why is it

[Danworth]

why is it alot of time japanese and just about any other language will all of a sudden use an western term or word instead of there own? A good example would be a song i like it will be sing then all of a sudden will say an english word instead of their word for it?

[Chii]

because sometimes thre words may be to long or short for it so they use a english word,and plus people learn english and japan too not just jap

[yankumi]

This happens a lot on a Japanese television show I watch. Sometimes it's because of loan words, sometimes it's to be funny, and sometimes it's to make a point. Think how many loanwords we have in English that are actually from another language--croissant, amigo, gesundheit, and many others.

[skrhgh3b]

as you well know, the japanese adopted the chinese writing system, and with it thousands of loan words from chinese. in a smiliar manner - as a natural consequence of the westernization of japan, i'm sure - the japanese are continuing to adopt thousands of loan words from english. if a new term is coined in the language, there's a good chance it will be taken from english. i found a really interesting article on this not long ago. i wish i could find it again fro you. but let's not forget that it's also hip to use english

[Harisenbon]

All languages have loan words, not just Japanese. As was discussed in an earlier thread about 70-80 percent (I believe) of English words are actually loan words. They mostly come from French, which is odd, as English is a germanic language.

It's not that it's necessarily hip to use english words (although sometimes that's the case), but the way Japanese is set up is that they have a very specific system for importing words from other countries, instead of creating new Japanese words. Additionally, sometimes English words carry some connotations that are not in the original Japanese word. One example that springs to mind is チャンス vs 機会

[skrhgh3b]

actually, most of our words are either germanic or latinate, but lest you forget your history, french was once the official language of england.

[Mukade]

From Wikipedia:

A computerised survey of about 80,000 words in the old Shorter Oxford Dictionary (3rd edition) was published in Ordered Profusion by Thomas Finkenstaedt and Dieter Wolff (1973) which estimated the origin of English words as follows:

- French, including Old French and early Anglo-French: 28.3%
- Latin, including modern scientific and technical Latin: 28.24%
- Old and Middle English, Old Norse, and Dutch: 25%
- Greek: 5.32%
- No etymology given: 4.03%
- Derived from proper names: 3.28%
- All other languages contributed less than 1%

James D. Nicoll made the oft-quoted observation: "The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and riffle their pockets for new vocabulary."


What a great quote!

Anyway, as you can see, French edges out Latin by a little bit. The difference would be larger of you removed the Latin-based scientific and technical terms, which are only used by specialists.

So, as Harisenbon pointed out, loan words are predominantly from French, with Latin in a close second.