# 日本 - etymology and pronunciation



## Nino83

Hello everyone. 

I know that this word has at least three different pronunciations (leaving aside _yamato_), i.e _jippon, nippon_ and _nihon_. 
My questions are: 
1) Why the double "p" became single "p" (then lenited to "h"), differently from similar words like _ippon, ippiki, ippai_ (一本, 一匹, 一杯), which have the same consonants (_chi + p => chp => pp_)? Is it a regular process? 
2) Which is the most used form today? Is _Jippon_ totally outdated in contemporary Japanese?  

Thank you


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## DaylightDelight

Nino83 said:


> 1) Why the double "p" became single "p" (then lenited to "h"), differently from similar words like _ippon, ippiki, ippai_ (一本, 一匹, 一杯), which have the same consonants (_chi + p => chp => pp_)? Is it a regular process?


This is not a case of a euphonic change.  にほん and にっぽん are just two different ways to read 日本.
One theory suggests that the name 日本 (lit. the sun's source/origin) were chosen because Japan was located to the east of China.
(When seen from China, Japan was where the sun rose from). 日本 was also read ひのもと (ひ=sun の='s もと=source) in old times.



Nino83 said:


> 2) Which is the most used form today? Is _Jippon_ totally outdated in contemporary Japanese?


One research indicates that にほん is about twice as frequently used as にっぽん, and use of にほん is still growing.  「ニホン」か「ニッポン」か　「日本」の読み方の現在 | ことば（放送用語） - ことばの研究 | NHK放送文化研究所
I believe じっぽん came from a Chinese pronunciation of 日本. We don't use it at all.


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## Nino83

DaylightDelight said:


> This is not a case of a euphonic change. にほん and にっぽん are just two different ways to read 日本.


Is _ni_ the _nanori_ reading of 日 in the case of _nihon_?


DaylightDelight said:


> I believe じっぽん came from a Chinese pronunciation of 日本.


Yes. It seems to be the pronunciation of Min Han dialects/languages. When Marco Polo got to China he wrote _gipangu_, which was the pronunciation of 日本國 in that region of China.
There is also the Cantonese _Jatpun_ [jat̚puːn]. The Italian word _Giappone_ [ʤap'poːne] is very similar! 
(it is also very similar to _Jippon_ [[ʤip'poːn]) 


DaylightDelight said:


> We don't use it at all.


Thanks! So it is _Japan_ in European languages and _Nihon_ or _Nippon_ in Japanese.


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## DaylightDelight

Nino83 said:


> Is _ni_ the _nanori_ reading of 日 in the case of _nihon_?


I'm not sure about this.  Some theory says that にっぽん is older and にほん was a Tokyo area dialect (when it was still Edo).
So probably it was originally a regional difference.
We have two 日本橋 (place) in Tokyo and Osaka; It's にほんばし in Tokyo and にっぽんばし in Osaka.


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## Nino83

DaylightDelight said:


> We have two 日本橋 (place) in Tokyo and Osaka; It's にほんばし in Tokyo and にっぽんばし in Osaka.


Is this difference present only in this word or are there other words with double "p" in Osaka and simple "h" in Tokyo?


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## DaylightDelight

It's a unique example as far as I know.


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## M Mira

If 日本 was first coined as a normal on'yomi word instead of some ateji, then it should contain a sokuon, so the form without (nihon) is likely newer.

Another word with -h- v.s. -pp- is yahari and yappari, but the difference between them doesn't appear to be related to location.


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## ktdd

About the euphonic sound change. A little knowledge of (historical) Chinese phonology would come in very handy.

Middle Chinese used to have an entering tone (入聲), which is really just a syllable ending in (unaspirated) /p/ /t/ or /k/. Some southern dialects like Cantonese still retain this feature. Japanese on the other hand does not allow a syllable to end in consonant. So they added a vowel, often the weakest, e.g. i or u, when transcribing the Chinese sound. Compare numbers 1-10 in Cantonese (jyutping) and Japanese (kunrei romanization):
一 jat1 いち(iti)
二 ji6 に(ni)
三 saam1 さん(san)
四 sei3 し(si)
五 ng5 ご(go)
六 luk6 ろく(roku)
七 cat1 しち(siti)
八 baat3 はち(*pati->*fati->hati)
九 gau2 きう->きゅう(kiu->kyū)
十 sap6 じふ->じゅう(*zipu->*zifu->zihu->*ziwu->*ziu->zyū) (I've written about the historical sound change of は-row in another thread)

日 belongs to 日母 (initial) in Middle Chinese, the reconstructed sound is approximately /ȵit/. This n-like initial is preserved only in Wu dialect (for example, a Shanghainese person is 上海人 [zɑ̃.hɛ.nɪɲ], often written as 上海宁) and, as you may have already guessed, Japanese. In Mandarin this /ȵ/ sound becomes /ɻ/ or /ɚ/. In Cantonese it becomes /j/. Compare these 日-inital characters in Mandarin, Cantonese and Japanese:
日 rì, jat6, にち(niti)
二 èr, ji6, に(ni)
人 rén, jan4, にん(nin)
入 rù, jap6, にふ->にゅう(nihu->nyū)
兒 ér, ji4, に(ni)
肉 ròu, juk6, にく(niku)
熱 rè, jit6, ねつ(netu)
忍 rěn, jan2, にん(nin)

So the 'n' reading of 日、人 etc. reflects the earliest Chinese pronunciation (呉音 right after the Han dynasty), while the 'j' reading of the same character is a later re-borrowing (漢音 of Tang dynasty or 唐音 of Song dynasty).

And about the double consonant. When a plosive is immediately followed by another plosive, it's very natural to not fully realize the first one (for the same reason Latin 'perfectus' becomes Italian 'perfetto'). The は-row was pronounced with /p/ in Old Japanese (本 is still pronounced with /p/ in Modern Chinese). The 'ti' in 日 is used to emulate the Chinese 't' and the Japanese vowel 'i' is already very weak in unaccented syllables we can almost think of it as /nit/. Put together, 日本 is 'nitpon', only a tiny step away from becoming 'nippon'.

This same principle can explain the seemingly erratic behavior of many Japanese counters like 本、杯、匹、階、冊、歳、分、秒 etc., as long as you remember that the ha-row was originally pa-row and the sa-row was originally tsa-row in Old Japanese. With that in mind, you can also see clearly that 'nihon' must be a later development. With 'h' no longer a plosive, the need to double the consonant and along with that the small っ simply disappears. (I've read somewhere that 'nippon' sounds more masculine than 'nihon' and is considered more 'traditional' whatever that means.)

As for regional differences, it seems Osaka-ben uses far less 促音 than Standard/Tokyo dialect. For example, 言って is いうて, 買って is こうて, しまった is しもた. So the different pronunciation of 日本橋 is probably just Osaka people happen to be more conservative.


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## Nino83

Thank you, ktdd. 
Anyway the pronunciation _nihon_ remains unexplained.


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## ktdd

After rereading your original post, I can only offer a wild guess.

The 'jippon' pronunciation you quoted is from 日葡辞書 (published in 1603, coinciding with the beginning of 江戸時代) and is no longer in use.
日葡辞書 listed three pronunciations of 日本: にほん(nifon), にっぽん(nippon), じっぽん(jippon). So にほん already existed before Westerners got the chance to make a systematic description of the language. Which means nobody can tell how にほん came to be.

My wild wild guess is like this: At some point, someone, mostly likely a female, maybe a court lady or a high end prostitute, thought it cuter to pronounce the 本 in 日本 as ほん just like in 本物の本 and so many other words, and the fad caught on, much like an older version of ギャル語. Since double consonant only occurs with plosives, the っ part also got dropped. Osaka people, being the crude, materialist stereotype that they were made to be, refused to follow suit, and got to keep their 日本橋. As for counters, either they are more resistant to lenition or perhaps にほん is just an isolated incident?


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## ktdd

OK, found something.

『日本国語大辞典』
にほん【日本】
(｢東の方｣の意の｢ひのもと｣を漢字で記したところから)わが国の国号｡大和(やまと)地方を発祥地とする大和朝廷により国家的統一がなされたところから､古くは｢やまと｣｢おおやまと｣といい､中国がわが国をさして倭(わ)国と記したため倭(やまと)･大倭(おおやまと)の文字が当てられた｡その後､東方すなわち日の出るところの意から｢日本｣と記して｢やまと｣と読ませ､大化改新の頃､正式の国号として定められたものと考えられるが､以降､しだいに｢ニホン｣｢ニッポン｣と音読するようになった｡呉音の字音よみとして､まず｢ニッポン｣と発音されたものが､しだいに促音を発音せずやわらかな｢ニホン｣に変わっていき､両方がそのまま使われたものと思われる｡なお､漢音による｢ジッポン｣というよみもあったことは｢日葡辞書｣にも記されている｡室町期には国号呼称としての｢ニホン｣｢ニッポン｣の両方があった｡明治二二年制定の旧憲法では､大日本帝国(だいにっぽんていこく)が国号として用いられたが､昭和二一年公布の日本国憲法により日本国が国号として用いられるようになった｡その読み方については国家的統一はなく､対外的に多く｢ニッポン｣を用いる以外は｢ニホン｣｢ニッポン｣が厳密に使いわけられることなく併用されている｡美称として､大八洲(おおやしま)､豊葦原瑞穂国(とよあしはらのみずほのくに)､葦原中国(あしはらのなかつくに)､秋津島､秋津国､大倭豊秋津島など｡


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## Flaminius

ktdd said:


> Osaka people, being the crude, materialist stereotype that they were made to be, refused to follow suit,


I am afraid you need to show that Osaka people use less Nihon and more Nippon for the name of the country in order to say "[they] refused to follow suit."   As far as I know _Nippon_/_Nihon_ variation is not a local thing.  Place names such as  _Nippombashi_ alone does not tell much about how Tokyoites and Osakans treat -pp- in their overall speech.  Tokyo has _Roppongi_ (六本木) and Osaka has _Befu_ (別府).


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## ktdd

Flaminius said:


> Place names such as _Nippombashi_ alone does not tell much about how Tokyoites and Osakans treat -pp- in their overall speech.


Yeah, I didn't realize that にほん pronunciation has such a long history, probably predates either bridge by many centuries. It probably was just a random thing. And place names throughout the world are known to be very resistant to sound changes.


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