Etymology of Japan and China
Saturday, May 27th, 2006Ever wondered what is the origin of the Japan and China names? Wikipedia has three nice articles I recommend you to read: Exonym and endonym, Names of Japan and Names of China. In short:
An exonym, as opposed to an endonym, is a name of a place, used by a foreign language, that is not used within that place by the local inhabitants. For example, Japanese and Chinese people do not respectively use Japan and China to refer to their own country. It is noteworthy that exonyms have developed only for those places that are of especial significance throughout history for speakers of the language in question.
The Chinese traditionally positioned the emperor of China at the center of the world, considering other countries as being culturally inferior and barbaric. Thus, Chinese called their country 中国, zhōngguó, the “Middle Kingdom”.
The word China (French: Chine) may derive from Cin, the Sanskrit transcription of the name of the Qin Empire (2nd century BC). Marco Polo was already using Chin to refer to China at his time (1254-1324).
Before Japan had relations with China, it was known as Yamato and Hi-no-moto, which means “source of the sun”. When hi-no-moto was written in kanji, it was given the characters 日本. At that time, these characters began to be read using readings borrowed from China, first Nippon and later Nihon.
The word Japan (French: Japon) may come from Chinese. At the time of Marco Polo and the early trade routes, 日本 was not pronounced Nippon anymore in China but something like “Cipangu”. And indeed, in modern Mandarin, 日本 (riben) actually sounds close to “Japan” to my ear.