Shall we fling some of these words away? －これらの単語はいくつか放り出しましょうか？－

I remember when I first came to Japan bringing a phrasebook with me and trying to memorise some phrases which would be useful.  Unfortunately, the language was overly polite or formal and the phrases I learned did not match the way most people talked to me.  For example, I learned the word “ressha”, meaning train.  I got very annoyed when I found that people almost always called trains “densha” instead.  Why was the Japanese language forcing me to waste my time learning two words for the same thing?

Students of English, of course, have a hard time in this respect too.  You might have learned “to reserve a room” and be confused when a hotel receptionist uses the form “to book a room” instead.  There are many examples of cases where English uses multiple words with a very similar meaning.  You can throw a ball, or fling it, or toss it, or hurl it.  You might ask where the toilets are, or the lavatories, or the restrooms, or the gents, or the loos, or the Johns... and so on.

But don’t all languages have a similar number of words?  Wouldn’t you experience the same frustrations studying, say, Swedish?  Apparently not.  Swedish will tend to have only one word for many things where English or Japanese have several.  A toilet is just a toilet.  A Swedish dictionary of commonly used words is therefore much thinner than an English or Japanese dictionary of commonly used words.

English has so many words because it survived close contact with a number of other languages, and borrows from many different sources.  One word might come from Latin roots, another from Old English, another from Norse, and another from French.  Britain was invaded a number of times, notably by the Norse, and the French-speaking Normans.  Rather than being completely overwhelmed so that English died and was replaced by the invaders’ mother tongue, both languages survived side by side for centuries.  Often the words from both languages were kept and survive into modern English.

Japanese is similarly rich in vocabulary because it incorporates old Japanese words, words made by combining characters imported from China, and recent loan words imported from English or other languages.

This richness of vocabulary allows for shades of meaning.  If you fling a ball, it sounds like the action is more violent or forceful than merely throwing it.  If you ask where the lavatory is, people might assume that you are from a higher class than someone who asks where the Johns are.

But all this richness in meaning is tough for someone trying to learn the language.  Maybe it’s time we flung, hurled, or tossed some of these words away.  Or we could all study Swedish instead?

 

Vocabulary:

a frustration – a difficulty; something which makes you annoyed

Latin – an ancient language spoken in the Western half of the Roman Empire

Norse – People from Scandinavia who traded, invaded and settled in many surrounding countries in Mediaeval Europe.  Norse can also refer to the language group that those people spoke.

the Normans – descendents of Viking or Norse settlers who moved to Normandy in France, and adopted French in favour of their native language

to be overwhelmed – to be greatly affected or dominated

to incorporate something – to take in or contain something

a shade of meaning – a subtle difference in meaning, like a shade or subtle difference in colour