Where Did All the Engrish Go?

"Engrish," a term blending "English" with a stereotypical Japanese mispronunciation, refers to the often humorous misuse of English by native Japanese speakers. Typical examples include grammatical errors, misspelled words, and poor translations and spellings on Japanese signage, ads, and packaging. Various factors contribute to this phenomenon, such as the intricate Japanese-to-English translation process, the artistic usage of English, and, occasionally, the absence of consultation with native English speakers while translating.

The name "Engrish" has sparked conversations about cultural sensitivity and the worldwide problem of language translation, despite its pervasiveness. Similar processes occur anywhere English is not the dominant language; the advent of "Engrish" is not limited to Japan. An example of this would be the term "Chinglish" used to describe similar accidents in China.

The term "Engrish" has also entered the vernacular, appearing in films, television series, and even clothing lines. Take the case of British fashion label Superdry, which puts Japanese writing on its apparel marketed in Britain. However, the firm doesn't necessarily aim for accuracy while doing so, occasionally resorting to Babel Fish or other machine translation systems, resulting in Japanese sentences that are either incomprehensible or irrelevant. A wider tendency of adopting English and other foreign languages for their visual or aesthetic appeal rather than their content is highlighted by this method, which places an emphasis on the stylistic worth of text rather than its semantic value.

On March 28, 1940, however, English and other foreign languages were effectively banished as "Enemy Language" (敵性語). Rising Japanese nationalism viewed foreign influence as corrupting of the Japanese character, and those influences were marked for elimination or suppression. Prior to 1940, the Japanese military had placed great importance on knowledge of foreign languages, but in 1940, any knowledge of foreign languages was eliminated from the military academy entrance exams. Students openly studying foreign languages were bullied and called traitors to the country. NHK Radio's "Basic English (基礎英語) was put on hiatus for the duration of the war. The use of Western calendars was strongly discouraged, as was content praising Western capitalism. Any statement of the superlative nature of an American or British thing was prohibited. (For example, "The Empire State Building is the tallest building in the world" was factually true at the time, but expressing this concept was banned.)

With the commencement of open hostilities in 1941, the rhetoric was amped up. The Asahi Shimbun published an article in December of that year, shortly after the attack at Pearl Harbor, encouraging its readers to "Eradicate the American Smell." (抹殺せよ"アメリカ臭") There were pushes to eliminate English words and American cultural artifacts from the Ginza shopping district in Tokyo. In a move that surely would have been cheered by my father, "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" by Thomas Hardy was banned because it promoted "impurity." Comparisons of Japanese things to Western things, like "Osaka is the Manchester of Japan," were similarly banned.

However, this does not mean that the rules were uniformly enforced. For example, the propagandists made a very good English-language based retort to the 1942 Doolittle raid, saying, "The commanders name might be Dolittle, but the effectiveness of the raid is Do Nothing." (指揮官はドゥ?リトル だが、実際（被害）はドゥ?ナッシング)

However, the push to eliminate English was ineffective due to its pernicious presence in military life. A story related about a tank battalion fighting in China. A tank commander was cautioned for using words of Western origin when he referred to "bolts," "nuts," and a "spanner." He then asked, "What should I do about my blood type and unit code?" The commander's reply was, "We expect instructions soon." (近く指示がある)

The Japanese love of baseball was generally unaffected by the "enemy language ban." In a 1944 domestic propaganda film sponsored by the Department of the Navy called "Lightning Troops Dispatch," there is a scene where the soldiers play baseball during their downtime, and the players can be clearly heard calling out "strike" and "out" in English. The Army's General Staff Headquarters began publishing a propaganda magazine which was called "FRONT" in English.

Today, English is once again widespread, and there are no legal prohibitions against its use. But there are also not many checks on the quality. Just as stupid tattoos are common in the West (see Ariana Grande's "Barbecue Grill" mixup), there's lots of nonsensical English used as fashion accessories in Japan. And sometimes, even when the intent is good, the result strays into philosophical territory.

To do a verbatim translation, the Japanese reads, "A request; past here there is danger, therefore we humbly ask that you do not proceed past this point." A more accurate translation of the above might have been "Danger - Do Not Go Past This Sign." But maybe not.