Explore the impact of one language on the other language(s) at different levels The impact of the Chinese language on the Japanese language Introduction

On the phonetic level, the Japanese language has adopted numerous Chinese words with exactly the same sounds and syllables. For instance, the Japanese word for ‘book’ is ‘hon’, derived from the Chinese word ‘hán’. Similarly, ‘tea’ is written as ‘cha’ in Japanese and ‘chá’ in Chinese, ‘mosquito’ is ‘ka’ in Japanese and ‘kǎ’ in Chinese, and ‘turtle’ is ‘kame’ in Japanese and ‘gamy’ or ‘jiàn’ in Chinese.

In addition, the phonetic changes caused by the importation of Chinese words and phrases in the Japanese language have also been contributed to the development of the Japanese writing system. The Chinese writing system is typically written in characters known as Kanji, and when these characters are presented in a Japanese writing context, they are known as Kanji. These characters are typically phonetic and represent both the meaning and the pronunciation of a word. Thus, Kanji characters that are written in Japanese contain both Japanese and Chinese sounds.

To illustrate, the Kanji character for tiger (tora) contains the Chinese-derived phonetic element ‘ra’, as in the Chinese word for tiger (lā). Likewise, the Kanji character for fire (hi) contains the Chinese-derived phonetic element ‘hi’ as in the Chinese word for fire (huǒ).

The phonetic part of the Japanese language has also been significantly influenced by the Chinese language. This is due to the fact that many Chinese words and phrases were transliterated during the Great Transliteration Movement of the 6th century. For example, the Chinese word 'sù' (meaning 'to go') was transliterated into Japanese as 'tsū'. In this way, the phonemes of the Chinese language gradually became pronounced and accepted in the Japanese language.

The Chinese language also had an impact on the Japanese language in terms of intonation and syllabic structure. To illustrate, the Chinese language usually places syllables at the end of words (such as in "go-ngo-”), while the Japanese language usually places syllables at the beginning of words (“go-no-”). This difference in syllabic structure was likely due to the Great Transliteration Movement.