Nihon Vs Japan

[Zaya]

Hello,

I could probably Google this but i figure i might as well post it up since that is what this forum is partially for. I know that non Japanese people refer to japan as just that japan. but Japanese people refer to it as Nihon. i was just curious if Nihon had any different meanings to it. i know its kinda like what the Germans use we call them German's but they call themselves deutch Germany deutchland etc. any information on that would be greatly appreciated.

[JonB]

you forgot nippon which is actually more common than nihon.

First question: Japan v nippon/nihon you go it

Next question is going to be difference between nippon and nihon. My Japanese colleague is not so sure but thinks it might be to do with the "person". So you are nihonjin and not nipponjin (kanji would not work there as the same). Company names with "Japan" in the title are Nippon

[Belton]

There's also Yamato. 大和
Although I think it's a bit anachronistic now.


just running にほん・にっぽん through my dictionary there seems to be much more usage of nihon especially in compounds. It looks to me an ease of pronunciation thing rather than some nuance of meaning.


For what it's worth the kanji stay the same. 日本　origin of the sun.
And Japanese creation myths are centred around the sun goddess.
日　on it's own can stand for Japan. 日独 [にちどく]　Japanese-German
or 駐日　 [ちゅうにち] resident in Japan

and if you'd googled you might have found this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Japan
which is very interesting. I was looking for how Japan came to be used. (probably from jippon)

[binz]

From my extremely limited knowledge of Japan and it's history I can tell you that the world came to call Nihon 'Japan' because of the chinese. Apparently the characters spelling 'Nihon' in Japanese read as 'Jih-pen' in China. And that then became 'Japan' to the rest of the world.

Regarding Nippon vs Nihon, Nippon is from what I understand is used more during things like matches, competitions things like that. Stand-offish is the wrong term for it, it's not; I think it's just more about representing 'Nihon'. Hard to explain, someone else here will be able to describe it better.

[Zaya]

Well thank you all for your very informative answers