Jap is a term originally used as an English abbreviation of the word "Japanese." Today it is regarded as an ethnic slur, though English speaking countries differ in the degree they consider the term offensive. Japanese Americans have come to find the term controversial or offensive, even when used as an abbreviation.^[1] In the past, Jap was not considered primarily offensive; however, after the events of World War II, the term became derogatory.^[2]

The official three-letter and two-letter international country codes (ISO 3166) for Japan are JPN and JP, while the international language codes (ISO 639) for Japanese are jpn and ja (not jp).

History and etymology

Newspaper headlines announcing Japanese surrender in World War II

The first recorded use of Jap was in 1860 to refer to members of the Japanese embassy in the United States. An example of benign usage was the previous naming of Boondocks Road in Jefferson County, Texas, originally named "Jap Road" when it was built in 1905 to honor a popular local rice farmer from Japan.^[3]

Later popularized during World War II to describe those of Japanese descent, Jap was then commonly used in newspaper headlines to refer to the Japanese and Imperial Japan. "Jap" became a derogatory term during the war, more so than "Nip."^[2]Some in the United States Marine Corps also tried to combine the word "Japs" with "Apes" to create a new description, "Japes", for the Japanese. However, this new word never became popular.^[2] Veteran and author Paul Fussell explains the usefulness of the word during the war for creating effective propaganda by saying that "Japs" "was a brisk monosyllable handy for slogans like "Rap the Jap" or "Let's Blast the Jap Clean Off the Map."^[2]

In the United States and Canada, the term is now considered derogatory; Webster's Dictionary notes it is "usually disparaging."^[4] In the United Kingdom it is considered derogatory, and the Oxford dictionary defines it as offensive.^[5]

In Texas, under pressure from civil rights groups, Jefferson County commissioners in 2004 decided to drop the name "Jap Road" from a 4.3-mile road near the city of Beaumont. Also in adjacent Orange County, "Jap Lane" has also been targeted by civil rights groups.^[6] The road was originally named for the contributions of Kichimatsu Kishi and the farming colony he founded.

See also

• Anti-Japanese sentiment
• Jjokbari, an anti-Japanese slur in the Korean language

References

External links

• Jap in literature

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; from the article "Jap". Image Credit.

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