"Come to Nagoya" — spatial locutions
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[This is a guest post by Nathan Hopson]
One of the first bits of Nagoya-specific Japanese I picked up was 来名 (raimei), i.e. "come to Nagoya." It added a bit of local color to my lexicon of directional Japanese, which was mostly commonplace but remarkable locutions such as 上京 (jōkyō, go "up" to Tokyo), which gives us the 上り (nobori, Tokyo-bound) and 下り (kudari, away-from-Tokyo-bound) train and expressways. Another of those standard phrases is 来日 (rainichi, come to Japan), which stuck out to me in the same way world maps with Japan in the center had when I first came here as a student almost 25 years ago. The discovery of this new politics of place was one of those experiences that really stuck with me.
Anyway, I feel like Japan is using 来日 less these days. In its place, I see 訪日 (hōnichi) for tourists — not much of that these days, tbf, but 訪日外国人 (hōnichi gaikokujin) was all anyone could talk about last year — and now, in my role as head of a program teaching almost exclusively international students here in Japan, 渡日 (tonichi). I feel like 渡日 is not in common circulation, but is primarily administrative jargon for organizations like mine — and the education ministry over us.
Google hits:
渡日 313,000
訪日 16,800,000
来日 41,000,000
The difference between 来日 and 訪日 is subtle in some ways, and changing, I think.
I feel like 来日 used to be commonly employed to talk about tourists, but no longer. On the other hand, you couldn't would say 訪日 for an official diplomatic visit, for example.
And 渡日 seems pretty firmly ensconced in bureaucratese at the moment, though that may change, too, of course.
1. I'd be interested to know what others make of this.
2. Is there a similar distinction in Sinophone languages? If so, what is the usage like?
Since initially discovering the joys of 来名, I've now added to this 帰名 (kimei, "return to Nagoya"). I mention this because it relates to another interesting factoid: it's almost never 帰日 (kinichi), but rather 帰国 (kikoku), a phrase often used indiscriminately even for Japanese (by nationality or ethnicity) who have never set foot in the country. This is the same spatial politics as 来日, which exposes Japan as the psycholinguistic anchor point. On the one hand I guess it's just a linguistic anomaly along the lines of "come home" or "come over" in English ("Can I come over?" = "Can I go to your place?"), but on the other, those anchor points are important in shaping the way we see and experience the world.
Addendum
I ran the words through the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics corpus (Chūnagon). Here are the results:
渡日 36 hits
訪日 480
来日 2335
The corpus includes these datasets:
現代日本語書き言葉均衡コーパス
日本語歴史コーパス
日本語話し言葉コーパス
国語研日本語ウェブコーパス
多言語母語の日本語学習者横断コーパス
名大会話コーパス
現日研・職場談話コーパス
日常会話コーパス
近代語のコーパス
コーパスアノテーション
昭和話し言葉コーパス
日本語諸方言コーパス
The BCCWJ had the most hits for 渡日 (18), so I checked it out. Many seem to be references to Korean nationals in academic and other nonfiction publications.
An example:
二作家とも済州島の出身で同い年、金石範は母のおなかの中で渡日し、金泰生は五歳で密航による渡日である。
Daniel Tse said,
August 17, 2020 @ 5:18 pm
This Wiki article covers even more similar expressions, although some of them are surely obscure or only used locally.
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BA%8C%E5%AD%97%E7%86%9F%E8%AA%9E%E3%81%AB%E3%82%88%E3%82%8B%E5%BE%80%E6%9D%A5%E8%A1%A8%E7%8F%BE%E3%81%AE%E4%B8%80%E8%A6%A7#%E3%80%8C%E6%9D%A5%E3%80%8D%E3%82%92%E7%94%A8%E3%81%84%E3%81%9F%E8%A1%A8%E7%8F%BE
Jim Breen said,
August 17, 2020 @ 6:09 pm
A useful measure of the relative frequency of Japanese terms can be extracted from the Google Japanese n-grams (2007). For the 3 mentioned in the article, they are:
渡日 14413
訪日 217128
来日 2424379
Bathrobe said,
August 17, 2020 @ 6:14 pm
Your statement that "On the other hand, you couldn't say 訪日 for an official diplomatic visit, for example" doesn't seem totally correct.
I checked Google and found hits for 訪日 referring to official visits (unfortunately my Google results are flooded with Chinese, but there were Japanese results among them):
モラビエツキ首相が初訪日、インフラ分野などの協力へ期待
歴代米国大統領の訪日｜About THE USA
閣議の概要／ユリ・ラタス・エストニア共和国首相の訪日
習近平国家主席の訪日～安倍首相から断るべきだという理由
首相 楊政治局委員と会談 習主席訪日成功へ意思疎通で一致
安倍首相は「恥を知れ」 イラン大統領訪日抗議デモ
グザヴィエ・ベッテル・ルクセンブルク大公国首相の訪日
There were plenty more.
Bathrobe said,
August 17, 2020 @ 6:45 pm
In fact, although the language is obviously evolving, I would suggest that 訪日 was originally THE term for an official visit, from 訪問 meaning 'visit'. To speak of casual visitors 訪問-ing Japan would have sounded strange at one time. An ordinary citizen did not 訪問 a country.
訪日 for tourists possibly came about under the influence of English, in which it is customary to speak of the number of 'visitors' to a country. 'Visitor' would correspond directly to 訪問者, thus the increasing use of 訪日 for tourist arrivals.
Sergey said,
August 17, 2020 @ 7:23 pm
As far as the maps are concerned, I remember I was surprised to see the American maps with the American continents in the center and Eurasia split in half. In Russia (and I think Europe too) it's common to put the borders of the map at the oceans. In Russia it's common to put the break in the map at the Pacific, but if you put the break on the Atlantic, Japan would be pretty much in the center!
Nathan Hopson said,
August 17, 2020 @ 8:38 pm
@Bathrobe, thanks for the correction. That's a serious proofreading error (couldn't → would), and I'm glad you caught it.
Victor Mair said,
August 17, 2020 @ 9:02 pm
@Nathan Hopson:
Fixed that now — you
couldn'twould say 訪日Krogerfoot said,
August 17, 2020 @ 10:04 pm
渡日 may not be in common circulation, but 渡米 tobei "visit the US [literally "cross to America"]" seemed like a fairly common thing ten years ago or so to put in writing when talking about business trips and the like.
Too much might be made of the "spatial politics" of 来日 and 帰国. Compared to English, Japanese strictly distinguishes between coming and going, this/last/next year and other expressions that English speakers tend to treat more loosely (I still get taken aback in early January when people talk about what they did "last year," meaning a couple of weeks ago in December). A speaker using 来日 to mean "come to Japan" might be revealing a Japan-centric worldview, or they might more likely be saying that because they're in Japan themselves, in which case it's hard to imagine how else they might express it. Similarly, 帰国 is used just as readily to describe people returning to their "own" countries, not only Japan. It connotes a permanent change of residence, and I'm not sure I agree that it's used indiscriminately for any ethnic Japanese person, especially one merely visiting the country.
David C. said,
August 17, 2020 @ 10:30 pm
Keep in mind that 来日 can also be read らいじつ raijitsu, to mean some time in the future. This would boost the corpus hits for the term.
Lydia said,
August 17, 2020 @ 11:54 pm
Hebrew has עלייה *aliyah* meaning "move to Israel" and ירידה *yeridah* "move away from Israel", literally "ascend" and "descend" respectively.
Philip Taylor said,
August 18, 2020 @ 3:16 am
Bathrobe — "unfortunately my Google results are flooded with Chinese" : did you try appending "+site:.jp" to the search parameters ?
Bob Ladd said,
August 18, 2020 @ 5:18 am
In UK English there's a definite tendency to go "out" to foreign countries, especially if they are far away or if you're going for more than a brief visit. My North American English intuitions are a little rusty, but I don't think I've ever heard a native North American English speaker talk about going "out to Brazil" or "out to South Africa".
And in Edinburgh you go "through" to Glasgow, and (I believe) vice-versa.
Jen in Edinburgh said,
August 18, 2020 @ 6:13 am
You *might* go over to Glasgow, but I'm not sure what the difference would be…
Definitely down to London, whatever people might say about London always being up.
KeithB said,
August 18, 2020 @ 8:22 am
Lydia:
I wonder whether it is from the Psalms, specifically the songs of ascent when you would "go up" to Jerusalem and the Temple.
Scott P. said,
August 18, 2020 @ 10:12 am
It would be nice to have the literal translations of these expressions, for those of us who don't speak Japanese. I'm assuming raimei doesn't literally mean "Come to Nagoya"?
Twill said,
August 18, 2020 @ 10:41 am
@Scott P. 来名 does in fact correspond exactly to "come to Nagoya", with the first character literally meaning to come and the second being the first character of Nagoya read with a Sino-Japanese pronunciation (though literally meaning "name"). The same goes mutatis mutandis for 来日, with 渡 meaning to cross (waters), 訪 to visit, and 帰 to return.
Svafa said,
August 18, 2020 @ 11:18 am
@Scott P.
I'm only conversationally proficient in Japanese at best, so there are certainly those who can better explain the phrases, but I'll do my best.
来名 does sort of literally mean "Come to Nagoya". It's an abbreviation using the character for "to come" and the first character of Nagoya (名古屋市). 帰名 (mentioned near the end) is similar, using the character meaning "to return" instead. Additionally, 帰 is related to the phrase おかえり/okaeri ("welcome home"), so 帰名 also carries an implication of returning home to Nagoya.
上京 uses the character for "up" with the second character of Tokyo (東京), which is also the character meaning "capital". 上り and 下り are literally "to go up" and "to go down" with the context implying Tokyo.
来日 is similar to 来名 above, only with the first character for Japan (日本) instead, which has the literal meaning of "sun" or "day". 訪日 is similar, only using the character for "visit" instead of "come". And 渡日 uses the character for "to cross (a body of water), ferry, import" among other similar meanings and used together mean "to arrive or come to Japan as a foreigner". This last is also the character I'm least familiar with, so may include some meaning/implication I'm missing.
Michael Watts said,
August 18, 2020 @ 11:58 am
I'm not clear on what it is that we're supposed to have an opinion on. The post presents three very abbreviated phrases: 来日 "come to Japan", 访日 "visit Japan", and 渡日 "take a ferry to Japan".[1] I don't know how the Chinese usually talk about traveling to Japan[2], but… are these phrases distinct in English? It sure seems like they are. Are they more distinct in some other language? What are we noticing here?
[1] More generously, "cross the water to Japan".
[2] Actually, I do know a bit about this — in conversation, they do not use such brief, formalized phrasing.
Josh R said,
August 18, 2020 @ 7:48 pm
I don't know if the particular bureaucratese of Nathan's workplace is different, but in my experience working in the overseas development department of a Japanese company (apparently matching the Japanese Wikipedia page above), the 渡- constructions are abbreviations of 渡航 (tokou), meaning to make an overseas journey, and typically refer specifically to the journey (i.e. the flight). So while 来日 (rainichi) refers to a general coming to Japan, and 訪日 (hounichi) refers specifically to coming to Japan for limited time (a visit), 渡日 (tonichi) would refer to the physical act of flying into (or taking a boat to) Japan.
来日 would not be used to by people outside of Japan, even if they were Japanese. If, for example, I was talking to a Japanese person based in New York about their impending trip to Japan, I (in Japan) might use 来日, but I would expect them to use 渡日. (Possibly 帰国 (kikoku), but as Krogerfoot pointed out, this would more likely refer to a permanent return.)
Incidentally, I live in Nagoya, but haven't yet seen an actual 来名 in the wild. The closest I've gotten was an email from my boss that used 訪名 to refer to someone coming to Nagoya for a short visit.
I don't have any particular sense that these spatial expressions have a political bent to them. A Japanese person in the US could conceivably use 来米 (raibei; come to America), which incidentally pops up in my IME with no problem. 来日 is simply more common due to the vast majority of Japanese speakers being spatially located in Japan.
Bathrobe said,
August 18, 2020 @ 9:36 pm
＠ Philip Taylor
Thanks for the tip
David Marjanović said,
August 19, 2020 @ 3:50 am
How did 米 ("rice; America") end up as bei? I know it's mi in other… well, in what I thought was the same context, and it's mǐ in Mandarin.
Terpomo said,
August 19, 2020 @ 11:36 am
@David Marjanović
Kan'on consistently renders Middle Chinese nasal initials as denasalized, except those with final ŋ. This may be because in the variety they were borrowed from they were prenasalized. See Wikipedia's article on Sino-Xenic pronunciations- it has a chart of correspondences.
PeterL said,
August 19, 2020 @ 9:52 pm
At Narita airport, there's a bilingual sign as you get off the airplane: "Welcome to Japan" and "おかえりなさい” (o-kaeri-nasai) ("welcome back / welcome home"). [This is from memory; I was always in too much of a hurry to take a picture]
If I go out from home for the day (or an hour or a year), when I arrive back home, I say "ただいま" (只今) (tadaima), literally "right now [I'm back]"; and whoever's at home says "o-kaeri", literally an abbreviated form of the polite imperative "return" (お帰りなさい). [This can confuse beginning Japanese students because the verb "kaeru" means "return back" whereas English "return" can mean either "return back" or "go away".] [English uses of "come" and "go" are also different from Japanese "kuru" (来る) and "iku" (行く)]
(I saw an amusing translation at a nearby church, with a multi-language sign saying "welcome home" and "ただいま" ("tadaima") – https://photos.app.goo.gl/p1wSQrLxcEX6gVKh6 – I'm guessing that some dictionary showed Japanese ただいま as meaning "I'm home".)
Peter Maydell said,
August 20, 2020 @ 5:20 am
Having been primed to notice it by this blog post, I encountered 渡英 ("travel to England") in the back-of-the-book essay[*] for a mass-market novel, so that one also is presumably in comparatively common usage.
[*] I mean the 解説, which seems to be practically mandatory for any novel in the Japanese publishing world; can't think of a good English term because we don't tend to have them…
David J. Littleboy said,
August 30, 2020 @ 12:12 am
" the 解説, which seems to be practically mandatory"
FWIW, my impression is that you don't get a 解説 in the hardcover, only in the paperback (文庫本) edition that comes out later. Almost everything at hand is paperback, but the hardcovers at hand that I checked had nothing or an epilog or postscript by the author. I wonder what the story is for Kindle editions? A check of a couple had epilogs/atogakis by the author but a police/procedural novel did have the kaisetsu.
Grumble: I like the kaisetsu. Sure, they tend to be hagiographic, but they give context for the novel. I was bummed out that I lost the kaisetsu in one novel I liked so much I ordered a used copy of the hardcover edition (Koi by Koike Mariko). By the way, watch out for used 文庫本, though. They may be in good shape when they arrive and cost only one or two yen, but if it's over 30 years old, it'll fall apart in your hands as you read it.