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Janglish

ONO Yuka (Kisarazu National College of Technology)

Janglish, good or not, is everywhere in our daily lives. Have you heard of Janglish words? For example, in Japan, we generally call ice cream just “ice”, a cream puff “shoe cream”, and a stroller “baby car”. Janglish is the abbreviation for Japanese English, which is an English-like language or words spoken with a peculiar Japanese accent.

If you look around the shops and streets, you will find products with funny English names and people who wear clothing on which strange English is written. Nobody will think of it as offensive if I go out in clothes that say, “My lover is a nice gay.”

So, are we opposed to the increase of Janglish in Japan? I don't think so.

I often use the word “fight” for cheering. One day, when I was in junior high school and cheered my classmates at our physical exercise class, saying, “Fighto!”, a teacher, who was American, said to me, “The Japanese often say ‘fight' to cheer someone but it sounds like ‘Hit him!' to us.” I was surprised to find that native English speakers don't use it as cheering but only the Japanese do. But Japanese people like using the word fight, it makes them feel happy.

In addition to those words, there are many other commonly used Janglish words such as computer, hamburger and pet which have no Japanese equivalent. And I am often annoyed when I'm asked, “how do you say those words in Japanese?” Why then do we use words that have come from another country? Perhaps we need them!? To think of it more closely, we don't have any good alternative Japanese words for them, because the ideas and words were just borrowed from abroad.

Who started Janglish then? It must have been somebody who bore a strong admiration towards cultures from abroad. I am sure there are still many such people, including myself.

I for example would like to look cool like Western people, so I dye my hair blond. People like to imitate things that they admire. So imitating English is a common form of admiration thus we get an abundance of Janglish. Janglish has now become a significant communication tool between the Japanese. It could even be said that conversation is even impossible without it.

Today, with ever increasing globalization Japanese people will further mix with western influences, and we will find that there will be more instances of Janglish appearing. As new products or new fashions and trends appear, so will new Janglish words. And I hope that many people would use it to the point where it would become the world's most common language. And with it, we would be able to communicate with not only Japanese people but also people from around the world with only one language, Janglish!