Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Japanese terms mistaken for gairaigo


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. RL0919 (talk) 19:16, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

List of Japanese terms mistaken for gairaigo

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The topic of this article is incoherent: by whom is the mistake supposed to be made? It is almost completely unreferenced; fails notability, because there is no evidence of a literature on the topic of this ragbag of mistakes. Imaginatorium (talk) 17:51, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. Imaginatorium (talk) 17:51, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 17:56, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Japan-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 17:56, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Followup by proposer: This article is >10 years old, and has collected seven entries in the list:
 * arigatou: This in itself is perhaps notable, because yes, it is a famous bogus etymology. I can't believe that any native Japanese speaker would imagine this to be a loan word -- it is not written in katakana.
 * baba: This is probably a general phenomenon that there are very similar words across almost all languages.
 * chakku: This might indeed be thought by native speakers to be a loan word, but isn't.
 * chari: Nobody seems to know where this came from.
 * emoji: This is a recent import into English. No native speaker would imagine it was a loan into Japanese (of course moji came from Chinese originally).
 * garou: A very strained story... unreferenced.
 * neta: Yes, many Japanese speakers might not know its origin; it's written in katakana.

The latest entry (emoji) is obviously good faith. But it really has no coherent connection to the other entries. I contemplated deleting it, but it is so unclear what the topic is supposed to be that it seems unfair to privilege the other entries above it. I can't see quite what the reference says, but it appears just to mention that this is unrelated to "emoticon". True, but not notable.

I would guess that anything up to 10% of the entire vocabulary of Japanese (or any other language!) would have faintly plausible mistaken guesses as to its meaning. I suggest that trying to collect a comprehensive list is therefore not encyclopedic. Imaginatorium (talk) 18:21, 24 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment: (I hope I'm formatting this correctly) I suppose what you are saying makes sense. I added the entry for emoji because I thought that the article was for a list for words mistaken for gairaigo in general, as opposed to ones being commonly mistaken specifically by Japanese people. The reference was taken from other Wikipedia articles referencing the fact that the two aren't related, and was meant to demonstrate that the statement was true, which at the time of editing I thought was sufficient for this article. Perhaps it was bad practice on my part. I do not feel confident enough in my understanding of Wikipedia's policy to form an opinion on whether or not this article should be deleted, though I think you do have a good case. I'm just writing this in case my (flawed) thought process behind the edit becomes useful for further discussion. T.c.w7468 (talk) 19:07, 24 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete as original research (possibly via synthesis). I also don't see any case for notability under WP:GNG nor WP:WORDISSUBJECT. I'm not aware of any treatment of this topic outside Wikipedia, and I couldn't find any literature on the topic in EBSCO or Google Scholar. Cnilep (talk) 00:37, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete per Cnilep. Without proper sourcing, it would appear that the bulk of this list is the result of WP:ORIGINALRESEARCH.  Rorshacma (talk) 01:14, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete. I can't think of a way this article could be substantiated with reliable sources, with rigid criteria for inclusion. Nardog (talk) 06:01, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. --SalmanZ (talk) 22:33, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete - as the nominator says, who is the mistake made? Vorbee (talk) 06:22, 26 September 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.