Man sues Japanese broadcaster for using too many loanwords

A pensioner is suing Japan's national broadcaster for emotional distress, claiming the overuse of foreign loanwords has rendered many of its programmes unintelligible, his lawyer said.

Hoji Takahashi, 71, is demanding 1.41 million yen (HK$112,000) in damages for NHK's reliance on words borrowed from English, instead of their traditional Japanese counterparts.

"The basis of his concern is that Japan is being too Americanised," lawyer Mutsuo Miyata said. "There is a sense of crisis that this country is becoming just a province of America."

Japanese has a rich native vocabulary, but has a tradition of borrowing words from other languages, often quite inventively and sometimes changing their meaning in the process.

Most Japanese speakers do not think twice about using words including "trouble", "risk", "drive" or "parking", among many others.

Although English provides the bulk of loanwords - an inheritance of the US occupation after the second world war and subsequent fascination with American culture - words borrowed from many other languages are also in use.