Kinds Of English

Kinds Of English Around the World
(Hybrid Variety – Japlish)

Engrish is a slang term for unusual forms of English language usage by native speakers of some East Asian languages. The termitself relates to Japanese speakers' tendency to inadvertently substitute the English phonemes "R" and "L" for one another, because the Japanese language has one alveolar consonant in place for both. Therelated term "wasei-eigo" refers to pseudo-anglicisms that have entered into everyday Japanese. While the term may refer to spoken English, it is more often used to describe written English. Engrishcan be found in many places, including signs, menus, and advertisements.
Terms such as Japanglish, Japlish or Janglish for Japan, Konglish for Korea, and Chinglish for China are more specificterms for Engrish. In Japanese Engrish, there are two contributing factors:
First is the great difference between Japanese and English. Japanese word order, the frequent omission of subjects inJapanese, the absence of articles, a near-complete absence of consecutive consonants (owing to the syllabify nature of the Japanese language), as well as difficulties in distinguishing l and r allcontribute to substantial problems using Standard English effectively. Indeed, Japanese have tended to score comparatively poorly on international tests of English. Unwittingly poor translations fromonline language translation tools are used without consulting a native English speaker.
The second factor has been the use of English for "decorative" or "design" rather than functional purposes forJapanese consumption, not for English speakers per se, and as a way of appearing "smart, sophisticated and modern," in much the same way as Japanese and similar writing script is used in westernfashion. Indeed, it is claimed that in such decorative English 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...