# Nihon/Nippon, にほん/にっぽん, 日本



## humvee

What's the difference?
Nihonjin, Nipponjin is rarely used, right?
Where does the word Japan come from? Doesn't make sense.


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## Yabanjin

I have a couple of web pages about this:
http://www.sljfaq.org/afaq/japan.html
http://www.sljfaq.org/afaq/japan-names.html


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## humvee

Arigatou, Yobanjin san.


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## indigoduck

humvee said:


> Arigatou, Yobanjin san.


 
Take the two words for Japan and find a friend who knows how to speak Hakka, and get them to pronounce it for you.

Voila, there is your "Ni Pon".

Get them to pronounce many other ON-yomi Kanji.  Amazing eh ?

I used to think there was so-called "japanization" of the chinese characters for the ON-yomi pronounciation of Kanji.

Now, i believe it is a direct copy.  Just my opinion though.

When it comes to ON-yomi, let's forget any relation to putonghua since it's a modern man-made language with no relation to the other ancient chinese dialects like cantonese, etc etc.


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## humvee

Thanks for your details. I can speak a little bit Hakka. Just because Hakka can make sense of this phonological semilarity, doesn't mean that the word Japan was borrowed from the Hakka dialect. That sounds too good to be true.


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## Ilmen

*[BRANCHED TOPIC — 日本 pronunciation: にほん vs にっぽん]*

Hello. ♪

I've searched in the forum to see if such a question was already asked, but I did not find conclusive results.

Well, I know that the word 日本 has two possible reading, にほん and にっぽん, depending on the pronunciation of the kanji 日 (に or にち).
I would like to know in which circumstances the second one is used. Is it less common? Is it ever used in compound such 日本語?

Thank you in advance for your help.


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## xiaolijie

In normal conversation, people often use にほん. In formal speech, announcements, on radio, etc, you also hear にっぽん (The Emperor of Japan is likely to use にっぽん )
The same applies to 日本語.


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## Ilmen

I see. Thank you for your explanation.

In a example sentence written by Mikun-san in another thread, both readings are used at the same time:
「日本橋(nihonbashi)と聞いて東京まで来たがあるいは大阪の日本橋(nipponbashi)であったか？」

What is the nuance here?


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## almostfreebird

Nippongo（にっぽんご）is very unusual.

Nihongo(にほんご）sounds comfortable.

On the other hand,
when you root for Japan watching Womens World Cup 2011, 
it should be "Nippon（にっぽん)" because it became kind of pop culture to shout "Nippon（にっぽん)" when you root for Japan in intenational sports games like Olympic.


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## Flaminius

almostfreebird said:


> On the other hand,
> when you root for Japan watching Womens World Cup 2011,
> it should be "Nippon（にっぽん)" because it became kind of pop culture to shout "Nippon（にっぽん)" when you root for Japan in intenational sports games like Olympic.


_Nippon_, consisting of two long syllables, is preferred in occasions like these presumably because it is more rhythmical than _Nihon_ (short and long syllables).


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## Hiro Sasaki

humvee said:


> What's the difference?
> Nihonjin, Nipponjin is rarely used, right?
> Where does the word Japan come from? Doesn't make sense.




http://www.tv-asahi.co.jp/announcer/nihongo/labo/lab_013/body.html
Interesting discussions about Nippon o Nihon


 Basically, both Nihon and Nippon are correct and acceptable. For some words,  people prefer to use Nippon or Nihon.


日本髪　（　にほんがみ　）　I've never heard "にっぽんがみ”（Old Japanese hair style)


日本男子（　にっぽんだんし）、　

Before the World War II, the military persons prefered to use Nippon.

Hiro Sasaki


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