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Subject: Re: 日本
From: Glenn
Date: Tue, 18 May 2004 06:23:57 GMT
References: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
> It is not にぽん but にっぽん.
Well, according to Bartleby.com: "In the Chinese of the time (called Middle Chinese), the phrase was nzyet-pwun. To this the scholars added the Chinese suffix –kwuk, 'country,' yielding a compound nzyet-pwun-kwuk, 'sun-origin-country, land of the rising sun.' The consonant clusters in the word were not pronounceable in Old Japanese, so the form was simplified to Nip-pon-gu or *Ni-pon-gu, the latter developing by regular sound change to Ni-hon-gu." So, from where does Nipon come?
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