Protons, Electrons, and Morae: Scientific Vocabulary Development in Japenese

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2006
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Swarthmore College. Dept. of Linguistics
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Thesis (B.A.)
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en_US
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Full copyright to this work is retained by the student author. It may only be used for non-commercial, research, and educational purposes. All other uses are restricted.
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Abstract
Japanese science and its vocabulary have each gone through stages of development as Japan moved into and out of periods of isolationism. Historically, certain forces such as the import of Chinese characters to write with and the US defeat of Japan in World War IT have affected the way Japanese treats scientific vocabulary. This paper begins with an overview of modem Japan and then a general grounding in the mechanics of the language and some explanations of the notation used, then moves on to a breakdown of the three orthographies of Japanese and their origins. This section mostly concentrates on the adoption of Chinese characters and the current divisions of usage between the three orthographies. Next is a discussion of loanwords in Japanese: how they are written, how they are adopted and created, and some quirks found in Japanese loanwords. After this comes an examination of the development of science in Japan, highlighting the main trends for the past several hundred years such as the long period of isolationism lasting to some degree for approximately 300 years which resulted in the Dutch and Portuguese being the main international connections to Western science for Japan. Finally. there is a section on the most common Chinese characters in Japanese scientific vocabulary and some information on the breakdown of overlap between sciences and the tendency toward calques formed because descriptive scientific terms can be translated piecewise from one language to another without impairing meaning.
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