What does Japan mean in Japanese

Have you ever wondered why in Japan the country is called Nihon and Nippon? Or have you ever wondered why the West calls the country Japan? Where did these terms come from? Are there other alternatives to refer to the land of the rising sun?

In this article, we will understand why Japan has several names like Nihon and Nippon. Let's see how these names came up, some curiosities and how to say Japan in several languages. Below is a summary of the article:

How do you say Japan in Japanese?

As the title of the article and its introduction suggests, Japan in Japanese is nihon or nippon [日本] both written in the same way. Throughout the article you will understand a little better about the meaning and origin of this name.

If you want to call Japan Japan in Japanese, you can say jyapan [ジャポン] equivalent to English Japan. Japan officially uses this English version in official documents displayed internationally and also in passports.

There are other ways to transcribe Japan from different languages ​​into the Japanese language using katakana. The closest we have to English and Spanish is Japanese [ジャポン] although rarely known to the Japanese.

Meaning and origin of the name of Japan

Japan in the Japanese language is spelled [日本] where [日] means sun and [本] means origin. For this reason, Japan is known as the land of the rising sun and has a simple flag that represents the sun. The ideograms in the Japanese language have different readings, which makes it possible to pronounce nihon and nippon for the name of the country [日本].

The phonemes in the Japanese language are called hiragana and katakana where each drawing represents a sound. Using these alphabets we can write nihon [日本] as follows: [にほん] or [ニホン]. Now notice the tiny difference in the word nippon written in hiragana and katakana: [にっぽん] [ニッポン].

The letters hiragana or katakana used are practically the same, the difference is that nippon uses a accentuationto transform a H in P and a small tsu [っ] to lengthen the pronunciation of the P.There is basically no reading other than the ideograms [日本] to pronounce the name of Japan, they are just phonetic details.

Pwhy is Japan the land of the rising sun? That's because, according to the Chinese, the country is located in eastern China, where apparently the sun rises. It is also believed in the influence of the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu. We can also notice in the time zone, where Japan is 12 hours ahead of us.

What is the old name of Japan?

The Chinese called Japan before it became an official country of wa [倭] becoming what we know in Japanese from wakoku [倭国] that probably has a difference in the pronunciation of the time.

However [倭] was not a good ideogram, so it ended up changing to [和] which means agreement. Then the name was established as wamato and then yamato which means something like behind the mountain.

For Westerners Japan has always been called by some variant of the word japan, we will talk about this throughout the article.

Why call Japan in the West?

Have you ever wondered why the West or the rest of the world calls the country of the rising sun Japan and not Nihon or Nippon? This happened because the person who introduced Japan to the world, the famous Marco Polo, only knew Japan through the Chinese through a dialect in southern China that pronounced the ideograms [日本] asZipangu.

In traditional Chinese, the Nihon or Nippon [日本] ideograms are often pronounced as Rìběn. Marco Polo ended up taking Zipangu and transforming it into Jipen which later became English in Japan and Brazil became Japan. In Japanese we can write Japan using the katakana [ジャパン].

Not even the Japanese usually question this decision of the world, since the character [日] also has the Chinese pronunciation jitsu. So it wouldn't be unusual for someone to say jitsupon or jitsuhon which slightly resembles Zipangu or Japan, even more so in English pronunciation.

Japan has undergone several phonological changes during its history. possibly Nifon and Jippon were some of them. This explains a lot why the country is called Japan in English and has pronunciations starting with J in many languages.

When to use Nihon and Nippon?

The first pronunciation used in the ideograms [日本] was Nippon. This term started to be used around 640 and it makes sense to use P in relation to the word Japan or Japan. It is believed that the term Nihon appeared in the Edo period in the Kanto region. So much so that the commercial district of Tokyo is called Nihonbashi, while the commercial district of Osaka which is close to Kyoto (former capital) is called Niponbashi.

Throughout Nihon's history, people argue about the best or official way of pronouncing [日本], is it Nihon or Nippon? Today Nihon has become more popular than the original Nippon, being used by more than 60% of the population. Note also that no one refers to the Japanese language as nippongo, only as nihongo [日本語].

Not even the government accepted the proposal to make the land of the rising sun official as Nippon in 1934. It is more common to pronounce Nippon when the word is isolated and alone. If the word is joined by another ideogram showing a concept or idea from the country, it is more normal to use Nihon reading ...

Other ways of referring to Japan

Basically the name of Japan is made up of 2 ideograms that can be pronounced the way one wants. Was it always like this? Before 640, what was Nihon called? Are there alternatives to the words Japan, Nihon and Nippon?

Before Nihon and Nippon [日本], the land of the rising sun was called Yamato [倭] or simply Wa, or better, wakoku [倭国]. This name was given by the Chinese who first met the Japanese in southern China. The country at the time was divided into several ancient provinces. Yamato was the main one, responsible for founding an imperial court in Nara.

Over the years the ideogram [倭] has been simplified to [和] which means harmony and peace. This ideogram is still widely used in the Japanese language in several words related to the Japanese people such as traditional Japanese food washoku [和食]. The kanji wa [我] also has a certain connection and concept about Japan.

Throughout the history of Nihon or Nippon, he has gained other names and nicknames such as:

• Ashyashima [大八洲] Great country of the 8 (many) islands;
• Yashima [八島] Eight (many) islands;
• Hinomoto [日の本];
• Akitsukuni [秋津国];
• Shikishima [敷島];
• Mizuho [瑞穂];
• Fusō [扶桑];

How do you say Japan in other languages?

To finish the article we will leave a list of what the land of the rising sun is called in several languages. I hope you like it, thanks for sharing, commenting and reading our article.