Japan: Geography and Language 

Japan’s geography is quite complex. Four tectonic plates push against each other to form Japan. As a result, Japan is mostly hilly, with frequent volcano activities and abundant hot springs, and prone to earthquakes. There are only a few small pockets of flat land among mountains. Most populations are squeezed into these tiny islands of plains surrounded by the ocean and the ocean of mountains. The Great Tokyo metropolitan area alone contains about 30% of Japan’s total population. Tokyo is the largest metropolitan area in the world now and in most of the past several centuries.

Japan is composed of four major islands, from south to north, and from west to east. The most south west island is Kyushu (九州）. Since Kyushu is most close to the Asian continent and to the trade routes from the south, early settlers and early changes usually landed here first. The very name of the island, 九州，reflects the deep influence from China. China itself is often called 九州. In this sense, Japan is a mini China. 

Japanese language is very similar to Korean language grammatically. Both belong to the Altaic language family. This suggests that the dominant group of Japanese people were migrated from Korea. The written form of Japanese is mostly influenced by Chinese, because of the dominant influence of China in East Asia. This creates some interesting patterns.

Many Japanese words have two (or more) pronunciations, one native and one Chinese. Take 本 for example. The native pronunciation is moto, such as Yamamoto for 山本，and the Chinese pronunciation is hon, such as Honda for 本田。The same words, when pronounced differently, often carry subtle but different meanings. 

The Chinese pronunciation is not necessarily the Chinese pronunciation today. China has been conquered by foreigners many times. Today’s Chinese pronunciation is heavily influenced by the pronunciation of those conquerors, who were the most prestigious social groups. Some Chinese pronunciation is modified when adopted into Japanese. For example, 福 was pronounced fuk in China in the old days. In Japanese, it becomes fuku as in Fukuoka (福岗）.

At the same time, different words with similar meanings often share the same pronunciation. Take moto for example. 本 is pronounced moto, as we noted above. 原 and 源 can also be pronounced moto, for these words share similar meanings.  These patterns illustrate how our minds handle ideas.