Everything about Names Of Japan totally explained
The
English word
Japan isn't the name used for their country by the Japanese while speaking the Japanese language: it's an
exonym. The
Japanese names for
Japan are
Nippon (にっぽん) and
Nihon (にほん). They are both written in Japanese using the
Chinese characters
日本. The Japanese name
Nippon is used for most official purposes, including on
Japanese money,
postage stamps, and for many international
sporting events.
Nihon is a more casual term and the most frequently used in contemporary speech.
History
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 Japan had relations with China, it was known as
Yamato and
Hi no moto, which means "source of the sun".
Wa (倭) was a name early China used to refer to an ethnic group living in Japan around the time of the
Three Kingdoms Period. Because the
character originally used to transcribe the ethnonym
Wa (for example 倭) acquired pejorative connotations, a different character, 和, which has more positive connotations, came to be used in Japan instead of 倭. Retroactively, this character was adopted in Japan to refer to the country itself, often combined with the character 大, literally meaning "Great", to give the name
Yamato (大和). When
hi no moto 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 (a
Wu Chinese dialect 呉語) 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 official title of the country is simply "Japan", one of the few countries to have no "long form" name. 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). More poetically, another name for the empire was "
Empire of the Sun". The official name of 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. The official Japanese title is
Nippon koku or
Nihon koku (日本国), literally "
Country of Japan".
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.
Historical
Portuguese 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.
Nifon
Historically, Japanese /h/ has undergone a number of phonological changes. Originally *
[p], this weakened into
[ɸ] and eventually became the modern [h]. Note that modern /h/ still retains [ɸ] when followed by /u/.
Middle Japanese
nifon becomes Modern Japanese
nihon via regular phonological changes.
Jippon
Prior to modern styles of
romanization, 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's 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's no evidence for a *
jihon.
Nihon and Nippon
The
Japanese 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's 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.
Hon in compounds also often changes to
bon or
pon; h, b and p are closely related sounds in Japanese. 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,
stamps, 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:
Nihon-jin (Japanese people)
Nihon-go (Japanese language)
Nihon-shoki (an old history book, never Nippon-shoki)
Nihon-bashi (日本橋) (Bridge of Japan, a bridge with same name but different reading in Tokyo and the surrounding oldest and largest commercial districts of the city)
Nihon-kai (Sea of Japan)
Nihon Kōkū (Japan Airlines)
Nihon Daigaku (Nihon University)
Jipangu
As mentioned above, the English 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: Cipangu (日本国), which is rendered in pinyin as Rìběnguó, 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 films, anime, video games, etc.
Other names
Another old name for Japan is Ōyashima (大八洲) meaning the country of eight islands, Awaji, Iyo (later Shikoku), Oki, Tsukushi (later Kyūshū), Iki, Tsushima, Sado, and Yamato (later Honshū); note that Hokkaidō, 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 Izanami and Izanagi in Japanese mythology. Also Yashima (八島), Fusō (扶桑), Mizuho (瑞穂), Shikishima (敷島) and Akitsushima (秋津島）are the names to designate ancient Japan.
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.
Other East Asian nations
Dongyang (東洋) and Dongying (東瀛) – both literally, "Eastern Ocean" – are Chinese 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 Nanyang (Southern Ocean), which refers to Southeast Asia, and Xiyang (Western Ocean), which refers to the Western world. In Japanese and Korean, the Chinese word for "Eastern Ocean" (pronounced as tōyō in Japanese and as dongyang in Korean) is used only to refer to the Orient (including both East Asia and Southeast Asia) in general, and it isn't used in the more specific Chinese sense of "Japan."
In China, Japan is called Riben, which is the Mandarin Chinese pronunciation for the hanzi/kanji 日本. The Cantonese pronunciation is Yahtbun [jatpun], the Shanghainese (Wu Chinese) pronunciation is Zeppen [zəʔpən], and the Min Nan (Hokkien) pronunciation is Ji̍t-pún. 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 seen as Nhật Bổn).
Ue-kok (倭國) is recorded for older Hokkien speakers. In the past, Korea also used 倭國, pronounced Waeguk (왜국).
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