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Names of Japan

Not to be confused with Japanese name.
"Land of the Rising Sun" redirects here. For other uses, see Land of the Rising Sun (disambiguation).

The word Japan is an exonym, and is used (in one form or another) by many languages. The Japanese names for Japan are Nihon () and Nippon (). They are both written in Japanese using the kanji 日本.

Since the third century, Chinese called the people of the Japanese archipelago something like "ˀWâ" (倭), which can also mean "dwarf" or "submissive".[1]: 4–6  Japanese scribes found fault with its offensive connotation, and officially changed the characters they used to spell the native name for Japan, Yamato, replacing the 倭 ("dwarf") character for Wa with the homophone 和 ("peaceful, harmonious"). Wa 和 was often combined with 大 ("great") to form the name 大和, which is read as Yamato[2][3] (see also Jukujikun for a discussion of this type of spelling where the kanji and pronunciations are not directly related). The earliest record of 日本 appears in the Chinese Old Book of Tang, which notes the change in 703 when Japanese envoys requested that its name be changed. It is believed that the name change within Japan itself took place sometime between 665 and 703.[4] During the Heian period, 大和 was gradually replaced by 日本, which was first pronounced with the Chinese reading (on'yomi) Nippon and later as Nifon, and then in modern usage Nihon, reflecting shifts in phonology in Early Modern Japanese.[1][failed verification] In 1076, Turkic scholar Mahmud al-Kashgari in his book Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk mentioned this country as 'Jabarqa' (جَابَرْقَا)[5]. Marco Polo called Japan 'Cipangu' around 1300, based on the Chinese name,[6] probably 日本國; 'sun source country' (compare modern Min Nan pronunciation ji̍t pún kok). In the 16th century in Malacca, Portuguese traders first heard from Malay and Indonesian the names Jepang, Jipang, and Jepun.[7] In 1577 it was first recorded in English, spelled Giapan.[7] At the end of the 16th century, Portuguese missionaries came to Japan and created grammars and dictionaries of Middle Japanese. The 1603–1604 dictionary Vocabvlario da Lingoa de Iapam has 2 entries: nifon[8] and iippon.[9] Since then many derived names of Japan appeared on early-modern European maps.

  1. ^ a b Carr, Michael (1 March 1992). "Wa Wa Lexicography". International Journal of Lexicography. 5 (1): 1–31. doi:10.1093/ijl/5.1.1. ISSN 0950-3846.
  2. ^ "Wa: The Spirit of Harmony and Japanese Design Today | Concept, Works, and Catalogue". Japan Foundation. Archived from the original on August 5, 2019. Retrieved January 29, 2017.
  3. ^ "Why Japan is Japan? How Japan became Japan?". Retrieved January 29, 2017.
  4. ^ Fogel, Joshua A. (29 April 2015). The Cultural Dimensions of Sino-Japanese Relations: Essays on the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. ʊRoutledge. p. 140. ISBN 978-1317457671.
  5. ^ https://www.myoldmaps.com/early-medieval-monographs/214-al-kashgaris-world-map/214-al-kashghari.pdf World Map of al-Kashghari, «While to the east there are the lands of Mashin [China] and Japarqa [Japan], to the west, there appear the borders of Egypt and the lands of the Magrib [Iberian peninsula], which is Andulus.»
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference marco-polo-cipangu was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference trauay was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Doi (1980:463)
  9. ^ Doi (1980:363)

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