Talk:Wasei-eigo

Katakana

Should we remove the clutter from katakana since romaji makes them redundant anyway?--68.22.251.127 23:23, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Are you talking about removing the Katakana, I don't think so. It should be kept for people that have a japanese-compatible bowser, (which, btw, is a large part of people outside Japan that are interested in japanese culture.) --195.198.149.12 15 Jan 2005

That's an interesting perspective. Actually, the issue raised wasn't about browser compatibility but romaji providing enough info that also having katakana would be redundant (btw even for the large amount of people with interest in Japanese culture outside of Japan who use a katakana compatible browser.) Read: REDUNDANT not browser incompatibility. Browser incompatibility does not make katakana redundant, romaji does. Nobody was making an argument about browser support. --69.214.227.51 06:41, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Okushon

I'd never heard of "okushon"; that's clever! I also like the Ito real-estate developers' mansion name "Itopia" (as much as I dislike most other "pia" concoctions).

Speaking of, thanks to whoever corrected the kanji for "oku". I checked it and I did get it wrong. This is odd because I'm usually good at noticing different radicals, and I had the correct kanji right in front of me... probably sleepiness taking its toll. - Furrykef 22:24, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I really respect the people editing this interesting article. One thing from me as one of Japanese native speakers is, "Okushon" rarely means "thousand times valuable." It simply means a mansion more than 100 million yen.--Ihieda (talk) 02:05, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Words

From my understanding, Wasei-eigo does not include words such as manshon, but rather words or phrases that were forged from two or more English words/morphemes, e.g. raibu hausu (from live + house, meaning outdoor concerts). --69.212.98.139 05:15, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Regarding above, I'm not sure either but the Japanese page (see link to the left that says 日本語) included it if I remember correctly from when I read down it the other day....? so maybe its a general term? kind of unclear on this being that its really early in the morning (both times actually)... edit: yeah I just checked, its included on the Japanese wasei-eigo page... which is odd because I always thought it was correctly borrowed but from French not English so that was the confusing bit... but in any case....! oh and the French word is "maison" or something. So in this case, its "wasei-FRENCH"? ^o^ But thats being too picky or maybe I'm missing the point...!?! Nesnad 16:51, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Manshon is likely being borrowed from the english word (which possibly could be french in origin, but that's a different matter). I think Maison is another japanese word, namely mezon, if I interpret the japanese manga title "Mezon Ikkoku" correctly.

I was looking at this information posted and wanted to give my opinion on this, quite frankly, dead talk topic. Mansion is, by Google's judgment, British for "a large building divided into apartments". Manshon translates to a condominium or apartment complex. Therefore, the word mansion would not be correctly considered an incorrectly adopted term, but rather one that uses an alternate definition. Maybe perhaps I'm missing a larger point here, but to me, Japanese speakers adopted a British-English definition over a North American-English interpretation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nes370 (talk • contribs) 05:38, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

I think you are on the right track, yet this is not exactly true. "Mansion" is not a normal BrE term for a block of flats, but it is (in the terminological escalation so beloved of estate agents) a common name for blocks of flats, particularly in South London (as I recall). "Lobelia Mansions" etc. The plural suggests that each flat is to be regarded as a "mansion"; of course one of the problems in interpreting the Japanese term is that Japanese does not have grammatical number, and 'manshon' can apply freely to one individual residence or the entire block. The wikiproblem here is that this is (of course) "original research"; it is close to impossible to find "sources" to back up one derivation over another. Imaginatorium (talk) 13:02, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Missing words

What about walkman, sarariman, NHK, TPO?

Walkman -- I don't know, that's a close call. It's also a trademark. Salaryman -- yes, definitely, but since the entire list of Wasei-eigo is potentially pretty long, maybe we shouldn't track all of them at wikipedia but instead at, maybe, wiktionary. NHK, TPO -- No, I don't think acronyms count. Either way, NHK = "Nippon Housou Kyoku," so there's nothing English about it. --69.214.227.51 06:41, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The point is that "Walkman" is not used as a generic Japanese term, so it is not in the same category. (Otherwise countless product names could be claimed to be wasei-eigo.) So I removed it. Imaginatorium (talk) 14:04, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

the korean word apatu doesn't come from japanese, to my understanding. it's the shortened version of apartment = "ah pa teu"

I agree. The reference states that the two words are synonyms; there is nothing about derivations. I will remove the sentence.--Slowlikemolasses (talk) 03:33, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Removing content / vandalism

copied from User talk:Paul Richter

Please explain your removal of valid content from Wasei-eigo in its talk page, with signature. We can both agree there is no need for edit wars. —69.214.227.145 05:00, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

Anonymous commenter,

• Please add comments at the bottom so I know where to find them.
• Please use an account rather than anonymous IP if you want me to a) know who you are and b) take you seriously.
• Please be more specific in your objections and I will address them.

-- Paul Richter 05:42, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

---

Anonymous commenter,

Please refrain from copy-and-pasting signed comments from my Talk page (or anywhere else) without clearly indicating so (comment 05:42, 31 May 2005). I have added an indication.-- Paul Richter 14:08, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

For those it may concern, I will continue the conversation at Paul's talk page upon insistance. -- MangoCurry 21:07, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC) (formerly anon)

---

In User talk:Paul Richter#Wasei-Eigo, MangoCurry objects to my removal of the list of wasei-eigo terms in the edit 18:17, 14 Apr 2005 ([1]). I moved the list beforehand, in its entirety, to List of Gairaigo and Wasei-eigo terms 18:16, 14 Apr 2005 ([2]), which was already a list of terms. My comment notes that the terms were moved to a separate list article, and my additional text at the bottom of the article indicates that the list of terms can be found there.

MangoCurry, is there a problem with that? -- Paul Richter 02:50, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Dictionary?

This article is a definition of a word, and it's history. Shouldn't this be in the dictionary, or am I missing something? Barryvalder 13:39, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Merge to Pseudo-Anglicism?

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was no consensus

Wasei-eigo is just the Japanese word for Pseudo-Anglicism. These formations are common in many different languages, so 'wasei-eigo' is better understood in a wider context. Ironfrost 03:54, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose People looking for pseudo-Anglicism can follow the link which is given in the article, but I wouldn't want to force upon the user the decision of going to the pseudo-Anglicism article. (For example, a user may have wanted to go to the List of gairaigo and wasei-eigo terms article instead.) Maybe this article isn't the most interesting, but I think it can still funtion as a navigational aid, kind of like disambiguation pages. Also, you say:

  Wasei-eigo is just the Japanese word for Pseudo-Anglicism.

  This is incorrect. Since "wasei" means made-in-Japan, wasei-eigo is a more narrowly defined term. It isn't just a Japanese word for an English word that doesn't even share the same definition. Pseudo-anglicism ("fake English terms in a foreign language") is not the only generalisation of wasei-eigo ("fake English terms in the Japanese language"), other generalised categories being wasei-gairaigo ("fake foreign words in the Japanese language"), and fake foreign words found in any language for that matter. —Tokek 12:56, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

• Support While wasei-eigo may not mean "Pseudo-Anglicism", it does mean "Japanese Pseudo-Anglicism," and now that the list of words is in a separate article, this article isn't so long that it couldn't just be in the Japanese section of the Pseudo-Anglicism article. —Spacecat2 3 January 2007

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

2007-02-10 Automated pywikipediabot message

--CopyToWiktionaryBot 07:58, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think Japlish should redirect here

Japlish has far more general connotations, and tends to refer to any use of English in a Japanese context; not just wasei-eigo, but also what is termed Engrish (a term I loathe), which is Japanese mistranslations into English, or English phrases used by Japanese people for artistic, fashionable, or vernacular reasons ("digital dream kids", "Obscure Desire of Bourgeoisie", "Crocodile Profusion") Serendi^podous 08:23, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I think this article may be wrong.

Isn't the correct Japanese word for these terms is GaiRaiGo(外来語). It may be that the term WaSeiEiGo is a term used to describe what GaiRaiGo is. If there is a difference between the two, what is it? User:leveni 8 Aug 2007

The problem is that the article claims there is a difference between GaiRaiGo and WaSeiEoGo but fails to describe clearly what it is. I've given this some thought and IMO the distinction is that wasei-eigo constructions, if translated back into the source language, do not yield the vernacular idiom. It's a very fine point and IMO does not need stressing. The first two examples given met this criterion - neither "salaryman" nor "office lady" are idiomatic English. But "raito noberu" is merely the Japanese transliteration of "light novel" which is valid English idiom bearing essentially the same meaning. Chrismorey (talk) 00:56, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

I think the article does a good job in describing the differences between gairaigo and waseieigo, and the reasons why these two terms may be confused. There is a very clear difference between loan words, which retain their original meaning, and words that were, of course "borrowed," but are used differently, and take on slightly different, or entirely different meanings than their original counter part in the native language from which it originates. I think it is a very important point that does need stressing, especially to Japanese scholars of English, and scholars of Japanese whose native tongue is English. Japanese scholars of English, or just Japanese students who are trying to get a better grasp of English, may be confused and begin to use vocabulary in English conversation they perceive to be actual English words, when they are actually Japanese in origin (waseieigo), and would be unintelligible to native-English speakers. Likewise, scholars of Japanese who are native-English speakers may be confused into believing that loan words (gai-raig-go) may be of English origin, when they are actually borrowed from other languages. In my view, it is important that this differentiation between waseieigo (English made in Japan), gairaigo (borrowed words which retain their original meaning, and which may come from other language) needs to be made of language-learning curriculum. I might take it a step further and say that textbooks ought to mark where "wasei" language comes from, because some one else pointed out, English is not the only language that Japanese take the liberty to re-imagine. As another example of "wasei furansugo," the word "abekku" (avec) to mean "romantic couple.")Solar3939 (talk) 02:29, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

I read this link: https://business-textbooks.com/gairaigo-katakanago/ which explains 3 distinctions of foreign loan words

• Gairaigo: Words that are used in the same manner as the langauge it comes from.
• Katakanago: Somewhere in the middle of Gairaigo and Waseiego, in that, the meaning of the word is the same as the origin of the gairaigo but is used to describe something Japanese.
• Waseieigo: The use of English words to describe a Japanese concept, regardless of the English words original meaning.

But the Japanese Wikipedia article suggests that katakanago is no different to gairaigo.Leveni (talk) 01:44, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was no consensus as to which "better" choice is best - default to no move. JPG-GR (talk) 15:57, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

The title is a clear violation of WP:ENGLISH. The page should be moved over the redirect Japanese English. JЇѦρ 08:24, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

• Or possibly Japlish, if Japanese English is somehow ambiguous; but the proposed target has more gravitas. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:47, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
• WP:ENGLISH says to "use the most commonly used English version of the name of the subject as the title of the article, as you would find it in verifiable reliable sources". What published sources are there which use the term "Japanese English" for this subject? My own brief analysis would suggest that "wasei-eigo" is used in English-language publications, with second place going to "made in Japan English". Noel S McFerran (talk) 01:36, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose this is not English, nor English ethnics in Japan, nor ethnic Japanese in England. "Japanese English" is a bad title. Japlish doesn't sound that bad. 70.55.85.177 (talk) 06:53, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
• "use the most commonly used English version of the name of the subject". Wasei-eigo is not English. JЇѦρ 16:45, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Wasei-eigo is used in English-language publications. Please cite some English-language books or articles which use the term Japanese English for this phenomenon. We're not allowed to just create new terminology in Wikipedia. Noel S McFerran (talk) 19:08, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Article Renaming; Third Time's The Charm....

Even though the previous attempts to move this article to a non-Japanese name were stuck in "No Consensus" Land, several similar articles with Japanese-language names have since been moved to articles with English-language terms well after the last-most attempt to move THIS article. The best example of a Japanese-titled-article-moved-to-an-English-title is the Voice acting in Japan article, which was previously titled as "Seiyu". As such, many of the arguments given in the Voice acting in Japan talk page are most certainly applicable here.

In essence: no one is arguing that this article and articles like it shouldn't exist. However, the fact that:

• this article has a name which is completely unrecognized by almost all English-speakers, just like "seiyu" is, but as opposed to Japanese loanwords like "sushi", "tsunami" and "anime" which ARE recognized by a majority of English-speakers;
• other Japanese-related articles such as Cinema of Japan and Music of Japan have titles in English versus titles based on their Japanese terms (日本映画 Nihon eiga and 音楽 Ongaku, respectively); and,
• Wikipedia rules covered by WP:ENGLISH and similar guidelines prohibit unfamiliar-in-English titles

...is reason enough to move this article to an English-language title.

Of course, part of the reason why there was "no consensus" in the past was because no one could figure out a good English title. As such, should this article finally be moved, I personally suggest something like "Pseudo-Anglicisms in Japan" or "Pseudo-Anglican words used in the Japanese language" as the title. Precedent for such a title can be found in articles such as the aforementioned "Voice acting in Japan", Instruments used in anesthesiology, Latin letters used in mathematics, Italian musical terms used in English and Irish words used in the English language. That is to say, the previously used argument of "We're not allowed to just create new terminology in Wikipedia" is not really applicable since we're not creating a new terminology but are simply describing "wasei-eigo" for what it is, just like those other articles did.

Now if, after reading the arguments found in the Voice acting in Japan article, anyone still believes that this article SHOULD remain "Wasei-eigo", I seriously would like to hear those arguments; I am honestly open to different positions which make logical sense. Otherwise, I'm going to request to move this article again, citing WP:ENGLISH and the arguments shared on the "Voice acting in Japan" discussion page as the reasons for a move. -- 71.141.129.86 (talk) 04:55, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Here's something else to put things into perspective; a similar article to Wasei-eigo which ISN'T related to Western Japanese-Pop-Culture-Fans fascination with Japanese is the Wasei-kango article.... which really ISN'T its own article and is actually part of the Sino-Japanese vocabulary article. As such, I would even suggest that Wasei-eigo be MERGED with the text under Wasei-kango under the article "(List of) Japanese language words of foreign origin", akin to the myriad of various articles titled "English words of [foreign language] origin" or "List of [foreign language] loanwords in English", such as:

• English words of Greek origin
• English words of Native American origin
• English words of French origin
• List of Arabic loanwords in English

There are also plenty of other articles of a non-English language loanwords in another non-English language which have titles in English and NOT in their language, such as:

• List of French loanwords in Persian
• List of Tagalog loanwords

On top of that, there are other articles which cover non-English languages and their relationship with English which, again, are written in English and NOT in the non-English language's terminology:

• Chinese-ordered English
• Chinese Pidgin English (versus Yáng-jìng-bāng-yīng-yǔ)
• Germanism (seeing as "German" is NOT the word the German people refer to themselves as, let alone their own concepts)

The idea here is: what makes Wasei-eigo so much more special that it requires a Japanese name when SO MANY--if not literally ALL--similar articles about languages using other foreign language's (relative to their own) words as their own are known by English titles, INCLUDING another Japanese-language article--Wasei-kango--which covers Chinese words? By the looks of it, there is NOTHING more special about "Wasei-eigo" and thus should have an English title just like every other similar title. I again welcome anyone to bring up a legitimate and logical reason as to why this article should remain "Wasei-eigo", otherwise I will begin the process to get this article moved. -- 66.92.0.62 (talk) 09:54, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Huh?

Several of these definitions make no sense whatsoever. If anybody can figure out what these things mean, please clarify them. Tad Lincoln (talk) 11:29, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi Tad Lincoln.
Originally "wasei eigo" is in incorrect English idion, perhaps ignoramus make it unite English wards according to Japanese meaning. Take it as it is.--Keikaku Teiden (talk) 09:50, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Is "wasei eigo" Japanese, or is it English?

I just finished having a heated discussion with a native Japanese speaker who argued with all his might that "wasei eigo" is NOT Japanese, because it is written in katakana, as is gairaigo. In his mind, "wasei eigo" falls under the category of "gairaigo," words that are not Japanese in origin, and I am tempted to agree with him, except for the fact that "wasei eigo" is virtually unintelligible to a native English speaker. True, loan words which retain their original meaning may not sound exactly the same to a native English speaker when filtered through katakana, but "wasei eigo" is English made by, and used by, only Japanese speakers, and will not make sense, even when spoken in their correct native pronunciation, to native English speakers. (For example, if an English speaker whose native tongue was Japanese were to say "Mark is a paper driver, even though he has my car," the meaning of "paper driver" and "my car" would be lost on a native English speaker, even with the best pronunciation.) At the end of the discussion, the person with whom I was arguing still had trouble with the concept that "wasei-eigo" is a uniquely Japanese thing, that even though, yes, the words were borrowed, it is essentially Japanese. If not Japanese, what is "wasei eigo?" Are they linguistic orphans that no one wants to adopt? My view is that "wasei eigo" is Japanese. It may be in katakana, but as they are words that were created by and for Japanese native speakers, and they make little to no sense to a native English speaker, they are now, for all intents and purposes, Japanese. Has a consensus on this matter been reached somewhere that I don't know about? I could be wrong, but I see no mention of this in the article.Solar3939 (talk) 02:48, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Your friend is simply wrong: if a bunch of people speaking a language are using words in that language, then those words are words of that language, obviously. Of course, if he means "origin English" then he is at least partly right, but all words change when borrowed into other languages. I think the opening paragraph covers this fairly well, though the article as a whole is terrible. Imaginatorium (talk) 03:26, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Also,I had a heated discussion about this.It seemed that between english and japanese "和製英語" is some gap.チェリーボーイ--Takahiro4 (talk) 12:02, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

mansion example

One British definition of the word mansion is "a block of flats", the definition of the word condominium is "a building or complex of buildings containing a number of individually owned apartments or houses"; in other words, "a block of flats". It therefore is not a misappropriation of the term, just a now lesser known appropriation. FourTildes (talk) 10:41, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

That's not quite right, either. No-one refers to a block of flats as a "mansion", but there are many blocks of flats (in London particularly?) with names like "Lobelia Mansions". Imaginatorium (talk) 05:55, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Confusion with gairaigo

This section seems particularly confusing. Who is doing the confusing? Is this Japanese speakers who think that any word in katakana is necessarily "English"? Or is it English speakers who don't speak Japanese, and can't remember the Japanese words very well? How would who be confused by these "morphological transformations"? The sentence referring to L Andrew Miller is a good description, but has nothing to do with the supposed "confusion" of this section. What a mess. Imaginatorium (talk) 07:31, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Nothing to do with wasei-eigo

I removed this paragraph:

Wasei-eigo has resulted in some inadvertently unfortunate results, such as the adoption in 2013 by Fukushima Industries of Fukuppy as the name of their corporate mascot.

This is to do with the unfortunate resemblance of Japanese-based words to English words. Just as the placename Fucking in Oberösterreich has nothing to do with English, Austrian or otherwise. Imaginatorium (talk) 05:53, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Imaginatorium (talk) 05:53, 13 July 2024 (UTC)