Introduction
Considering the influence of English on the Japanese language, this study reflects on language policy in Japan, specifically focusing on government-led proposals addressing the use of English loanwords in Japanese. English loanwords in Japanese have been extensively investigated from linguistic perspectives in the literature, including variations in pronunciation and in Japanese script and shifts in meaning when incorporated into Japanese vocabulary (e.g., Kubozono Reference Kubozono and Kubozono2015; Kageyama and Saito Reference Kageyama, Saito, Kageyama and Kishimoto2016). This study, however, focuses on how the Japanese government and society have responded to English loanwords, examining from a sociolinguistic perspective. The objectives of this study are twofold: (i) to offer an overview of language policy on loanwords and proposals for replacing loanwords led by the Japanese government, and (ii) to present findings on their recent usage in the media. By investigating English loanwords, this article explores the impact of English on Japanese vocabulary, while also providing insights into the practical implementation of the government-led language policy in Japan for a broader global audience.
Regarding (i), this study focuses on the government-led proposals implemented in 2006, which suggested replacing specific loanwords with Japanese equivalents, called Gairaigo Iikae Teian ‘proposals for replacing loanwords’ (NINJAL Loanword Committee 2006). As will be explained later, it is important to clarify that this study does not aim to critically assess the impact of the proposals on loanword usage, particularly considering the nature and true objectives of the proposals. That said, regarding (ii), it is still important to provide a brief snapshot of the usage of English loanwords in the media, particularly because one of the key concerns in the proposals was how much people are exposed to the loanwords through the media.
First, I will provide some context on English loanwords in Japanese. Japan, classified in the Expanding Circle according to the Kachruvian model (Borlongan and Ishikawa Reference Borlongan and Ishikawa2021), is a non-English speaking country where most people encounter English primarily through formal education rather than everyday communication (Seargeant Reference Seargeant and Seargeant2011). Japanese vocabulary has conventionally been categorised into four groups based on their origins: wago (indigenous, native Japanese words; e.g., taberu ‘eat’), kango (words of Chinese origin, Sino-Japanese words; e.g., bunka ‘culture’), gairaigo (loanwords from foreign languages other than Chinese, particularly Western languages, e.g., desuku ‘desk’), and konseigo (hybrid words; e.g. dota-kyan ‘cancelling at the last minute’) (Kageyama and Saito Reference Kageyama, Saito, Kageyama and Kishimoto2016). While kango are technically loanwords, in this paper, the term ‘loanwords’ will only refer exclusively to gairaigo. It is known that the majority of loanwords in Japanese are derived from English (e.g. 94.1% of loanwords, Stanlaw Reference Stanlaw2004, 13). The process by which English filters into Japanese or other languages is conceptualised as Englishization (Kachru Reference Kachru1994, Moody Reference Moody and Tam2008), which is not limited to the lexical level but also includes phonological and syntactic aspects (Moody and Matsumoto Reference Moody and Matsumoto2021). Through the process, English loanwords have become deeply embedded into Japanese vocabulary, spanning various fields and topics, from basic words (e.g., naisu ‘nice’) to medical words (e.g., koresuterōru ‘cholesterol’). Honna (Reference Honna2008) points out that English jargon involving new concepts is particularly difficult to translate into Japanese, often leading to the adoption of loanwords (e.g., infōmudo konsento ‘informed consent’). Furthermore, among communities where English is not the primary language, English is often utilized to convey symbolic meanings such as modernity (Piller Reference Piller2003), and thus, the use of English loanwords may be promoted even when Japanese equivalents are available. To explain the widespread adoption of English loanwords, Honna (Reference Honna2008) argues that, since World War II, English education in Japan has gradually spread English vocabulary, establishing a foundation that has facilitated the influx of English loanwords into Japanese. Accordingly, English proficiency in Japan correlates with age, with younger people demonstrating higher proficiency (Terasawa Reference Terasawa2015, 63). As a result, younger generations are more likely to introduce and incorporate English loanwords, whereas older individuals are more likely to face difficulties in understanding them.
In written Japanese, according to the Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese (BCCWJ) corpus, the ratio of loanwords in Japanese vocabulary is 5% by token frequency and 19% by type frequency (NINJAL 2017). In spoken Japanese, according to the Corpus of Everyday Japanese Conversation (CEJC), the ratio is 2% by token frequency and 14% by type frequency (Omura et al. Reference Omura, Kashino and Yamazaki2020). Regarding changes in the ratio of loanwords in Japanese vocabulary over time, for example, Tanaka (Reference Tanaka2017) reported an increase in the use of loanwords in magazines from 1895 to 1925, rising from approximately 0.4% to 1.0% by token frequency and from about 2.5% to 4.5% by type frequency. Kuya (Reference Kuya2019) summarises the findings of Ishii (Reference Ishii1990) and Irie (Reference Irie2010), illustrating the increasing trends in loanword usage in magazines from 1906 to 2006, from 0.9% to 4.0% by token frequency and from 1.6% to 6.1% by type frequency (Kuya Reference Kuya2019, 17). From a lexicographical perspective, loanwords comprise 10% of the entries in Japanese dictionaries, and 40% of the 10,000 newly added entries in the 2007 online edition of the Kojien dictionary (Honna Reference Honna2008, 91). These figures demonstrate that the overall proportion of loanwords in Japanese vocabulary has shown a steady increase over time.
Regarding perception, both the general public and the national government have expressed concerns over what they perceive as the ‘flooding’ of loanwords into Japanese (Mizutani Reference Mizutani1994; Aizawa Reference Aizawa, Jinnouchi, Tanaka and Aizawa2012; Shioda Reference Shioda2022). In a series of nationwide surveys conducted by the Japanese government (Agency for Cultural Affairs, Kokugo ni Kansuru Yoron Chōsa ‘Survey on Public Opinion on the Japanese language’), respondents were asked whether they had experienced difficulty understanding the meanings of loanwords or any concerns regarding their usage. The 2018 survey report compared its results with those from the 2012 survey on the same question, ‘Do you ever have trouble understanding the meanings of loanwords or foreign words?’ (Agency for Cultural Affairs 2018). The report identified that 83.5% of responses reported having difficulty, a 5% increase from 78.5% in 2012, demonstrating an increase in public concern about loanwords (see also Tanaka Reference Tanaka2016). These results reflect general concerns about loanwords.
Government-led proposals to replace loanwords
As discussed in the previous section, there has been particular concern that loanwords lead to difficulties in conveying meaning, which resulted in a series of proposals led by the Japanese government for replacing loanwords that are not familiar to the general public with Japanese equivalents. This section provides an overview of the proposals along with their contextual background, based on Tanaka and Aizawa (Reference Tanaka and Aizawa2010) and Aizawa (Reference Aizawa, Jinnouchi, Tanaka and Aizawa2012).
Prior to the proposals, in 2000, the National Language Council published a report titled Kokusai Shakai ni Taiōsuru Nihongo no Arikata ‘The role of Japanese language in responding to the international community’, where they identified the frequent use of loanwords as a societal issue. The report suggests that loanwords used by government agencies and media organisations should be replaced with Japanese equivalents if they are unfamiliar to the public (National Language Council 2000). Additionally, in 2002, then-Prime Minister Koizumi emphasised the need for using ‘clear’ Japanese instead of loanwords in policy explanations. Following these, a proposal committee was established at the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics from August 2002 to March 2006, and four proposals were released between 2003 and 2006, which were summarised as a guidebook (NINJAL Loanword Committee 2006).
It is important to clarify the nature and objectives of the proposals, as there have been misunderstandings pointed out in the literature (Aizawa Reference Aizawa, Jinnouchi, Tanaka and Aizawa2012). First, their aim was not to exclude loanwords from Japanese but to ensure better communication. Second, the proposals did not merely suggest replacing loanwords with selected Japanese equivalents. Instead, public bodies and media organisations were advised to use the proposals as a foundational resource, in line with their own guidelines, to provide Japanese equivalents or annotations to help the audience better understand the content. For example, following the release of the proposals, the Suginami Ward Office in Tokyo published their own guidebook for replacing loanwords and government jargon (Suginami Ward Office 2005). Therefore, the true objective of the proposals was not to provide an exhaustive list of Japanese equivalent words for replacement but to suggest approaches to improve clarity and understanding in relation to loanword usage.
The committee's mission was summarised as follows: since excessive use of loanwords in highly public settings can hinder smooth communication, government offices, municipalities, and media organisations should assist the audience's understanding by replacing loanwords with Japanese equivalents or providing annotations, based on their respective guidelines (NINJAL Loanword Committee 2006, 12–14). The committee's first task was to identify loanwords that are unfamiliar to the general public and are frequently used by governments and media outlets. For that purpose, three types of data were used to specify target loanwords: government white papers, municipal newsletters, and newspapers. Loanwords unfamiliar to the general public were identified through surveys, categorised into four levels of familiarity, with Level 1 being the least familiar (recognized by less than 25% of the participants), Level 2 (25–50%), Level 3 (50–75%), and Level 4 being most familiar (above 75%). Loanwords in the most familiar level were excluded from the replacement proposals, except for words that were not well recognised by individuals aged 60 and above (NINJAL Loanword Committee 2006). Furthermore, their survey identified genres where people prefer loanwords to be replaced with Japanese equivalents; for example, while the political and medical fields showed a higher need for replacement, the need was much lower in areas such as fashion, sports, and cooking (NINJAL Loanword Committee 2006, 16). These procedures resulted in 176 loanwords (see Appendix 1). All of them are considered English loanwords, except for three loanwords, komyunike, biotōpu and trauma, which originated respectively from the French ‘communiqué’ and the German ‘biotop’ and ‘trauma’, but they are also used as English words (NINJAL Loanword Committee 2006). Among them, 104 words were classified as Level 1, 38 as Level 2, 31 as Level 3, and 3 as Level 4.
The suggested Japanese equivalents for the loanwords correspond to the meanings of loanwords as used in Japanese, not the meanings of the original words. In the proposals, each loanword was provided with a Japanese equivalent word and other alternative Japanese words for replacement in a side note. It is important to note that when a loanword is polysemous, with meanings that vary depending on the context and need to be distinguished, the corresponding Japanese words for each meaning are provided in the proposals (NINJAL Loanword Committee 2006, 27). For example, the loanword kea, derived from the English word ‘care’, is provided with two Japanese equivalents: teate ‘medical care’ and kaigo ‘nursing care’, which differ based on context.
Methodology
Following the overview of the proposals that exemplified how the Japanese government responded to the influence of English on Japanese vocabulary, this study examines the current use of the loanwords in the proposals within the media. As previously mentioned, this paper does not aim to assess the impact of the proposals on loanword usage, since a quantitative comparison between the loanwords and Japanese equivalents does not fully capture the essence of the proposals addressed in the previous section. The loanword usage in the media was selected for analysis because it was one of the main concerns addressed in the proposals. One way to estimate people's exposure to loanwords is by counting the number of media articles that include them. Loanwords related to socially popular topics or those that can be used in various contexts, including ones that are well established as part of Japanese vocabulary, are expected to appear more frequently in media articles, suggesting that people encounter them more frequently.
For data collection, I used Factiva, which provides an online search engine that covers a wide range of media articles published in various languages across the globe, and allows for searching articles by specific words and phrases. For the search, I specified articles published in Japan and written in Japanese, covering the period from 1995 to 2024 (30 years). I searched for articles that contain the 176 loanwords listed in the proposals. When searching for the loanwords, I included their orthographic variations, e.g., アーカイブ ākaibu and アーカイヴ ākaivu for the original English word ‘archive’. I then conducted the same search for the Japanese equivalents suggested in the proposals. It is important to note that the article hits should be considered comparatively, i.e., whether the frequency of media appearances of a certain loanword is high or not should only be determined based on comparison with others on the list. To analyse changes in the use of loanwords over time, I calculated their increase rates. First, the total number of articles for each loanword (or Japanese equivalent word) was calculated over five-year periods (e.g., 1995–1999, 2000–2004) to ensure consistency. Then, the increase rate from 1995–1999 to 2020–2024 was calculated.
Loanword usage in the media
Given the length of the list, the complete set of 176 loanwords is provided as a table in the appendix, presenting the number of media article hits for each loanword over the past 30 years (1995–2024). The most frequently appearing loanword was gurōbaru ‘global’ (804,181), followed by shea ‘share’ (754,343) and akusesu ‘access’ (693,377). The least frequently appearing loanword was enfōsumento ‘enforcement’ (147), followed by hāmonaizēshon ‘harmonization’ (548), and samutān ‘thumb turn’ (1,052). The top 10 frequent loanwords include a mix of different levels of familiarity, including Level 1 (the least familiar), such as soryūshon ‘solution’, Level 2 (less familiar), such as gurōbaru ‘global’, and Level 3 (more familiar), such as kea ‘care’. This suggests that loanwords have been used regardless of whether people are familiar with their meanings.
Regarding changes in the use of loanwords over time, the increase rate is above 1 if the frequency of a loanword increased from the past, and the rate is below 1 if it decreased. In addition, it is essential to keep in mind that the overall number of media articles has steadily increased over time (Kashino et al. Reference Kashino, Yamaguchi, Kiryu and Tanaka2005), naturally leading to an increase in the number of articles containing loanwords. To take that into consideration, the overall increase rate was calculated (17.7), which serves as a reference; an increase rate above 17.7 indicates a significant increase, while a rate below 17.7 indicates a slow increase. While most loanwords show an increase, six loanwords exhibit a decrease: hāmonaizēshon ‘harmonization’ (0.23), moraru hazādo ‘moral hazard’ (0.64), maruchimedia ‘multimedia’ (0.69), infōmudo konsento ‘informed consent’ (0.89), paburikku inborubumento ‘public involvement’ (0.91) and reshipiento ‘recipient’ (0.96). As the frequencies of these loanwords are also quite low compared to the others, it suggests that they have not gained wider usage in the media.
Among the loanwords, the top 5 increase rates are furīransu ‘freelance’ (412.45), roguin ‘login’ (361.22), negurekuto ‘neglect’ (265), hazādo mappu ‘hazard map’ (188.42) and mobiriti ‘mobility’ (176.44). Considering the frequencies of these loanwords rank below 50 out of 176, the large increase rates suggest that their usage was less established in earlier periods but has significantly increased. Notably, all of these top 5 loanwords are classified as Level 1 (the least familiar), suggesting that they have gained popularity in the last 30 years.
Another important point is that frequencies and increase rates of the loanwords do not correlate; that is, frequently appearing loanwords have not necessarily increased their use significantly. For example, the increase rate of the most frequently appearing loanword gurōbaru ‘global’ is 15.90, which is slower than the overall increase rate (17.7). This indicates that its use has been established in media articles from an early period compared to the others. The same applies to the second- and third-ranked frequently appearing loanwords, shea ‘share’ and akusesu ‘access’, as their increase rates, 7.50 and 15.71, are also slower than the overall rate.
The table in Appendix 1 also presents the results of the same search conducted for the Japanese equivalents of the 176 loanwords. Please note that the table includes more than one Japanese equivalent for loanwords that are polysemous. The results show that while some Japanese equivalents are frequently used, such as happyo (13.5 million, the loanword rirīsu ‘release’ and purezentēshon ‘presentation’), others, such as shōgai katei (6, raifu saikuru ‘life cycle’), uchikagi tsumami (11, samutān ‘thumb turn’), and jizen shoyō jikan (14, rīdotaimu ‘lead time’), have been very rarely used in the media over the past 30 years. Given that the frequencies of their corresponding loanwords are much higher, this suggests that some Japanese equivalent words did not even reach a position to compete with the loanwords, despite being promoted in the proposals.
As discussed earlier, the objective of the proposals was not to provide an exhaustive list of Japanese equivalent words for replacement, and thus this study does not consider that the suggested Japanese equivalent words are interchangeable in all contexts or the only possible alternative words. Another important aspect to note is that some Japanese equivalent words are polysemous. For example, the most frequently appearing Japanese equivalent word happyō is listed for both the loanwords rirīsu ‘release’ and purezentēshon ‘presentation’. Given these contexts, the results merely provide a reference to give a snapshot of how frequently these Japanese equivalents have been used in the media, without assuming that the loanwords and Japanese equivalents are directly competing in a way where one might replace the other.
Let us examine the Japanese equivalent jiyūkeiyaku, as its corresponding loanword furīransu ‘freelance’ has the highest increase rate (412.45) among the loanwords. Not only is the increase rate of jiyūkeiyaku (61.41) lower than that of the loanword furīransu, but its frequency (17,911) is also lower than furīransu (46,621). Further analysis shows that jiyūkeiyaku was slightly more frequent than furīransu until 2016, after which the loanword furīransu has become more dominant. Since the loanword furīransu ‘freelance’ represents a new concept in Japanese society, this aligns with Honna's (Reference Honna2008) observation that loanwords representing new concepts are difficult to replace with Japanese equivalents and tend to become integrated into Japanese vocabulary.
Exploring the data further, the majority (115/176) of the loanwords are used more frequently than their Japanese equivalents. This is as expected, given that the replacement proposals were to address issues with loanwords frequently used in the media. Despite the differences in frequency, the results revealed a parallel trend between the frequencies of the loanwords and their Japanese equivalents. Specifically, high-frequency loanwords are more likely to have high-frequency Japanese equivalents, while low-frequency loanwords more likely to correspond to low-frequency Japanese equivalents. This correlation (statistically supported, r=0.21, p < 0.01) is likely because the frequencies reflect the popularity of the topics or concepts similarly represented by the loanwords and their Japanese equivalents in the media. Another notable finding is a parallel trend between the increase rates of the loanwords and their Japanese equivalents, indicating that Japanese equivalents of loanwords with high increase rates also tend to show high rates (also statistically supported, r = 0.18, p < 0.05); that is, the increase in loanwords does not imply a decrease in Japanese equivalents, or vice versa. This suggests that the loanwords and their Japanese equivalents are not in direct competition where one would replace the other.
Conclusion
This study provided an overview of the proposals led by the Japanese government for replacing loanwords with Japanese equivalent words and examined recent loanword usage in the media. The overview of the proposals with contextual background illustrated how language policy in Japan was implemented through practical procedures. It also clarified that the aim of the proposals was not to strictly regulate the use of loanwords, but rather to offer suggestions, with replacement as simply one possible strategy to improve communication especially when disseminating information by government agencies and media organisations. The quantitative investigation of media articles revealed that the overall number of media articles containing the loanwords in the proposed list has increased over the last 30 years, suggesting that the general public has been exposed to the loanwords more frequently. The analysis also confirmed that loanwords and their Japanese equivalents are not in competition, where one would replace the other. Instead, their usage exhibits a parallel trend in both frequency and increase rates.
I hope this study serves as a reflective review of the proposals implemented in the past and contributes in some way to future considerations on language policy concerning the influence of English on vocabulary of other languages, potentially offering value to other countries given the global impact of English. As emphasised in this study, quantitatively measuring the impact of English vocabulary is challenging. An alternative approach in future research could explore qualitative aspects of the proposals’ social impact, focusing particularly on how public bodies and media organisations have implemented the suggestions for better communication.
Appendix 1
SATOSHI NAMBU is a Lecturer at Monash University, Australia. Prior to this position, he was a postdoctoral researcher for the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) and an adjunct researcher at the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (NINJAL). His research interests focus on the dynamics of language variation, specifically how linguistic variants are used in linguistic and social contexts and how they contribute to language change. His recent projects involve grammatical variation, linguistic landscape, and language use in fiction and translation. He has published articles in journals including Language Sciences, Linguistics, International Journal of Multilingualism and Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. Email: satoshi.nambu@monash.edu
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