現代中国語における単漢字日本語借用語 : 「萌」と「燃」を例に

要旨

In t he l ate 1 800s and early 1900s, China underwent a language modernization movement that converted its literary language into a more accessible vernacular form. This transformation witnessed the Chinese language incorporating an influx of loanwords from Japanese. Previous research indicates that Japanese loanwords imported to China during this period were mainly two-character noun phrases. Empirical research (Akahira, 2009; Shen, 2008; Wang, 1958) demonstrated that by this time, there were scarcely any modern singlecharacter words from Japanese, except for some quantifiers and prefixes. According to Sato (2015), language contact between Japanese and Chinese has resulted in a tendency for Japanese nouns to be borrowed more often than verbs. Therefore, Japanese single-character words, not commonly used as nouns, are rarely borrowed. Nevertheless, a new trend has emerged since 2000 whereby the number of single-character Japanese loanwords was increasing and establishing a more significant presence. Focusing on this trend, this paper utilizes Chinese dictionaries, linguistic corpora, and newspaper databases to investigate the influx of single-character Japanese loanwords and their usage. Having examined the growing trend of single-character Japanese loanwords entering Chinese, I will now analyze specific examples of this phenomenon through the single-character words “ 萌" and “ 燃". Investigating these particular single-character loanwords will allow us to better understand the impact that the influx of such Japanese borrowings has had on modern Chinese and its native speakers.