Engrish

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An example of Engrish in Sasebo, Japan.
A sign in a toilet in Shanghai, instructing (in Engrish) people to put used paper napkins in the wastebin

Engrish refers to non-standard variations of English or Spelling used in East Asian countries. While the term may refer to spoken English, it is more often used to describe written English. The term arises from the lack of phonemes corresponding to the English l and r in the spoken Japanese language, which instead has an alveolar flap that roughly corresponds to the English r. Chinese frequently uses the "l" substituted for "r" in foreign loanwords. Engrish is found on a variety of things such as signs, menus, advertisements and t-shirt slogans. Usage of the term ranges from the affectionate to the pejorative. Country-specific terms, such as Japlish or Janglish for Japan, Konglish for Korea, Singlish for Singapore and Chinglish for China also exist.

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[edit] History

The term originates from the fact that Japanese, along with several other East Asian languages, supposedly does not have separate sounds for R and L. In Japanese, the R sound is pronounced as an alveolar lateral flap (ɺ), articulated with the tongue flapped against the hard palate behind the front teeth, much like a Spanish soft R. Because the Japanese language does not have a separate equivalent for the English L, native Japanese speakers not fluent in English are often unable to distinguish between the R and L sounds.[1] Thus they often mispronounce English words containing the letter L. While the term plays on the accent, it is used mainly without malice in reference to humorous misuses, puns, double entendres, and unintentional word substitutions within written English, not difficulties in pronunciation. Additionally, in spoken Japanese, native words which involve "R" syllables occasionally come out sounding like "L."

A similar phenomenon exists in Chinese. Although Mandarin Chinese has two separate sounds transcribed as 'l' and 'r' in Pinyin, the 'r' sound at the beginning of a syllable often sounds more like 'zh' (technically, a voiced retroflex fricative) and is not considered appropriate for rendering foreign 'r' sounds; conversely, no syllables end in 'l'. Hence, both 'l' and 'r' will be rendered in Chinese as 'l' at the beginning of a syllable and 'r' at the end of a syllable—for example, Donald Rumsfeld's last name is rendered Lāmǔsīfēi'ěrdé [1]. As a result, Chinese speakers may mix up 'l' and 'r' when writing, and hence pronouncing, foreign words.

[edit] Foreign loanwords

An example of Engrish on a sign inside Heian Shrine, Kyoto

Engrish can also refer to the Japanese pronunciation of English loanwords, known as gairaigo (外来語?), or a Japanese dialect with a number of English loanwords. Because Japanese has only five vowels, and few consonant clusters, English loanwords are often pronounced in a manner that sounds unusual and even humorous to English speakers. For example, in spoken Japanese, guitarist Eric Clapton becomes エリック・クラプトン Erikku Kuraputon, Australia becomes オーストラリア Ōsutoraria, and "McDonald's" becomes マクドナルド Makudonarudo.

Japanese uses over 600 English loan words in common speech, sometimes in abbreviated form. Examples are ハンカチ hankachi for "handkerchief", フォーク fōku for "fork", テーブル tēburu for "table", プロレス puroresu for "pro wrestling", and so on. The more outlandish and humorous the pronunciation change is, the more likely it is to be considered Engrish. Even fairly logical English loanwords in Japanese will often sound foreign and unintelligible to an English speaker. These pronunciation changes are linguistically systematic: they may sound like nonsense to the uninformed English speaker, but are arrived at in accordance with perfectly intelligible conventions, principally guided by the fact that Japanese consists entirely of syllables that are rarely more than a consonant and a vowel, although an n can stand before a consonant, as in konban.

Some words are carried over from English, but are used in a changed context. This often causes confusion among listeners of native Japanese speakers, as the terms are not widely known in English. For example, an electrical outlet in Japanese is referred to as コンセント konsento, modeled after the archaic term "concentric plug" which actually refers to the connector that is inserted into the outlet. In another example, a small plastic water or soda bottle is referred to in Japan as a "petto bottoru," or "PET bottle"; "PET" is the abbreviation for polyethylene terephthalate, the type of plastic of which the bottles are made.

Engrish has long been a frequent occurrence in product manuals, such as for consumer electronics, with phrases such as "to make speed up find up out document",[cite this quote] or "Gas is maybe poison is" (for "Gases may be poisonous"),[cite this quote] but it is somewhat less frequent today.

Another source of poor translation is unchecked machine translation, such as that from the Babelfish service or Google Translate.

[edit] Pop culture

Engrish features prominently in Japanese pop culture. Japanese has assimilated a great deal of vocabulary from the English language, and many popular Japanese songs and television-show themes feature disjointed phrases in English amongst the otherwise Japanese lyrics. Japanese marketing firms helped to create this popularity, and have subsequently created an enormous array of advertisements, products, and clothing marked with English phrases that seem highly amusing or inexplicably bizarre to those proficient in English. These new Engrish terms are generally short-lived, as they are used more fashionably than meaningfully.

Engrish was frequent in many early Japan-produced video games due to poor translation. One well-known and popular example of Engrish in pop culture is the video game translation phenomenon. Well-known fictitious uses of Engrish include NewsRadio episode "Super Karate Monkey Death Car", wherein Jimmy James is forced to publicly read his autobiography after it had been published in Japanese and translated into English. The song "Let's Fighting Love", used in the episode "Good Times With Weapons" of the Comedy Central series South Park was shown to satirize poorly-translated opening theme sequences sometimes shown in anime.

Most recently, Engrish has been the central feature of the Internet video series Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show.

[edit] Nihonglish

In contrast to Engrish, the term Nihonglish is occasionally heard, as well as the variant 英本語 Eihongo, a combination of 英語 Eigo, the Japanese word for the English language, and 日本語 Nihongo, the Japanese word for the Japanese language. It refers to the conceptual opposite of Engrish: badly pronounced and ungrammatical Japanese produced by a native English speaker. A typical example is the American English pronunciation of こんにちは konnichiwa ("hello", "good day"); rendered with an English stress pattern and phonetics as IPA: /kəˈniːtʃiwɑː/ instead of the Japanese pronunciation IPA: [ko↑nnʲitɕiɰa]. The term Nihonglish is often found among communities of Japanese language students where Japanese can be used sporadically in English conversation much as English is used among English students in Japan. The use of Nihonglish is usually intentional, and is done with a humorous or sarcastic intent. A heavy English accent is used, indicating supposed unfamiliarity with the rules of Japanese pronunciation. It is also known for being practiced occasionally by some non-Japanese fans of Japanese animation; in such cases it is also sometimes referred to as otaku-speak or otakuism.

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ S. An example is the Japanese pronunciation of the name of Zen Master Linji (Chinese), which is Rinzai. Pinker, The Language Instinct, p. 168.

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

  • Stanlaw, James. "'For Beautiful Human Life': The Use of English in Japan". In Joseph Jay Tobin (ed.), Re-Made in Japan: Everyday Life and Consumer Taste in a Changing Society, p. 58–76. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992. ISBN 9780300052053, ISBN 9780300060829.

[edit] External links

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