Names of Japan

Since the third century, Chinese called the people of the Japanese archipelago something like "ˀWâ" (倭), which can also mean "dwarf" or "submissive".

Wa 和 was often combined with 大 ("great") to form the name 大和, which is read as Yamato[2][3] (see also Jukujikun for a discussion of this type of spelling where the kanji and pronunciations are not directly related).

[1][failed verification] In 1076, Turkic scholar Mahmud al-Kashgari in his book Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk mentioned this country as 'Jabarqa' (جَابَرْقَا).

[5] Marco Polo called Japan 'Cipangu' around 1300, based on the Chinese enunciation of the name,[6] probably 日本國; 'sun source country' (compare modern Min Nan pronunciation ji̍t pún kok).

In the 16th century in Malacca, Portuguese traders first heard from Indonesian and Malay the names Jepang, Jipang, and Jepun.

[7] At the end of the 16th century, Portuguese missionaries came to coastal islands of Japan and created brief grammars and dictionaries of Middle Japanese for the purpose of trade.

This nomenclature comes from Imperial correspondence with the Chinese Sui dynasty and refers to Japan's eastern position relative to China.

[11] Wa was a name early China used to refer to an ethnic group living in Japan around the time of the Three Kingdoms period.

It defines 倭 as shùnmào 順皃 "obedient/submissive/docile appearance", graphically explains the "person; human" radical 亻 with a wěi 委 "bent" phonetic, and quotes the above Shijing poem[clarification needed].

"Conceivably, when Chinese first met Japanese," Carr (1992:9) suggests "they transcribed Wa as *ˀWâ 'bent back' signifying 'compliant' bowing/obeisance.

Koji Nakayama interprets wēi 逶 "winding" as "very far away" and euphemistically translates Wō 倭 as "separated from the continent."

Other original names in Chinese texts include Yamatai country (邪馬台国), where a Queen Himiko lived.

The Old Book of Tang (舊唐書), one of the Twenty-Four Histories, stated that the Japanese envoy disliked his country's name Woguo (Chinese) (倭國), and changed it to Nippon (日本), or "Origin of the Sun".

Another 8th-century chronicle, True Meaning of Shiji (史記正義), however, states that the first female Chinese Emperor Wu Zetian ordered a Japanese envoy to change the country's name to Nippon.

When romanised, this pause is represented by a doubling of the first consonant of the second syllable; thus nichi 日 plus kō 光 (light) is written and pronounced nikkō, meaning sunlight.

Japanese 日 and 本 were historically pronounced niti (or jitu, reflecting a Late Middle Chinese pronunciation) and pon, respectively.

In compounds, however, final voiceless stops (i.e. p, t, k) of the first word were unreleased in Middle Chinese, and the pronunciation of 日本 was thus Nippon or Jippon (with the adjacent consonants assimilating).

[22] Historical sound change in Japanese has led to the modern pronunciations of the individual characters as nichi and hon.

[citation needed] Several attempts to choose a definitive official reading were rejected by the Japanese government, which declared both to be correct.

[23] While both pronunciations are correct, Nippon is frequently preferred for official purposes,[24] including money, stamps, and international sporting events, as well as the Nippon-koku, literally the "State of Japan" (日本国).

The name for the Bank of Japan (日本銀行), for example, is given as NIPPON GINKO on banknotes but is often referred to, such as in the media, as Nihon Ginkō.

[32] As mentioned above, the English word Japan has a circuitous derivation; but linguists believe it derives in part from the Portuguese recording of the Early Mandarin Chinese or Wu Chinese word for Japan: Cipan (日本), which is rendered in pinyin as Rìběn (IPA: ʐʅ˥˩pən˨˩˦), and literally translates to "sun origin".

Following the accounts of Marco Polo, Cipangu was thought to be fabulously rich in silver and gold, which by Medieval standards was largely correct, owing to the volcanism of the islands and the possibility to access precious ores without resorting to (unavailable) deep-mining technologies.

Jipangu (ジパング (Zipangu)) as an obfuscated name for Japan has recently come into vogue for Japanese films, anime, video games, etc.