JAPANESE INTERNET ENTREPRENEUR PROMOTES “ENGLISHNIZATION”
Boyé Lafayette De Mente
For more than 50 years I have been writing about the fundamental role that languages play in programming the human brain and influencing the beliefs and behavior of people.
Every language has its own character and personality based on its sounds—in other words how it is pronounced. Some languages consist of harsh and or guttural sounds. Others are soft and melodious; with many in between these two extremes.
These differences stand out when the languages are transcribed in Roman letters. Languages with a preponderance of vowel letters [a, i, u, e, o] in their spelling are on the softer and more melodious side. Those made up mostly of consonants are on the hard, harsh side.
Softer more melodious languages tend to be processed by the right side of the brain, which deals more with the emotional thinking and behavior—the side that deals with aesthetics and human relations. The harder languages tend to be processed by the left side of the brain—the side that deals primarily with hard facts and logical thinking.
In addition, every language has a number of culturally pregnant “key words” that encapsulate the basic beliefs and values of the people involved—a phenomenon that led me to write a series of “cultural code word” books on China, Japan, Korea and Mexico…words that reveal how and why the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans and Mexicans think and behave the way they do.
The Japanese language has more vowels than any language other than Polynesian, and this extraordinary circumstance has traditionally played a vital role in the thinking and behavior of the Japanese.
It accounts for the Japanese emphasis on form and beauty and on emphasizing human relations—which traditionally has taken precedence over hard facts and what is generally described as rational thinking.
But since the last half of the 20th century Japan’s traditional language-influenced culture has been under serious attack from the outside—first from the English language-based culture of the United States, and then by economic competition from South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and finally China.
This has forced the Japanese to begin changing their traditional language-driven thinking and behavioral patterns in order to contend with the new realities of global economic competition—a phenomenon I have attempted to describe in detail in a new book: JAPAN Understanding & Dealing with the New Japanese Way of Doing Business.
This phenomenon has resulted in Japan taking the lead in “Englishizing” its culture—that is, an effort to make English the language not only of business but of government as well.
The leader in this phenomenon is Hiroshi Mikitani, the founder and CEO of Rakuten Corporation, an Internet based sales company that has become an international conglomerate on the order of Amazon.com.
In 2010 Mikitani announced a new company policy that required all employees to learn English, and on July 1, 2012 he made English the official language of the company…and policy he admits is still in progress, but it is happening.
Mikitani says that it is no longer just an advantage for the Japanese to learn and use English, it is a requirement. And he came up with the term “Englishnization” to describe the process.
Now, the Internet and the many hand-held communication devices have initiated an English language learning revolution in Japan, attracting millions of former and new students of the English language and replacing and/or changing traditional English language schools throughout the country.
Other Japanese companies have begun to join Mikitani in his Englishnization campaign, ensuring that the process will pick up speed among the mass of Japanese, since employment is being based more and more on the ability to speak and understand English.
I have been advocating for decades that the best, fastest and least expensive way to bring more peace and prosperity to the world is for English to become the universal language…and entrepreneur Mikitani’s innovative and courageous policy is helping to make that a reality.
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Boyé Lafayette De Mente has been involved with Asia since the late 1940s as a member of a U.S. intelligence agency, journalist and editor. He is a graduate of Jōchi University in Tokyo, Japan and Thunderbird School of Global Management in Glendale, Arizona, USA. In addition to books on the business practices, social behavior and languages of China, Japan, Korea and Mexico he has written extensively about the plague of male dominance and the moral collapse of the U.S. and the Western world in general. Recent books include: CHINA Understanding & Dealing with the Chinese Way of Doing Business; JAPAN Understanding & Dealing with the NEW Japanese Way of Doing Business; AMERICA’S FAMOUS HOPI INDIANS; ARIZONA’S LORDS OF THE LAND [the Navajos] and SPEAK JAPANESE TODAY – A Little Language Goes a Long Way! To see a full list of his 60-plus books go to: www.authorsonlinebookshop.com. All of his titles are available from Amazon.com.
Competition has forced the Japanese to make dramatic shifts in the way they do business. This book identifies and describes the changes, along with the traditional elements that remain the foundation of Japanese management.
The "Englishization" of Japan 