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( Names of Japan)
The English word Japan is not the name used for their country by the Japanese while speaking the Japanese language it is an exonym. The Japanese names for Japan are Nippon (????) and Nihon (???). They are both written in Japanese using the Chinese characters ??. The Japanese name Nippon is used for most official purposes, including on Japanese money, postage stamps, and for many international sporting events. Nihon is a more casual term and the most frequently used in contemporary speech. Both Nippon and Nihon literally mean "the sun's origin", that is, where the sun originates, and are often translated as the Land of the Rising Sun. This nomenclature comes from Imperial correspondence with Chinese Sui Dynasty and refers to Japan's eastward position relative to China. Before Japan had relations with China, it was known as Yamato and Hi no moto, which means "source of the sun".[1] Wa (?) was a name early China used to refer to an ethnic group living in Japan around the time of the Three Kingdoms Period. Because the character originally used to transcribe the ethnonym Wa (i.e. ?) acquired pejorative connotations, a different character, ?, which has more positive connotations, came to be used in Japan instead of ?. Retroactively, this character was adopted in Japan to refer to the country itself, often combined with the character ?, literally meaning "Great", to give the name Yamato (??). When hi no moto was written in kanji, it was given the characters ??. In time, these characters began to be read using pseudo-Chinese readings, first Nippon and later Nihon. The English word for Japan came to the West from early trade routes. The early Mandarin Chinese or possibly Wu Chinese word for Japan was recorded by Marco Polo as Cipangu. The modern Shanghainese (a Wu Chinese dialect ??) pronunciation of characters ?? (Japan) is still Zeppen [z??p?n]. The old Malay word for Japan, Jepang (modern spelling Jepun, although Indonesian has retained the older spelling), was borrowed from a Chinese language, and this Malay word was encountered by Portuguese traders in Malacca in the 16th century. It is thought the Portuguese traders were the first to bring the word to Europe. It was first recorded in English in 1577 spelled Giapan. In English, the official title of the country is simply "Japan", one of the few nation-states to have no "long form" name. From the Meiji Restoration until the end of World War II, the full title of Japan was the "Great Empire of Japan" (????? Dai Nippon Teikoku). More poetically, another name for the empire was "Empire of the Sun". The official name of nation was changed after the adoption of the post-war constitution; the title "State of Japan" is sometimes used as a colloquial modern-day equivalent. The official Japanese title is Nippon koku or Nihon koku (???), literally "Country of Japan".
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