Japan, Nihon, Nippon, Jipangu, Yamato

Yesterday, I got a question from Nick. He was wondering if it was true that the Japanese people would rather have their country called something like "Sunrise Country" than "Japan." First, I would like to thanks Nick for his question and second, I would like to try to answer it by taking a look at the many names of Japan.

In the beginning

The first organized people of Japan called their country (or at least their tribe or organization) Yamato. Yamato is written with the character for big (大) and harmony or peace (和). Apparently, this way of writing it was influenced by the Three Kingdoms era China's name for Japan at the time, Woguo (倭國). Wo, pronounced "wa" in Japanese means dwarf. Eventually, the character was changed to 和 and the Japanese people started to us it to refer to themselves. The character 大 would have been added by the Japanese, and means "great" like in Great Britain. It seems that the real meaning for Yamato is "mountain gate" (山戸); the current characters for yamato can't be pronounced "yamato" they were just associated with the word. In Japanese, this is frequent and is called ateji (当て字). During the Sui Dynasty, China referred to Japan as "Yamato" or "Hi no moto" which is written with the characters for "sun" and "origin": 日本. These characters can also be read "nihon" or "nippon," which are the ways they are read now. Chinese people most called Japan "hi no moto" because it was in the direction which the sun rises from, thus originates.

There are different stories about how "hi no moto" came to be pronounced "nippon." Some say that a Japanese envoy (Japan was tributary to China for a long time) disliked the name Woguo (dwarf country) and changed it to Nippon. Another says that a Chinese Empress ordered an envoy to change the name of its country. I guess it all depends on which side wrote the story.

The name Japan came from the outside through the trading routes. Marco Polo was the first to refer to it as Cipangu. It is most likely that this pronunciation came from Chinese and was borrowed by other languages like old Malay. Portuguese were the first one to bring back this word to Europe. Other theories say that it comes from Cantonese, in which Japan is still called Yapun. In this case too, the word would have been brought back to Europe through the trading routes.

Now

Japan's official name in English is simply and shortly Japan. The name has been around since the Meiji restoration (1868) however until the end of WWII, the complete name was the Great Empire of Japan. Japanese people, however, never called their country Japan (in English); it was called Nippon or Nihon. During WWII, some Japanese people wanted to make Nippon the official name of the country, rather than using a name coined by foreigners. Just like Siam, who had reverted to Thai, they wanted to be called by their real name. Of course, this was also part of war propaganda and a shows a strong desire to avoid foreign words in order to stand strong as an independent country. Nowadays, the Japanese people will sometimes joke and call the country "Japan" but in official use and casual use, the name remains "Nihon" or "Nippon." Like I wrote earlier, both these words mean the origin of the sun, and this is why Japan is sometimes called the "land of the rising sun." So here I will answer Nick's question by saying that if Japanese people prefer this name, it's probably because it's closer to the Japanese name. However, I don't think most Japanese people really care.

Nippon or Nihon

In Japanese, some people say "Nihon" other say "Nippon": why is that. The general rule is that Nippon is for official use (as in Nippon Ginko, or Bank of Japan) and that Nihon is for casual and, weirdly, scientific use (like in naming a Japanese specie). There is, however, a little right wing ultra-nationalist flavor associated to "Nippon." The reason for that is that it was used by the military government that took over the Taisho democracy in the early twenties. This military government was in charge and partially responsible for the 1931 Manchurian incident that started the Second Sino-Japanese war and during World War Two. (I say partially because the involvement of the Japanese government in the various wars of the 20th century is quite complex.) The double "p" gave strength to the word and was used for propaganda, as it is easier to pronounce. After the war, the word "Nihon" became most commonly used.

Some people still do called Japan Nippon but it would be a serious misunderstanding to think that they all are right wing ultra-nationalists. Yes, some are, but it is not the majority. From my experience, most of the people who I've heard use "Nippon" are elderly people. Since they were raised during the war, it just make sense that they would use it instead of Nihon; it is more natural to them. Lately, it is also used more because of Japan's involvement in numerous sport competitions; Nippon is used in encouragement shouts for the same reason it was in war propaganda: it is easier to pronounce. That doesn't make all the sport fans ultra-nationalists.

I have also read an interesting comment on a different post about this subject. The person referred to William Griffis' The Mikado Empire (1877) in which it is said that the pronunciation of Nihon as Nippon is “a sign of careless speaking, and a lack of cultivation.” “Nihon and Yohodo of the Japanese gentlemen are far more elegant than Nippon and Yoppodo of the common people. One can tell a person of cultivation by this sound.” Knowing this, is it possible that in the early 20th century, the increase of the word Nippon in official use was a sign of the rise of the militarism? What do you think?

Sources: Japan probe, JSTOR, Wikipedia