European Borrowings in Japanese

Abstract

The article discusses over 260 European borrowings in Japanese. In most cases they are Anglicisms (often of French origin). The research was conducted on the basic vocabulary (excluding technical and specialist terminology) consisting of about 6000 words. The list should not be considered a finished project but is the outcome of a preliminary research. Since Japan opened to the Western world and Western languages relatively recently (in the second half of the nineteenth century), the vocabulary is relatively new. The vocabulary discussed in the article is divided into two categories: necessary (de nécessité) and unnecessary (de luxe) borrowings.