Common loanwords identified in Japanese music magazines

要旨

As human beings of different ethnic groups interact and mingle with each other, they also learn to use each other's language.Through time, some of those more commonly used lexical terms become assimilated into the native languages of the speakers.This process has not only enriched some of the world's languages but also changed the state of purity of some of these languages.Like all other languages, Japanese is not spared from this phenomenon.This paper is based on a study which looks at two Japanese music magazines in an attempt to locate the foreign words that have become assimilated into the Japanese language lately.In addition to that, this study also hopes to identify the origin of these foreign words which are particularly used in music magazines.The fi ndings of this study provide evidence to show that many of the foreign words which have been absorbed by Japanese as loanwords are musically related terms such as 'music genres', and 'music instruments'.Many of these loanwords also originated from European languages with 93.9% of them traced to the English language, which also borrowed from French and Latin.Analysis of data suggests that these assimilated foreign words have been truncated and modifi ed through a set of patterns which will be discussed.Further, it was found that the original meanings of the loanwords identifi ed may alter from the way these were used in the context of the magazines.It is thus hypothesized that with the occurrence of new concepts, new neologisms and new happenings occurring due to globalisation, the vocabulary of Japanese language will be further enriched in the future.

主題