The Pittsburgh Press (April 14, 1946)
Language lesson –
So solly, but the Japanese don’t say ‘So solly’
By the Scripps-Howard Service
Our Army has been in Japan for six months now but a casual survey shows our writers, commentators and cartoonists haven’t put on much weight in their workaday knowledge of the Japs and Japanese.
It’s about like it was before the war. No one expects the Japan experts to learn the language and customs in six months, but if they insist on being folksy and at home in their subject, they ought to start brushing up a bit.
Take that “So solly” gag, a favorite of the cartoonists. Someone before this should have told them the Japs don’t say that. They can’t pronounce l’s. They have none in their language. It’s the Chinese who say “solly” because they have no r’s. Japs can and often do say they’re so sorry, but sometimes they make it “so sorrow.”
Hon. mistake
Another misused label is the Honorable, often abbreviated to Hon. by the cartoonists and writers. Japs do have an honorific “O” they prefix to words but they use it mostly to distinguish second and third person from firs, providing they’re speaking to a superior. Thus they don’t hang an Hon. on everything.
Hirohito is not pronounced He-ro-he-to by the Japs. In the Tokyo accent, which is taught in schools as the national standard, they elide the sound of i in certain final syllables. So they pronounce Hirohito He-ro-shto, no accent.
Actually, the Japs never used the name of their emperor – although the practice may be springing up now. They called the emperor, any emperor, Tenno Heika, or simply Heika. Tenno means, approximately, Heavenly Person, and Heika, Emperor.
The same slurring of vowels goes for Yamashita. It’s correctly pronounced Ya-ma-shta, also without accent.
And sukiyaki, a Jap dish, but not the national one, is correctly rendered s’kee-ya-kee.
Double vowels
While the Jap language does not call for syllabic accents, the Japs, unconsciously perhaps, do give certain stresses to syllables with long vowels. Hiroshima has a long o. Consequently, it’s pronounced He-ro-shi-ma with stress on the ro.
When the Japs have a double vowel, as in Niigata, they pronounce both, as Ne-e-ga-ta, not Neegata.
If you want to say Nagasaki in the Tokyo manner, put a slight nasal or n sound before the g, as Na(n)g-a-sa-kee.
And, once and for all, that Jap national drink made of rice is sake, not saki.
Maru is another one. It doesn’t mean ship. Long monographs, possibly books, have been written on the meaning of maru. It even may have some mystical meaning. But for practical purposes, it means, approximately, “round.”
They say ‘gay-sha’
Geisha is pronounced gay-sha. It’s the same singular and plural. It means literally “arts-person.” There are only women geisha, therefore it is as incorrect to say geisha girls as it is to say female actresses, or women chorus girls.
And while we are on the subject geisha should not be confused with prostitutes. Few of them may be virgins but at least prostitution is not their vocation. The prostitutes are joro.
Harakiri is not Harry Carey or anything ese but ha-ra-kee-ree. And it means suicide by cutting open the belly, not suicide by any other means. Incidentally, even the Japs don’t use the word much. They prefer the more euphemistic “seppuku,” just as we say abdomen when we mean belly.