A somewhat anecdotal yet revealing editorial in the Japanese daily Japan Times recently mentioned the linguistic sensitivity of Koizumi Jun'ichiro, then prime minister of Japan. Koizumi reportedly erupted in anger while listening to a presentation by his telecommunications minister, which was so full of English loan words that it became almost incomprehensible (Japan Times, editorial, 19 January 2003). A few months later the National Institute for Japanese Language (Kokuritsu Kokugo Kenkyûjo), affiliated with the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry, established a Loanword Committee (Gairaigo Iinkai) designed to encourage the replacement of gaiaraigo [loan words] with native words (on this committee see http://www.kokken.go.jp/public/gairaigo/). Ironically perhaps, when Prime Minister Koizumi was asked how he hoped to implement such a reform he answered that he intended to utilise the masukomi [mass communication] – a very common term in contemporary Japanese, yet another English loan word (19 August 2002; NPR morning edition).

Such expressions of personal resentment towards English loan words, as well as some institutional attempts to purify the Japanese language, are intriguing. Hitherto, extensive use of loan words in the government-sponsored media and government publications in Japan suggested that even if postwar official policy on loan words was not targeted at promoting and actively encouraging their use, nothing was done to prevent it. English loan words, in fact, have become so prevalent in contemporary Japanese that an estimated one out of ten words used today in Japan are English loan words (cf. Stanlaw, 1992).

Efforts at reform of the Japanese language sparked by an enraged prime minister provide an excellent opportunity to rethink the cultural position and the function of loan words in Japan. As we shall show, historical as well as political conditions have greatly affected the origin as well as the popularity of loan words.