Japanese symbol for "Japanese language"


Imagine you have a list of small square representing different languages where
each symbol is using the language itself that it represents. For roman
languages it is mostly language codes in roman letters like "DE" for German,
"EN" for English and "ES" for Spanish as they do well fit into square boxes.
But if you have to use just one symbol to represent the _Japanese_ language
(in Japanese), which would you choose so a Japanese person recognizes their
own language as fast and distinctly as possible?

I think fitting 2 or more Kanji into the small square symbol is not a good
option. Here are some options I thought about (though, I am only at a
beginner's level of learning the language and don't have much experience using
it):

  * I thought about "和" but to my understanding it represents the country, not the language.
  * Another option I thought abhout was simply "あ" because there is no other language than Japanese where Hiragana exist and therefore it can only represent Japanese, but then again it is not meaningfull in Japanese on its own.
  * Lastly I thought about "語", which could be missinterpreted as selecting "language" but just in Japanese.

Any suggestions and especially experiences are welcome!




ES, DE, EN are all ISO codes -- "ISO" as in "International Standards
Organization" (technically, it's the ["International Organization for
Standardization"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Organization_for_Standardization)).
These codes are used worldwide, particularly in programming and other
technical contexts. In localization engineering, I've dealt with these codes
for years. There's no particular value in developing a competing standard—the
point of a standard is that, well, it's the **standard**.

That said, Japanese already has a convention for abbreviating country names in
text -- usually the first kanji of the country's full name.

  * 英【えい】 for the UK / English, from 英【い】吉【ぎ】利【り】[ ]{す} ( _Igirisu_ , probably from Portuguese _Inglês_ , with the spelling from Chinese)
  * 露【ろ】 for Russia / Russian, from 露【ろ】西【し】亜【あ】 ( _Roshia_ , from Russian Росси́я ( _Rossíja_ ), with the spelling probably partly from Chinese)
  * 仏【ふ】 for France / French, from 仏【ふ】蘭【らん】西【す】 ( _Furansu_ , ultimately from French _France_ , spelling derivation unknown)
  * [独]{ど or どく} for Germany / German, from 独【ど】逸【いつ】 ( _Doitsu_ , from Dutch _Duits_ //dœy̯ts//)
  * 中【ちゅう】 for China / Chinese, from 中国【ちゅうごく】 ( _Chūgoku_ , from Chinese 中國)
  * 日【にち】 for Japan / Japanese, from 日【に】本【ほん】 ( _Nihon_ )

And so on and so forth. Pretty much every country that has a kanji-based name
can be abbreviated in this way. However, there are exceptions, so be sure to
look things up:

  * 蘭 for the Netherlands / Dutch, from 阿【お】​ **蘭【らん】** ​陀【だ】 ( _Oranda_ , from Portuguese _Holanda_ with a silent "H", meaning "Holland" -- which historically was the leading province of the Dutch Republic and roughly corresponds to the provinces North Holland and South Holland, two of the twelve provinces that make up the present country of the Netherlands)

* * *

### Update

As pointed out by Earthliŋ in the comments, sometimes Japan and Japanese are
referred to by the abbreviation 和. This stretches back over a thousand years
to the initial textual references to any country referred to as "Japan", when
Chinese-language sources describe the country of "Wa" or 倭 ( _wa_ , literally
"dwarf" in Chinese). See [the 和 entry at
Wiktionary](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%92%8C#Etymology_1) for more
detail. (Full disclosure: I edited that entry.)

One example of modern usage of this 和 to mean "Japanese" is [this German-
Japanese dictionary over on
Amazon](https://www.amazon.co.uk/%E7%8B%AC%E5%92%8C%E4%B8%AD%E8%BE%9E%E5%85%B8/dp/4767440203),
using 独和【どくわ】 to refer to "German" and "Japanese". It's also the component
used in the term 和文【わぶん】 "Japanese text", in contrast to 漢文【かんぶん】 or "Chinese
text". Or in 和語【わご】 "Japanese language" in contrast to 漢語【かんご】 or "Chinese
language".

Meanwhile, there is also a dictionary from the early 1600s that has been very
important in discovering how Japanese sounds have changed over the centuries,
called [the 日葡辞書【にっぽじしょ】](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nippo_Jisho), using 日
to refer to "Japanese" instead.

So I think both 和 and 日 would work as one-character abbreviations for
"Japanese". My subjective sense is that the two might be used in different
contexts, but I do not understand the difference well enough to explain it
here.

* * *

Please comment if the above does not address your question.




ES, DE, EN are all ISO codes -- "ISO" as in "International Standards
Organization" (technically, it's the ["International Organization for
Standardization"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Organization_for_Standardization)).
These codes are used worldwide, particularly in programming and other
technical contexts. In localization engineering, I've dealt with these codes
for years. There's no particular value in developing a competing standard—the
point of a standard is that, well, it's the **standard**.

That said, Japanese already has a convention for abbreviating country names in
text -- usually the first kanji of the country's full name.

  * 英【えい】 for the UK / English, from 英【い】吉【ぎ】利【り】[ ]{す} ( _Igirisu_ , probably from Portuguese _Inglês_ , with the spelling from Chinese)
  * 露【ろ】 for Russia / Russian, from 露【ろ】西【し】亜【あ】 ( _Roshia_ , from Russian Росси́я ( _Rossíja_ ), with the spelling probably partly from Chinese)
  * 仏【ふ】 for France / French, from 仏【ふ】蘭【らん】西【す】 ( _Furansu_ , ultimately from French _France_ , spelling derivation unknown)
  * [独]{ど or どく} for Germany / German, from 独【ど】逸【いつ】 ( _Doitsu_ , from Dutch _Duits_ //dœy̯ts//)
  * 中【ちゅう】 for China / Chinese, from 中国【ちゅうごく】 ( _Chūgoku_ , from Chinese 中國)
  * 日【にち】 for Japan / Japanese, from 日【に】本【ほん】 ( _Nihon_ )

And so on and so forth. Pretty much every country that has a kanji-based name
can be abbreviated in this way. However, there are exceptions, so be sure to
look things up:

  * 蘭 for the Netherlands / Dutch, from 阿【お】​ **蘭【らん】** ​陀【だ】 ( _Oranda_ , from Portuguese _Holanda_ with a silent "H", meaning "Holland" -- which historically was the leading province of the Dutch Republic and roughly corresponds to the provinces North Holland and South Holland, two of the twelve provinces that make up the present country of the Netherlands)

* * *

### Update

As pointed out by Earthliŋ in the comments, sometimes Japan and Japanese are
referred to by the abbreviation 和. This stretches back over a thousand years
to the initial textual references to any country referred to as "Japan", when
Chinese-language sources describe the country of "Wa" or 倭 ( _wa_ , literally
"dwarf" in Chinese). See [the 和 entry at
Wiktionary](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%92%8C#Etymology_1) for more
detail. (Full disclosure: I edited that entry.)

One example of modern usage of this 和 to mean "Japanese" is [this German-
Japanese dictionary over on
Amazon](https://www.amazon.co.uk/%E7%8B%AC%E5%92%8C%E4%B8%AD%E8%BE%9E%E5%85%B8/dp/4767440203),
using 独和【どくわ】 to refer to "German" and "Japanese". It's also the component
used in the term 和文【わぶん】 "Japanese text", in contrast to 漢文【かんぶん】 or "Chinese
text". Or in 和語【わご】 "Japanese language" in contrast to 漢語【かんご】 or "Chinese
language".

Meanwhile, there is also a dictionary from the early 1600s that has been very
important in discovering how Japanese sounds have changed over the centuries,
called [the 日葡辞書【にっぽじしょ】](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nippo_Jisho), using 日
to refer to "Japanese" instead.

So I think both 和 and 日 would work as one-character abbreviations for
"Japanese". My subjective sense is that the two might be used in different
contexts, but I do not understand the difference well enough to explain it
here.

* * *

Please comment if the above does not address your question.

