Karute or Chāto?

A study on the use of German loanwords in the Japanese medicine language among hospital physicians in Tōkyō and Nagoya

Abstract

Japan’s medical history was greatly influenced by German medicine. As a result, several German loanwords are still in use today as clinical terms in Japanese medical terminology. However, the progressive shift to English for scientific communication may have made some terms obsolete. This study aims to uncover to what extent German loanwords in Japanese medical terminology have been replaced by their English counterparts. The author (herself a medical student at the time of the study) conducted a survey via questionnaire among practicing physicians working in several departments of two major Japanese hospitals. Out of 39 pairs of loanwords of German origin and their English counterparts, participants were instructed to select the term they would rather use, and finally to state whether they thought German was still relevant to Japanese medical terminology. The study showed that, among the medical terms selected for the questionnaire, German loanwords prevailed, despite the near-complete shift to English as a scientific language. This may be due to the sociolinguistic significance of medical jargon, namely the usage of loanwords for efficient and enciphered communication between physicians, as well as for building their own professional identity.