Too many English loanwords in Japanese?

In "Chinese loans in English", we have been debating why there are so few recent borrowings from Chinese into English. In contrast, not long ago the headline of a Japan Times article blazoned: "Gifu man, 71, sues NHK for distress over its excess use of foreign words".

One might well ask why Hoji Takahashi waited until 2013 to lodge his complaint, as loanwords have made up a significant proportion of written and spoken Japanese for 60 years (and the proportion is rising). Also why pick on NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation)? Commercial radio and television are worse, as are magazines and some newspapers. Amusing too that he has complained about shisutemu システム ("system"), since it's possibly the most used loanword in Japanese — currently getting 488 million Google hits — and certainly must be fulfilling a useful purpose.

I have long marvelled at how many English and other loanwords there are in modern Japanese. On the shelves of my study and office are dictionaries of gairaigo 外来語 ("loanwords") that list tens of thousands of them. My two favorites are nyuansu ニュ アンス ("nuance") and arubaito アルバイト ("part-time job" < Germ. Arbeit).

Here is an article on the general subject of gairaigo, and this is a list (far from complete!) of some gairaigo in modern Japanese (the vast majority from English).

In my next post, I will ask if there are "Too many recent Japanese loanwords in English?"

[Thanks to Jim Breen]