label "jap", meaning "japonščina, japonski (=Japanese language, Japanese)", was used to search for loanwords from Japanese which are recorded as headwords in today's Slovene dictionaries. This was done on the internet portal Fran: The Fran portal brings together dictionaries, Slovenian linguistic sources and portals that took shape or are currently under development at the Fran Ramovš Institute of the Slovenian Language at the Scientific Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU), as well as dictionaries that have undergone the process of retrodigitization within the Institute's framework.8 Total 34 headwords were found with the label "jap" in the following three dictionaries: 1. eSSKJ Slovar slovenskega knjižnega jezika 2016 -2017 (=Dictionary of the Slovenian Standard Language, 3rd Edition) 2. Slovenski etimološki slovar3 2015 (=Slovenian Etymological Dictionary, 3rd edition) 3. Slovar novejšega besedja slovenskega jezika 2014 (=Dictionary of New Slovenian Words) Table 2 is the list of these 34 loanwords labeled "jap" in the three dictionaries. In the table, the headwords (in nominative and genetive forms, as it is usually the case in dictionaries) are listed in alphabetical order, with their assigned gender, and the name of the dictionary in which it is mentioned, the original word in today's Japanese, and other data and comments. As can be seen, there are 35 headwords listed, but numbers 6 and 13 are one and the same concept, only spelled differently in two different dictionaries (džudo and judo). There are certainly much more borrowings from Japanese in today's Slovene. For example, the list of Slovene words of Japanese origin in Wikipedia has currently 153 entries.9 Some examples in this paper were also taken from elsewhere (corpus Gigafida) to illustrate the process of borrowing and obstacles: ukiyo-e etc. 7 Dictionary of the Slovenian Standard Language, 3rd Edition 8 https://fran.si/o-portalu 9 https://sl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seznam_slovenskih_besed_japonskega_izvora, most recent changes on 5. January, 2018. (accessed 16. 9. 2018) 82 Chikako SHIGEMORI BUCAR Here, the scope is within the limit of the label "jap" which indicates that the words are recognized by Slovene lexicographers as loanwords from Japanese, and they exist and have been used in the Slovenian context at least for some time. The 34 loanwords are analyzed below in relation to the assignment of gender and number, phonological adjustment, etymology and semantic fields. Table 2: Loanwords of Japanese origin in Slovene No. Headword Gen. Dictionary Japanese Other information Sem. field 1 aikido aikida m eSSKJ, SNB fc^i f j Eng. aikido «2» 2 animé -êja m SNB Eng. anime 3 büto -a m SNB « also butoh -a Eng.butoh 4 cunami -ja m SNB o & fy M also tsunami -ja (SSKJ) Eng. tsunami «6» 5 dzîudzîcu -a m Etym. »T Germ. Jiu-Jitsu or Eng. jiu-jitsu, ju-jitsu «2» 6 dzûdo -a m Etym. ü^jfj Germ. Judo, Eng. judo «2» 7 gêjsa -e f Etym. -H- -br. Germ. Geisha and Eng. geisha «4» 8 gô -ja m Etym. à Germ. Go «5» Ö ^ < « haiku2 — adjectival use 9 haiku -ja m SNB haikujevski, haikujski «4» Eng. haiku 10 harakîri -ja m Etym. Germ. Harakiri «3» 11ikebâna -e f Etym. Germ. Ikebana «4» 12 jaküza -e m SNB Eng. yakuza 13 judo juda m eSSKJ ^K ¿s. [jüdo] and [dzüdo] Germ. Judo, Eng. judo kaki2 Khaki «2» 14 kaki1 -ja m Etym. m It. cachi and New Latin «1» (Diospyrus) kaki 15 kamikâze -e/- a m Etym. Germ. Kamikaze and Eng. kamikaze «6» karaoke -ok karaôke -ôk f pl. SNB, Etym. Eng. karaoke «5» 17 karatê -ja m Etym. Germ. Karate «2» 18 katana -e f SNB Eng. katana, Germ. Katana «3» Image of Japan among Slovenes: Borrowed Words of Japanese Origin in Slovene 83 No. Headword Gen. Dictionary Japanese Other information Sem. field 19 kimono -a m Etym. sto Germ. Kimono 20 manga -e f SNB S h » mm Eng. manga «4» 21 nasi -ja m SNB ÖL m also nashi -ja Eng. nashi 22 nindza -e m SNB KhC^ Eng. ninja 23 reiki -ja m SNB K W S in alternative medicine Eng. reiki, Germ. Reiki «7» riksa rikse rîksa -e f eSSKJ, Etym. Germ. Rikscha, Jap. jinrikisha 25 samurâj -a m Etym. # Germ. Samurai, Fr. samurai, samouraï, «3» 26 sêjtan -a m SNB ^Wfch also seitan -a Eng. seitan, Germ. Seitan «1» L fc o mm [sijacu] also siacu —/-ja 27 shiatsu1—/-ja m SNB shiatsu2 adjectival use «7» Eng. shiatsu, Germ. Shiatsu 28 söja -e f Etym. — German Soja, Dutch soja «1» 29 sudoku -ja m SNB t5t*< mm Eng. sudoku «5» 30 sümo1 -a m SNB Eng. sumo, German Sumo sumo2 adjectival use «2» 31 süsi -ja m SNB t L Eng. sushi «1» 32 sitaka -e f SNB LWfct usually plural also sitake — «1» Eng. shiitake 33 tajkün -a m SNB fcW