Elderly Japanese Man Sues Public TV Network for Overusing English
27th June 2013
To a surprising degree, the Japanese language is littered with foreign loan words, many of them English. Terms ranging from “internet” to the quotidian “rice,” and everything in between, get shoehorned into the native syllabary, turning “compliance” into the tongue-twisting “conpuraiansu.” Many, including the country’s Ministry of Education, have recognized the increase in foreign vernacular as a problem, but one 71-year-old man from Gifu Prefecture has had enough. He’s suing the national broadcaster NHK for “undue mental distress” because he can’t understand what people are saying on TV.