Citizendia
Your Ad Here

"Land of the Rising Sun" redirects here. For the national anthem of the former African state of Biafra, see Land of the Rising Sun (national anthem). " Land of the Rising Sun " was the national anthem of the African state Biafra. For other uses, see Rising Sun.
"Zipang" redirects here. For the manga series, see Zipang (manga). is a Japanese Manga series by Kaiji Kawaguchi. It was first serialized in Kodansha 's Weekly Morning magazine in 2000 and has For the anime series, see Zipang (anime). is a twenty-six episode Japanese Anime Television series directed by Kazuhiro Furuhashi and produced by Studio Deen.

The English word Japan is not the name used for their country by the Japanese while speaking the Japanese language: it is an exonym. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States An exonym (from Greek el ἔξω exo = out el ὄνομα onoma = name is a name for a place that is not used within that place by the local The Japanese names for Japan are Nippon (にっぽん) and Nihon (にほん). is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Japan topics. They are both written in Japanese using the Chinese characters 日本. A Chinese character, also known as a Han character ( is a Logogram used in writing Chinese (hanzi Japanese ( The Japanese name Nippon is used for most official purposes, including on Japanese money, postage stamps, and for many international sporting events. A postage stamp is an adhesive paper evidence of pre-paying a fee for postal services Sport is an Activity that is governed by a set of rules or Customs and often engaged in competitively Nihon is a more casual term and the most frequently used in contemporary speech.

Contents

History

Cipangu on the 1453 Fra Mauro map, the first known Western depiction of the island.
Cipangu on the 1453 Fra Mauro map, the first known Western depiction of the island. The Fra Mauro map, "considered the greatest memorial of medieval cartography" according to Roberto Almagià is a map made around 1450 by the Venetian monk

Both Nippon and Nihon literally mean "the sun's origin", that is, where the sun originates, and are often translated as the Land of the Rising Sun. This nomenclature comes from Imperial correspondence with Chinese Sui Dynasty and refers to Japan's eastward position relative to China. China ( Wade-Giles ( Mandarin) Chung¹kuo² is a cultural region, an ancient Civilization, and depending on perspective a National The Sui Dynasty ( 581 - 618 AD and in the undertaking of other construction projects including the reconstruction of the Great Wall. China ( Wade-Giles ( Mandarin) Chung¹kuo² is a cultural region, an ancient Civilization, and depending on perspective a National Before Japan had relations with China, it was known as Yamato and Hi no moto, which means "source of the sun". This is summary of two more detailed articles Kofun period and Asuka period. [1] Wa (倭) was a name early China used to refer to an ethnic group living in Japan around the time of the Three Kingdoms Period. Japanese, is the oldest recorded name of Japan. Chinese Korean and Japanese scribes regularly wrote Wa or Yamato "Japan" with the The Three Kingdoms period ( is a period in the History of China, part of an era of disunity called the Six Dynasties following immediately the loss of Because the character originally used to transcribe the ethnonym Wa (i. A Chinese character, also known as a Han character ( is a Logogram used in writing Chinese (hanzi Japanese ( e. 倭) acquired pejorative connotations, a different character, 和, which has more positive connotations, came to be used in Japan instead of 倭. Retroactively, this character was adopted in Japan to refer to the country itself, often combined with the character 大, literally meaning "Great", to give the name Yamato (大和). When hi no moto was written in kanji, it was given the characters 日本. are the Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with Hiragana (ひらがな 平仮名 Katakana In time, these characters began to be read using pseudo-Chinese readings, first Nippon and later Nihon. are the Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with Hiragana (ひらがな 平仮名 Katakana

Nippon appeared in history only at the end of the 7th century. Old Book of Tang (舊唐書), one of the Twenty-Four Histories, stated that the Japanese envoy disliked his country's name Woguo (倭國), and changed it to Nippon (日本), or "Origin of the Sun". The Twenty-Four Histories ( is a collection of Chinese Historical books covering a period of history from 3000 BC to the Ming Dynasty in the Another 8th-century chronicle, True Meaning of Shiji (史記正義), however, states that the Chinese Empress Wu Zetian ordered a Japanese envoy to change the country's name to Nippon. Wu Zetian ( (625 – December 16, 705 In 705 she was overthrown in a coup and Emperor Zhongzong was returned to the throne

Cipangu described on the 1492 Martin Behaim globe.
Cipangu described on the 1492 Martin Behaim globe. The Erdapfel (earth apple produced by Martin Behaim in 1492 is considered to be one of the first terrestrial Globes ever made

The English word for Japan came to the West from early trade routes. The early Mandarin Chinese or possibly Wu Chinese word for Japan was recorded by Marco Polo as Cipangu. Marco Polo ( September 15 1254 – January 9 1324 at earliest but no later than June 1325 was a Venetian trader and explorer The modern Shanghainese (a Wu Chinese dialect 呉語) pronunciation of characters 日本 (Japan) is still Zeppen [zəʔpən]. Shanghainese (上海閒話 in Shanghainese sometimes referred to as the Shanghai dialect, is a dialect of Wu Chinese spoken in the city of Shanghai The old Malay word for Japan, Jepang (modern spelling Jepun, although Indonesian has retained the older spelling), was borrowed from a Chinese language, and this Malay word was encountered by Portuguese traders in Malacca in the 16th century. The Malay language ( ISO 639-1 code MS is an Austronesian language spoken by the Malay people and people of other ethnic groups who reside in the Indonesian or Bahasa Indonesia, based on the Riau version of Malay language, was declared the official language with the declaration of Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic (República Portuguesa is a country on the Iberian Peninsula. It is thought the Portuguese traders were the first to bring the word to Europe. It was first recorded in English in 1577 spelled Giapan.

In English, the official title of the country is simply "Japan", one of the few countries to have no "long form" name. From the Meiji Restoration until the end of World War II, the full title of Japan was the "Great Empire of Japan" (大日本帝國 Dai Nippon Teikoku). The, also known as the Meiji Ishin, Revolution, or Renewal, was a chain of events that led to enormous changes in Japan 's political and social structure World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including The Empire of Japan ( {{unicode|Kyūjitai}}: ja 大日本帝國 Shinjitai: ja 大日本帝国 pronounced Dai Nippon Teikoku More poetically, another name for the empire was "Empire of the Sun". Empire of the Sun is a 1984 novel by J G Ballard which was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. The official name of nation was changed after the adoption of the post-war constitution; the title "State of Japan" is sometimes used as a colloquial modern-day equivalent. The official Japanese title is Nippon koku or Nihon koku (日本国), literally "Country of Japan".

Though Nippon or Nihon are still by far the most popular names for Japan from within the country, recently the foreign words Japan and even Jipangu (from Cipangu, see below) have been used in Japanese mostly for the purpose of foreign branding. Foreign branding is an Advertising and Marketing term describing the implied cachet or superiority of domestic products with a foreign or foreign-sounding name

Historical

Portuguese missionaries arrived in Japan at the end of the 16th century. The Portuguese people (os Portugueses literally the Portuguese) are the Ethnic group or Nation native to the country of Portugal, in the west A missionary is a member of a Religion who works to convert those who do not share the missionary's faith someone who proselytizes. In the course of learning Japanese, they created several grammars and dictionaries of Middle Japanese. is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities is a stage of the Japanese language following Late Old Japanese and proceeding Early Modern Japanese. The 1603-1604 dictionary Vocabvlario da Lingoa de Iapam contains two entries for Japan: nifon and iippon. The Nippo Jisho (日葡辞書 literally the “Japanese-Portuguese Dictionary” or Vocabvlario da Lingoa de Iapam ( Vocabulário da Língua do Japão The title of the dictionary (vocabulary of the language of Japan) illustrates that the Portuguese word for Japan was by that time Iapam. Portuguese ( or língua portuguesa) is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia (Spain and northern Portugal.

Nifon

Historically, Japanese /h/ has undergone a number of phonological changes. Originally *[p], this weakened into [ɸ] and eventually became the modern [h]. The voiceless bilabial plosive is a type of Consonantal sound used in many spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet The voiceless bilabial fricative is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet Note that modern /h/ still retains [ɸ] when followed by /u/.

Middle Japanese nifon becomes Modern Japanese nihon via regular phonological changes.

Jippon

Prior to modern styles of romanization, the Portuguese devised their own. The romanization of Japanese or ( is the use of the Latin alphabet to write the Japanese language. The romanization of Japanese or ( is the use of the Latin alphabet to write the Japanese language. In it, /zi/ is written as either ii or ji. In modern Hepburn style, iippon would be rendered as jippon. The is named after James Curtis Hepburn, who used it to transcribe the sounds of the Japanese language into the Latin alphabet in the third edition of his Japanese–English There are no historical phonological changes to take into account here.

Etymologically, jippon is similar to nippon in that it is an alternative reading of 日本. The initial kanji 日 may also be read as /ziti/ or /zitu/. Compounded with -fon (本), this regularly becomes jippon.

Unlike the nihon/nippon doublet, there is no evidence for a *jihon.

Nihon and Nippon

The Japanese name for Japan, 日本, can be pronounced either Nihon or Nippon. is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities Both readings come from the on'yomi. are the Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with Hiragana (ひらがな 平仮名 Katakana

日 (nichi) means "sun" or "day"; 本 (hon) means "base" or "root". The compound means "base of the sun" or "sunrise" (from a Chinese point of view, the sun rises from Japan); it is of course a source for the popular Western description of Japan as the "Land of the Rising Sun". China ( Wade-Giles ( Mandarin) Chung¹kuo² is a cultural region, an ancient Civilization, and depending on perspective a National

Nichi, in compounds, often loses the final chi and creates a slight pause between the first and second syllables of the compound. When romanised, this pause is represented by a doubling of the first consonant of the second syllable; thus nichi 日 plus kō 光 (light) is written and pronounced nikkō, meaning sunlight. Hon in compounds also often changes to bon or pon; h, b and p are closely related sounds in Japanese. There are therefore two possible pronunciations for 日本: Nihon or Nippon. While both pronunciations are correct, Nippon is frequently preferred for official purposes, including money, stamps, and international sporting events, as well as the Nippon koku, literally the "State of Japan" (日本国). A postage stamp is an adhesive paper evidence of pre-paying a fee for postal services Sport is an Activity that is governed by a set of rules or Customs and often engaged in competitively

Other than this, there seem to be no fixed rules for choosing one pronunciation over the other; in some cases one form is simply more common. For example, Japanese people generally call their language Nihongo; Nippongo, while possible [2] , is rare. is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities In other cases, uses are variable. The name for the Bank of Japan (日本銀行), for example, is given as NIPPON GINKO on banknotes, but often referred to (in the media, for example) as Nihon Ginkō.

Nippon is used always or most often in the following constructions:

Nihon is used always or most often in the following constructions:

Jipangu

As mentioned above, the English word "Japan" has a circuitous derivation; but linguists believe it derives in part from the Portuguese recording of the early Mandarin Chinese or Wu Chinese word for Japan: Cipangu (日本国), which is rendered in pinyin as Rìběnguó, and literally translates to "country of sun origin". The has been the founding legal document of Japan since 1947 The constitution provides for a Parliamentary system of government and guarantees certain fundamental rights also known as or ANA, is an airline headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. is a shopping district of Naniwa Ward, Osaka, Japan. The area is centered along Sakaisuji Avenue extending from the Ebisu-chō Interchange of the Hanshin Expressway is a city in Japan, located at the mouth of the Yodo River on Osaka Bay, in the Kansai region of the main island of Honshū The are the dominant Ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent of these approximately 127 million are residents of Japan is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities The, sometimes translated as The Chronicles of Japan, is the second oldest book of classical Japanese history. or Nihombashi, is a business district of Chūō Tokyo, Japan which grew up around the Bridge of the same name which has linked two sides of the officially, is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan and located on the eastern side of the main island Honshū. The Sea of Japan is a Marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean, bordered by Japan, Korea, North Korea and Russia ( or JAL, is an airline of Japan It is one of the largest Airline operators in Asia. Nihon University ( 日本[[wikt 大学|大学]] Nihon Daigaku abbreviated as 日大 Nichidai is the largest University in Japan. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States Linguistics is the scientific study of Language, encompassing a number of sub-fields Portuguese ( or língua portuguesa) is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia (Spain and northern Portugal. Pinyin, more formally Hanyu pinyin, is the most common Standard Mandarin Romanization system in use Guó is Chinese for "realm" or "kingdom", so it could alternatively be rendered as "Japan-guó".

Cipangu was first mentioned in Europe in the accounts of the travels of Marco Polo. Marco Polo ( September 15 1254 – January 9 1324 at earliest but no later than June 1325 was a Venetian trader and explorer It appears for the first time on a European map with the Fra Mauro map in 1457, although it appears much earlier on Chinese and Korean maps such as the Kangnido. The Fra Mauro map, "considered the greatest memorial of medieval cartography" according to Roberto Almagià is a map made around 1450 by the Venetian monk The Honil Gangni Yeokdae Gukdo Jido ("Map of Integrated Lands and Regions of Historical Countries and Capitals" short name Gangnido (Kangnido) is a map of the world Following the accounts of Marco Polo, Cipangu was thought to be fabulously rich in silver and gold, which in Medieval times was largely correct, owing to the volcanism of the islands and the possibility to access precious ores without resorting to (unavailable) deep-mining technologies.

The modern Shanghainese pronunciation of Japan is Zeppen [zəʔpən]. Shanghainese (上海閒話 in Shanghainese sometimes referred to as the Shanghai dialect, is a dialect of Wu Chinese spoken in the city of Shanghai In modern Japanese, Cipangu is transliterated as ジパング which in turn can be transliterated into English as Jipangu, Zipangu, Jipang, or Zipang. Jipangu (ジパング) as an obfuscated name for Japan has recently come into vogue for Japanese films, anime, video games, etc. Obfuscation is the concealment of meaning in Communication, making it Confusing and harder to Interpret. (anime in Japanese, A video game is a Game that involves interaction with a User interface to generate visual feedback on a video device.

Other names

Another old name for Japan is Ōyashima (大八洲) meaning the country of eight islands, Awaji, Iyo (later Shikoku), Oki, Tsukushi (later Kyūshū), Iki, Tsushima, Sado, and Yamato (later Honshū); note that Hokkaidō, Chishima, and Okinawa were not part of Japan in ancient times. is an Island in Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, in the eastern part of the Seto Inland Sea between the islands of Honshū and Shikoku is the smallest (225 km long and between 50 and 150 km wide and least populous (4141955 as of 2005 of the four main islands of Japan, located south of Honshū are a group of islands in the southwestern part of the Sea of Japan and belong to Japan. or Kyushu is the third-largest Island of Japan and most southwesterly of its four main islands. Iki Island (壱岐島 is an island lying between the island of Kyūshū and the Tsushima islands in the Tsushima Strait, the eastern channel of the Tsushima (対馬 Tsushima) are islands of the Japanese Archipelago situated in the middle of Korea Strait at 34°25'N and 129°20'E is a city located on Sado Island (佐渡島 or 佐渡ヶ島 both Sadogashima) in the Chūbu region of Niigata Prefecture, Japan. or Honshu is the largest Island of Japan. The nation's main island, it is south of Hokkaidō across the Tsugaru Strait, north of WikipediaWikiProject Japanese prefectures for guidelines --> formerly known as Ezo, Yezo, Yeso, or Yesso, is Japan 's The Kuril Islands (ˈkʊrɪl or /ˈkjuˈriˈl/ Кури́льские острова́ əstrʌˈva ru-Latn ''Kuril'skie ostrova'' or Kurile Islands in Russia is one of Japan 's southern prefectures, and consists of hundreds of the Ryukyu Islands in a chain over 1000 km long which extends southwest from Kyūshū The eight islands refers to the creation of the main eight islands of Japan by the gods Izanami and Izanagi in Japanese mythology. In Japanese mythology, is a Goddess of both creation and death as well as the former wife of the god Izanagi. is a deity born of the seven divine generations in Japanese mythology and Shintoism, and is also referred to in the roughly translated Kojiki as "male who invites" Japanese mythology is a system of beliefs that embraces Shinto and Buddhist traditions as well as agriculture-based Folk religion. Also Yashima (八島), Fusō (扶桑), Mizuho (瑞穂), Shikishima (敷島) and Akitsushima (秋津島）are the names to designate ancient Japan. Fusang or Fousang (扶桑 Mandarin Pīnyīn fúsāng is a country described by the Chinese Buddhist missionary Hui Shen (慧深 Japanese

The katakana transcription ジャパン of the English word Japan is sometimes encountered in Japanese, for example in the names of organizations seeking to project an international image. is a Japanese Syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with Hiragana, Kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet

Other East Asian nations

Dongyang (東洋) and Dongying (東瀛) – both literally, "Eastern Ocean" – are Chinese terms sometimes used to refer to Japan exotically when contrasting it with other countries or regions in eastern Eurasia; however, these same terms may also be used to refer to all of East Asia when contrasting "the East" with "the West. For the superstate in George Orwell 's novel see Nations of Nineteen Eighty-Four. " They have been considered to be pejorative terms when used to mean "Japan. " They can be contrasted with Nanyang (Southern Ocean), which refers to Southeast Asia, and Xiyang (Western Ocean), which refers to the Western world. Nanyang ( is the Chinese name for the geographical region south of China, particularly Southeast Asia. The term Western world, the West or the Occident ( Latin: occidens -sunset -west as distinct from the Orient) can have multiple meanings In Japanese and Korean, the Chinese word for "Eastern Ocean" (pronounced as tōyō in Japanese and as dongyang in Korean) is used only to refer to the Orient (including both East Asia and Southeast Asia) in general, and it is not used in the more specific Chinese sense of "Japan. is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system The Orient is a term which simply means the " East " It originated in Western Asia to describe that part of the world "

In China, Japan is called Riben, which is the Mandarin Chinese pronunciation for the hanzi/kanji 日本. China ( Wade-Giles ( Mandarin) Chung¹kuo² is a cultural region, an ancient Civilization, and depending on perspective a National For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Japan topics. A Chinese character, also known as a Han character ( is a Logogram used in writing Chinese (hanzi Japanese ( are the Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with Hiragana (ひらがな 平仮名 Katakana The Cantonese pronunciation is Yahtbun [jatpun], the Shanghainese (Wu Chinese) pronunciation is Zeppen [zəʔpən], and the Min Nan (Hokkien) pronunciation is Ji̍t-pún. Shanghainese (上海閒話 in Shanghainese sometimes referred to as the Shanghai dialect, is a dialect of Wu Chinese spoken in the city of Shanghai The Southern Min language or Min Nan ( POJ: Bân-lâm-gú or "Southern Fujian" language refers to a family of Chinese languages Dialects In Korean, Japan is called Ilbon (일본/日本), which is the Korean pronunciation of the Sino-Korean name, and in Sino-Vietnamese, Japan is called Nhật Bản (also seen as Nhật Bổn). Sino-Korean or hanja-eo refers to the set of words in the Korean language vocabulary that originated from or were influenced by the Chinese language. Sino-Vietnamese ( Hán Việt; 漢越) are the elements in the Vietnamese language derived from Chinese.

Ue-kok (倭國) is recorded for older Hokkien speakers. [3] In the past, Korea also used 倭國, pronounced Waeguk (왜국).

Notes

  1. ^ Teach Yourself Japanese Message Board
  2. ^ Nihon Kokugo Daijiten Henshū Iin Kai, Shōgakukan Kokugo Daijiten Henshūbu (2000/12-2002/12). Nihon Kokugo Daijiten (2nd edition). The, often abbreviated as the and sometimes known in English as Shogakukan 's Japanese Dictionary is the largest Japanese language Dictionary published Shōgakukan.  
  3. ^ www.chineselanguage.org message board

See also

References

© 2009 citizendia.org; parts available under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License, from http://en.wikipedia.org
 Dapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic