Phonetic and graphemic adaptations of Polish first and last names in the contemporary Japanese language

Abstract

While summarising the observations about the phonetic and graphemic adaptations of Polish last and first names in the Japanese language, one can notice that the source form and the target form of such an adaptation differ from each other to a large extent. The main cause of this situation is the discrepancy between the phonological systems of both languages. In simple terms, many Polish consonants do not have equivalents in Japanese and must be rendered using substitute equivalents. Another issue here is the principal foreignness of Polish last names to an average Japanese language user. They are long, do not resemble any patterns of more universal last or first names, since words of this kind are always connected with their native language, culture, and tradition. Keywords: translation – phonetic adaptation – graphemic adaptation – last name – first name – Polish language – Japanese language