Turning Japanese

Did you know that when you say "Japan", you're saying a name taken from Chinese?

I didn't either. I always wondered how the English version developed from Nippon, the official name of the country in Japanese, so I looked it up.

The name comes from the Mandarin Chinese translation of Nippon: jih pun [modern ri ben] (日本), or yaht bun in Cantonese (though in Cantonese it's important to get the tones right, otherwise it could sound like you're saying yat bun (一半), which means one-half).

The primary definition of 日 is sun or day, while 本 means origin, root or stem. Therefore sun origin is the rough equivalent of Land of the Rising Sun. Japanese still contains many characters from Chinese Hanzi, including 日本, which you can see on any Yen banknote.

As with many Chinese-to-English words, Japan evolved from trade between seafaring nations. Marco Polo recorded Japan as Cipangu, where ci has a similar sound to chee. In old Malay the name became Jepang (or Japang, depending on which source you believe), which in turn was brought to Europe by the Portuguese as Japao.

In 1577 the earliest English version was recorded as Giapan, which makes sense when you consider the old English spelling for jail was gaol. Over time Giapan was streamlined as Japan. Had trade between Japan and the West opened up earlier, it's possible the English name would have been closer to the Japanese pronunciation.

But when you consider that North Americans pronounce Nikon as NI-kon instead of Neekon, the modified Chinese sounds much better.

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