Wasei-kango

Wasei-kango (Japanese: 和製漢語, "Japanese-made Chinese words") are those words in the Japanese language composed of Chinese morphemes but invented in Japan rather than borrowed from China. Such terms are generally written using kanji and read according to the on'yomi pronunciations of the characters. While many words belong to the shared Sino-Japanese vocabulary, some kango do not exist in Chinese while others have a substantially different meaning from Chinese; however some words have been borrowed back to Chinese.

Meiji era

During the Meiji Restoration, Japanese words were invented en masse to represent western concepts such as revolution (革命, kakumei) or democracy (民主, minshu). Towards the end of the 19th century, many of these terms were re-imported into Chinese. Some consider that as the form of the words entirely resembles that of native Chinese words in most cases, Chinese speakers often fail to recognize that they were actually coined in Japan.^[1] However, some scholars argue that many of those terms, which were considered as Wasei-kango by some people, were in fact created by Chinese and Western scholars. During the 19th century, officials from Japan had been purchasing Sino-English dictionaries such as "A Dictionary of the Chinese Language (1822)", "An English and Chinese Vocabulary in Court Dialect (1844)" and "Vocabulary and Handbook of the Chinese Language (1872)" from China in order to absorb Western civilization.^[2]

History

Pre-Meiji period

Since antiquity, the Japanese have supplemented their native vocabulary, known as

One source of wasei-kango is the reinterpretation of yamato kotoba via on'yomi readings of the characters as opposed to the original

(介錯).

Meiji Restoration

As Western influence began to take hold in Japan during the 19th-century Meiji Restoration, Japanese scholars discovered that they needed new words to translate the concepts imported from Europe. As Natsume Sōseki once wrote in his diary,

law は nature の world に 於る如く human world を govern している

^{[citation needed]}

or in English, "Law governs the human world as the natural world." Eventually, once these European concepts became fully naturalized in the Japanese worldview, it became possible to write the above sentence as it would be in modern Japanese:

法律は自然の世界に於る如く人類世界を統治している。

Japanese officials and scholars also imported new terms coined by Chinese and Western scholars from Sino-English dictionaries from China. Many of these terms are still commonly being used by both countries nowadays.^[2]

Sometimes, existing words were repurposed to translate these new concepts. For example,

Buddhist term which became the modern word for "world", and kagaku (科学, science) was taken from "欽定千叟宴詩". Other words were completely new creations, such as tetsugaku (哲学, philosophy) and denwa (電話, telephone). The majority of wasei-kango were created during this period. Following the Meiji Restoration and the Japanese victory in the First Sino-Japanese War

, many of these terms found their way into the modern Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese languages, where they remain today.

Examples

This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (June 2023)

Chinese characters	Mandarin Chinese	Japanese	Korean	Vietnamese	Meaning
革命	gémìng ㄍㄜˊㄇㄧㄥˋ	kakumei かくめい	hyeongmyeong 혁명	cách mạng/mệnh	revolution
民主	mínzhǔ ㄇㄧㄣˊㄓㄨˇ	minshu みんしゅ	minju 민주	dân chủ	democracy
共和國	gònghéguó ㄍㄨㄥˋㄏㄜˊㄍㄨㄛˊ	kyōwakoku きょうわこく	gonghwaguk 공화국	cộng hòa[a]	republic
主義	zhǔyì ㄓㄨˇㄧˋ	-shugi しゅぎ	juui 주의	chủ nghĩa	ideology; -ism
世界	shìjiè ㄕˋㄐㄧㄝˋ	sekai せかい	segye 세계	thế giới	world
國際	guójì ㄍㄨㄛˊㄐㄧˋ	kokusai こくさい	gukje 국제	quốc tế	international
出超	chūchāo ㄔㄨ¯ㄔㄠ¯	shutchō しゅっちょう	chulcho 출초	xuất siêu	trade surplus
銀行	yínháng ㄧㄣˊㄏㄤˊ	ginkō ぎんこう	eunhaeng 은행	ngân hàng	bank
電話	diànhuà ㄉㄧㄢˋㄏㄨㄚˋ	denwa でんわ	jeonhwa 전화	điện thoại	phone
廣告	guǎnggào ㄍㄨㄤˇㄍㄠˋ	kōkoku こうこく	gwanggo 광고	quảng cáo	advertisement
病院	bìngyuàn ㄅㄧㄥˋㄩㄢˋ	byōin びょういん	byeong'won 병원	bệnh viện	hospital
哲學	zhéxué ㄓㄜˊㄒㄩㄝˊ	tetsugaku てつがく	cheolhak 철학	triết học	philosophy
物理	wùlǐ ㄨˋㄌㄧˇ	butsuri ぶつり	mulli 물리	vật lí	physics
工業	gōngyè ㄍㄨㄥ¯ㄧㄝˋ	kōgyō こうぎょう	gong'eop 공업	công nghiệp	industry

See also

• Classical compounds
  in English and other Indo-European languages
• Wasei-eigo

Notes

1. ^ Vietnamese does not use the term cộng hoà quốc 共和國 for republic, but rather Vietnamese uses cộng hoà 共和.

For a list of words relating to Wasei-kango, see the Wasei kango category of words in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

References

1. ISBN 0700713778
   . Retrieved 19 August 2015.
2. ^ ^{a b} 陳力衛《語詞的漂移：近代以來中日之間的知識互動與共有》,〈學苑〉, 2007-05-29

References

• Robert Morrison "A Dictionary of the Chinese Language" (1822): 使徒, 審判, 法律, 醫學, 自然的, 新聞, 精神, 単位, 行為, 言語
• Samuel Wells Williams "An English and Chinese Vocabulary in Court Dialect" (1844): 內閣, 選舉, 新聞紙, 文法, 領事
• Walter Henry Medhurst "English and Chinese Dictionary" (1847-1848): 知識, 幹事, 物質, 偶然, 教養, 天主, 小說, 本質
• Wilhelm Lobscheid "English and Chinese Dictionary, with Punti and Mandarin Pronunciation" (1866-1869): 蛋白質, 銀行, 幻想, 想像, 保險, 文學, 元帥, 原理, 右翼, 法則, 戀愛、讀者
• Justus Doolittle "Vocabulary and Handbook of the Chinese Language" (1872): 電報, 電池, 光線, 分子, 地質論, 物理, 動力, 光學, 國會, 函數, 微分學