The Incredible Phenomenon That Is Jinglish
This is a fascinating aspect of Japanese culture. Jinglish. Japanese-ised English. Where did it come from? How could it possibly have pervaded every part of the country to the extent it has? It's viewable on bags, in parks (see below), in convenience stores, on products, in brochures, in instruction manuals, on drink machines, on drinks, on buildings, on menus. Anywhere there is English in Japan, the spirit of Jinglish lives on.
This is just an amazing concept for me. I mean, if I was living in Australia, and I wanted to advertise in a foreign language, or USE a foreign language in an advertisement or product, I would go outside, find a native speaker of that language and simply ask :
"Hey guy, does this look strange to you?"
If the said person then fell on the ground in peals of laughter, and said "HAHAHA oh my god you're not going to print that are you? This is a joke right? Theres a camera somewhere isn't there? HAHAH OMG" I would naturally reconsider using that particular sentence.
This thought process for some reason does not seem to exist. I wish I could only see the meeting where this stuff is discussed.
Pachinko Boss So guys, hows that English ad coming along?
Pachinko Designer Guy Great!! We have been working for a while, and we have come up with the tag.
Pachinko Boss Alright, then, lets hear it.
Pachinko Designer Guy Happy Super Pachinko Power - We make happy guy lucky, we make lucky guy happy! Why not enter our oriential pathway for excitement with balls.
Pachinko Boss THAT SOUNDS INCREDIBLE. GOOD WORK.
Pachinko Designer Guy Thanks boss!
Pachinko Boss Ok, good work everyone. Have a good weekend.
Pachinko Some Other Guy *ahem* Um, hey... does anyone here speak English?
* Everyone looks around the room*
Pachinko Some Other Guy No shit. No-one speaks English. Hey, do you think we should perhaps, you know, check with an English speaker to make sure this is ok? I mean this goes in big letters right outside our shop in a busy district, right?
* Awkward Silence *
Pachinko Boss Get the fuck out.
I can only imagine this is how it goes. With the possible exception that "Pachinko Some Other Guy" does not exist.
Possible Causes
I will now hypothesise on possible Jinglish causes.
1. Since English is simply used to be 'cool', people dont care what mishmash of language is printed 40,000,000 times on their product. However since a strong idea in Japanese culture is to check with the rest of the group before agreeing on something, it would seem to make sense for someone to check with an English speaker right? This hypothesis doesn't make so much sense.
2. Some people don't like to admit they can make mistakes. Especially in English, where some people view their grasp of English as a status symbol in an office. So Mr Takahashi, the English expert (he went overseas for 2 weeks, and sometimes watches 24 with no subtitles), creates the English to be used in the project. When someone says "hey Takahashi-san, this English is ok, right?" he becomes indignant. "OF COURSE it's ok. I watch 24 with no subtitles. Sometimes.". I could be way off the mark with this one. Does anyone know?
3. Actually I can only really think of those two. Can anyone else possibly offer any ideas?
I hope to encourage a lively and interesting debate with this one. Please be sure to drop a comment!
I just had a thought.. hmm .. ?%@@!!
Here it is; maybe, just maybe, there is something more sinister going on here. Maybe the advertising departments at these companies have decided that "any exposure is good exposure". I mean if they get an image of their product with funny slogan put onto http://www.engrish.com/ there could possibly be thousands of people who are going to see the product. I dont know whether or not bad exposure is in fact good exposure, or if in fact Im actually talking out my poop chute, but its a theory.. and you asked for it. :P
Posted by Simon — 02 Dec 2005, 10:36
Actually, thats a very interesting point. That will definately be added to the list of theories.
firefly.yourjapan.jp : revealing the sinister origins of Jinglish....!
Posted by firefly — 02 Dec 2005, 10:38
I worked in Kyushu for two years - real inaka place where I sat in the town hall doing almost nothing everyday for nine hours (characteristically great human resource management) opposite a monolingual bureaucrat and another colleague who was a fluent English speaker. At the time there was an extremely stylish onsen/healthfood centre opening in the town which was designed to bring people from far and wide to boost the local economy.
This guy decided during the course of his working days sitting OPPOSITE us, upon the English name "Synthetic Cultural Terminal" for the onsen centre - a highly dubious translation of 総合文化センター - and without consultation he ordered massive roadsigns for Kumamoto's main thoroughfares directing people to this, the manmade place where culture was to meet its demise...
Posted by Kate — 16 Jan 2006, 00:54
other theories - the shape of the english letters is cool
divination is incredibly important why not flip the english dictionary to random pages and point to your translation?
Posted by G — 28 Jan 2007, 10:44
While on vacationing in Japan a few years back I saw a sign in the window of a store that was having a huge sale. Instead of the sign reading "SALE!", it read "HAPPY PRICE!"
Posted by Oldspooneye — 06 Apr 2007, 03:53
haha! you continue to amuse me, firefly. Good work!
as for the jinglish thing, i dont think i can drop the best insight on this. but i figured out i may have something to share. well, i have been to a few countries in the world. and everywhere i went, people seem to always try to mix english with their laguage. so you can add arabic-english, manglish (i.e.: malaysian-english), and many more to your list!!
here in the arab world, generally, its more like inserting a few english words into your sentences (so that you allow the rest of the world to comprehend the fact that you actually speak english!!!!!). some people go to the extent of mixing the letters of an arabic word with the letters of the english word to come up with a 'cooler' expression (i will give you all the pleasure of imagining what that might sound like!!). what buzzles me, though, is the fact that they all (including myself) understand those words as soon as we hear them the very first time!!!!
i believe it will only be fair for me to give you guys an example of what i mean.. 'mutantion" is the word freaks use in the streets for tensed up or nervous.. looking deep into it, i figured out it might be both the arabic word "motawatter" (which obviously means tensed!!) and the word tension (which is the noun for tensed!!).. i guess i made my point (did i??)
anyhoo.. sorry for straying away from your topic. i actually wanted to type a quick witty comment but ended up rambling a few ununderstandable lines!!
i'll be watching this blog from now on. hope you dont mind a total stranger reading your stuff daily!
Posted by Tunez — 31 May 2007, 20:56