Japanese

Japanese - 日本語

History of Japanese- 歴史

The origin of Japanese is in considerable dispute amongst linguists. Evidence has been offered for a number of sources: Ural-Altaic, Polynesian, and Chinese among others. Of these, Japanese is most widely believed to be connected to the Ural-Altaic family, which includes Turkish, Mongolian, Manchu, and Korean within its domain.

Korean is most frequently compared to Japanese, as both languages share significant key features such as general structure, vowel harmony, lack of conjunctions, and the extensive use of honorific speech, in which the social rank of the listener heavily affects the dialogue. However, pronunciation of Japanese is significantly different from Korean, and the languages are mutually unintelligible.

Japanese has an extremely complicated writing system, consisting of two sets of phonetic syllabaries (with approximately 50 syllables in each) and thousands of Chinese characters called “kanji”, approximately 2,000 of which the Ministry of Education has designated as required learning before high school graduation.

The adaptation of Chinese characters during the sixth to ninth centuries A.D. was the most important event in the development of the language. By the 12th century, the syllabic writing systems, “hiragana” and “katakana”, were created out of “kanji”, providing the Japanese new freedom in writing their native language. Today, Japanese is written with a mixture of the three: “kanji”, “hiragana”, and “katakana”.

Since the mid 18th century the Japanese have adopted a huge amount of “gairaigo”: foreign words mainly from English. These include “teburu” (table), “biru” (beer), “gurasu” (glass), “aisu” (ice), “takushi” (taxi) and “hoteru” (hotel).

There are also a few words from Portuguese, Dutch and Spanish, such as “pan” (bread) and “igirisu” (the UK), from the Portuguese “po” and “ingles”. Such words arrived in Japan mainly during the 16th and 17th centuries, when missionaries and merchants started to visit the country.  
(Today Translations, 2017)

Common Areas that Japanese is spoken in the World- 日本のどこを見つけるか

More than 130 million people speak Japanese, making it the ninth most widely spoken language in the world. Outside of Japan, there are another 5 million people who speak Japanese with some degree of proficiency – predominantly Japanese descendants in Hawaii and Brazil.

Although Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, it has been spoken outside. Before and during World War II, through Japanese annexation of Taiwan and Korea, as well as partial occupation of China, the Philippines, and various Pacific islands, locals in those countries learned Japanese as the language of the empire. As a result, many elderly people in these countries can still speak Japanese.

Japanese emigrant communities (the largest of which are to be found in Brazil, with 1.4 million to 1.5 million Japanese immigrants and descendants, according to Brazilian IBGE data, more than the 1.2 million of the United States) sometimes employ Japanese as their primary language. Approximately 12% of Hawaii residents speak Japanese, with an estimated 12.6% of the population of Japanese ancestry in 2008. Japanese emigrants can also be found in Peru, Argentina, Australia (especially in the eastern states), Canada (especially in Vancouver where 1.4% of the population has Japanese ancestry), the United States (notably California, where 1.2% of the population has Japanese ancestry, and Hawaii), and the Philippines (particularly in Davao and Laguna).

Japanese as found in the United States - アメリカ

These following states and cities contain at least 1% of the population that are of Japanese heritage, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Hawaii- Honolulu, Aiea, Pearl City, Waimalu, Hilo, Mililani Town, Kaneohe, Waipio, Wailuku, Wahiawa, Halawa

California- Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles, Torrance, Irvine, Sunnyvale, Berkeley, Gardena, Rancho Palos Verdes, Rolling Hills Estates, Monterey Park, Cupertino, Palos Verdes Estates, Cerritos, Lomita, Los Altos, Redondo Beach

Washington- Seattle, Bellevue, New Castle, Mercer Island

New York- Rye

Ohio- Dublin

Jobs in the US that require Japanese - ジョブ
(The following are jobs are titles of what was found, not the actual job listing itself.)

Customer Service: 

• Concierge in Flushing, NY
• Waiter in Brooklyn, NY
• Write Reviews for Winston and Strawn LLP in Los Angeles, CA
• Massage Therapist in Seattle, WA
• Mechanic Shop Administrator in Berkeley, CA;

Business:  

• Engineer in San Diego, CA
• Translator at Japanese Manufacturing Coorporation TOP NY in  Darbydale, OH
• Interpreter for Mr. Japanese in Lincoln Village, OH
• Career Consultant in Manhattan, NY
• Administrative Protocol Assistant in Irvine, CA
• Quality Control Administrator in Mansfield, OH 

Communications:  

• Translator in Memphis, TN
• Call Center Representative in Flushing, NY
• John Deere Communications Representative in Dublin, OH

Law: 

• Attorney in New York, NY  

Healthcare:  

• Night-shift Nurse in San Francisco, CA
• Medical Translator in New York, NY 

Sales:  

• Sales Consultant in Honolulu, HI
• Merchandise Warehouse Manager in Pearl City, HI
• Loan Adjuster in Trenton, NJ

Resources:  

• Today Translations. "Home." Japanese Language History and Facts | Today Translations London, UK. Accessed February 14, 2017. https://www.todaytranslations.com/language-history/japanese.
• "Japanese language." Wikipedia. February 07, 2017. Accessed February 14, 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_language#Geographic_distribution.
• "List of U.S. cities with large Japanese-American populations." Wikipedia. February 18, 2017. Accessed February 21, 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._cities_with_large_Japanese-American_populations.
• "Japanese Jobs | Monster.com - Page 2." Monster. Accessed February 21, 2017. https://www.monster.com/jobs/search/?q=Japanese&page=2.
• https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/map-japan-japanese-flag-illustration-2487210