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Engrish

{{Short description|Slang term for broken English}}

{{Distinguish|English (disambiguation){{!}}English}}

{{About|mistakenly broken English|purposely broken English|Broken English}}

{{See also|English-language education in Japan}}

{{Multiple issues|

{{More citations needed|date=April 2010}}

{{Globalize|section|Japan|date=March 2023}}

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File:IMages Are Hopefully in Your head since 1982 shirt.jpg

Engrish is a slang term for the inaccurate, poorly translated, nonsensical or ungrammatical use of the English language by native speakers of other languages.{{cite news|last=Ziemba|first=Christine N.|title=Translate at your own risk|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-dec-05-ca-engrish5-story.html|access-date=13 June 2013|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|date=December 5, 2004}} The word itself relates to Japanese speakers' tendency to struggle to pronounce the English {{IPAslink|l}} and {{IPA|/r/}} distinctly arising from the fact Japanese has only one liquid phoneme (usually romanized r), but its definition encompasses many more errors. Terms such as Japanglish, Japlish, Jinglish, or Janglish are more specific to Japanese Engrish. The related Japanese term wasei-eigo ({{lang|ja|和製英語}}: 'Japanese-made English') refers to pseudo-anglicisms that have entered everyday Japanese.

The term Engrish first appears in the 1940s (suggestive of a mispronunciation of English) but it was not until the 1980s that it began to be used as a byname for defective Asian English.{{cite journal |last=Lambert |first=James |year=2018 |title=A multitude of 'lishes': The nomenclature of hybridity |journal=English World-Wide |volume=39 |issue=1 |pages=12 |doi=10.1075/eww.00001.lam }} While the term may refer to spoken English, it often describes written English. In Japan, it is common to add English text to items for decorative and fashion purposes (see cool). Such text is often added to create a cosmopolitan feeling rather than to be read by native English speakers, and so may often be meaningless or grammatically incorrect. Engrish can be found in many places, including signs, menus, and advertisements. The words are frequently humorous to speakers of English.

Japanese Engrish / Japanglish

Japanese and English have significantly different grammar: Japanese word order, the frequent omission of subjects in Japanese, the absence of articles, a near-complete absence of consonant clusters, and difficulties in distinguishing /l/ and /r/, or /θ/ and /s/ sounds, all contribute to substantial problems using Standard English effectively.{{cite journal|last=Dougill|first=John|title=Japan and English as an alien language|journal=English Today|year=2008|volume=24|issue=1|pages=18–22|url=http://student.pfmb.uni-mb.si/~mhjurisic/John%20Dougill.pdf|doi=10.1017/S0266078408000059|s2cid=145471291|access-date=2013-05-21|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160317014827/http://student.pfmb.uni-mb.si/~mhjurisic/John%20Dougill.pdf|archive-date=2016-03-17|url-status=dead}} Japanese people have tended to score comparatively poorly on international tests of English.{{cite journal|last=Kowner |first=Rotem |author-link=Rotem Kowner |title=Japanese Miscommunication with Foreigners: In Search for Valid Accounts and Effective Remedies |journal=Jahrbuch des Deutschen Instituts für Japanstudien |year=2003 |volume=15 |pages=117–151 |url=http://east-asia.haifa.ac.il/staff/kovner/(16)Kowner2003b.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140801044152/http://east-asia.haifa.ac.il/staff/kovner/(16)Kowner2003b.pdf |archive-date=2014-08-01 }}

Further, English is frequently used in Japan (and elsewhere) for aesthetic rather than functional purposes;{{cite journal|last=Ikeshima|first=Jayne Hildebrand|title=Some perspectives on the phenomenon of "Engrish"|journal=Keio Journal of International Studies|date=July 2005|volume=15|pages=185–198|url=http://www.u-keiai.ac.jp/issn/menu/ronbun/no15/u050708_ikeshima.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110722080429/http://www.u-keiai.ac.jp/issn/menu/ronbun/no15/u050708_ikeshima.pdf |archive-date=2011-07-22 |url-status=live}} i.e., for Japanese consumption, not for English speakers per se, as a way of appearing "smart, sophisticated and modern", in much the same way as Japanese and similar writing scripts are used in Western fashion.{{cite journal|last=Dougill|first=John|title=English as a decorative language|journal=English Today|year=1987|volume=3|issue=4|pages=33–35|doi=10.1017/S0266078400003126|s2cid=145079203 }} Such decorative English is not meant to be read and understood by native English speakers, so emphasis is not placed on coherence or accuracy.{{cite journal|last=Melin|first=Tracy|author2=Rey, Nina|title=Emphasizing Foreign Language Use to International Marketing Students: A Situational Exercise That Mimics Real-World Challenges|journal=Global Business Languages|year=2005|volume=10|pages=13–25|url=https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1121&context=gbl|quote=there is often no attempt to try to get it right, nor do the vast majority of the Japanese population ever attempt to read the English design element in question. There is therefore less emphasis on spelling and grammatical accuracy.}}

The Japanese language also makes extensive use of loanwords, especially from English in recent decades, and these words are transliterated into a Japanese form of pronunciation using the katakana syllabary. Japanese speakers may thus only be familiar with the Japanese pronunciation or Japanese meaning, rather than its original pronunciation or meaning. This is particularly the case when the source English word contains sounds or sound clusters which have no equivalent in katakana.{{cn|date=March 2025}}

In popular culture

Engrish has been featured occasionally in South Park, an American animated TV show by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. One example is the song "Let's Fighting Love", used in the episode "Good Times with Weapons", which parodies the poorly translated opening theme sequences sometimes shown in anime. Parker and Stone's feature-length film Team America: World Police (2004) also features Engrish when the North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is depicted singing the song "I'm so Ronery".{{cite news |last=Stuever |first=Hank |title=Puppet Government 'South Park' Creators' Left Jab at Jingoism May Backfire |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34313-2004Oct15.html |access-date=16 September 2011 |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=October 15, 2004 |quote=The North Korean dictator speaks in the voice of 'South Park's' Eric Cartman, ... only with an Engrish accent. 'I'm so ronery,' Kim confesses in a pitiful ballad to himself, which explains his evil-doing—he just needs to be ruvved. |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20190506220059/https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34313-2004Oct15.html |archivedate=2019-05-06 |url-status=live }}

The British fashion brand Superdry, which takes inspiration from Japanese clothing styles, has established a style of placing meaningless Japanese text such as 'Sunglasses company' and 'membership certificate' on clothing sold in Britain.{{cite web |title=Superdry |url=http://www.unmissablejapan.com/etcetera/superdry|website=Unmissable Japan |access-date=2 October 2014}} The company explained to a Japanese television news programme that most translations were done using simple automatic translation programs such as Babel Fish, without attempting to make the texts accurate.{{cite web |title=Superdry: Popular UK Fashion Brand Uses Gibberish Japanese |url=http://www.japanprobe.com/2011/10/16/superdry-popular-uk-fashion-brand-uses-gibberish-japanese/ |website=Japan Probe |access-date=1 October 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006103018/http://www.japanprobe.com/2011/10/16/superdry-popular-uk-fashion-brand-uses-gibberish-japanese/ |archive-date=6 October 2014 |url-status=dead}}

==See also==

{{Portal|Language}}

References

{{Reflist}}

External links

{{wiktionary|Engrish}}

{{Commons category|Engrish}}

  • [http://www.engrish.com/ Engrish.com] Examples of Engrish from Japan, China and elsewhere
  • [https://web.archive.org/web/20160303204242/http://www.fahruz.org/ fahruz.org (2003–2007)] Collection of Engrish and equivalents in French, German and Italian (archived on Wayback Machine March 3, 2016)
  • [http://www.weirdasianews.com/category/engrish/ Large Engrish photo collection] on Weird Asia News
  • [https://www.instagram.com/engrishcheck/ EngrishCheck Instagram] Photos of Engrish from Japan
  • [http://www.translationparty.com Translation Party] Online tool demonstrating how phrases are lost in translation between English and Japanese

{{interlanguage varieties}}

{{English dialects by continent}}

Category:Japanese vocabulary

Category:Macaronic forms of English

Category:Slang

Category:Internet memes