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Mokarimakka: Japanese

© Robert Henderson

"How's business?" the commerce-minded Osakans ask each other by way of greeting. Aside from its distinct regional flavour, this classic Kansai-ben salutation might sum up the state of Japanese in the world today. Japanese business acumen has made this language, which is as fascinating and as intricate as the culture that created it, influential well beyond its limited demographic strength.

No one knows where the first Japanese speakers came from, or why they never ventured beyond the islands collectively known as Japan. Today, their language is just shy of being an isolate. Only Okinawan shares its family; a slight structural resemblance to Korean is its only other obvious linguistic affiliation. Superficial similarities to Dravidian languages such as Sanskrit, Hindi, and Tamil have led some scholars to suggest that Japanese may have originated on the Indian subcontinent. Others point out that Sanskrit was the lingua franca of the ancient Asian intelligentsia, and insist that the similarities stem from contact with mainland merchants, missionaries, and intellectuals.

Japanese is a challenging study on several fronts. In addition to its quasi-isolate grammar and vocabulary, three distinct "levels" mean that speakers must be effectively trilingual to communicate successfully. Colloquial Japanese, spoken between relatives and close friends, and Neutral-Polite Japanese, used in most other contexts, are most frequently used. Keigo, or Honorific Japanese, is for ritual use. (For the record, a fourth level, called Court Japanese, is spoken in the Emperor's presence. Palace staff must in effect relearn their own language to move in these circles, though most modern Japanese people know something of it from watching samurai movies.)

Each level is further split into gender dialects a fact that can make learning it from a spouse or opposite-sex relative problematic. Naturally, men must not use female language, and women must not use male language. Coupled with constant shifts in the speaker's place in the social hierarchy relative to others, the male/female dichotomy makes Japanese an intense juggling act for learners, requiring a much more profound understanding of the culture than most other languages.

Japan is deeply partitioned by sea and mountains, a geographic peculiarity that has given rise to dozens of regional "ben", or dialects which vary considerably from "Hyojun-go" (standard Japanese.) Compare Osaka's Kansai-ben and Tokyo-based Hyojun-go:

Kansai: Nan ya? Omoroi. Chau.

Hyojun: Nan da? Omoshiroi. Chigau

English: What? Interesting. Wrong.

Most Japanese people understand Hyojun-go regardless of their native dialect, and in the Tokyo area, a good grasp of Hyojun is usually sufficient. However, visitors to other prefectures who choose not to learn the local dialect may find themselves excluded from informal conversations.

The copyright of the article Mokarimakka: Japanese in World Languages is owned by Robert Henderson. Permission to republish Mokarimakka: Japanese in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.