Japanese abbreviated and contracted words

Abbreviated and contracted words are a common feature of Japanese. Long words are often contracted into shorter forms, which then become the predominant forms. For example, the University of Tokyo, in Japanese "Tōkyō Daigaku" ( _ja. 東京大学) becomes _ja. 東大, Tōdai, and "remote control", "rimōto kontorōrā" (remote controller), becomes "rimokon". Names are also contracted in this way. For example Takuya Kimura, in Japanese "Kimura Takuya", an entertainer, is referred to as "Kimutaku".

The names of some very familiar companies are also contractions. For example, Toshiba is a contraction of "Tokyo Shibaura", and Nissan is a contraction of "Nippon Sangyo".

The contractions may be commonly used, or they may be specific to a particular group of people. For example the "Kokuritsu Kankyō Kenkyūjo" ( _ja. 国立環境研究所, National Institute for Environmental Sciences of Japan, NIES) is known as "Kanken" ( _ja. 環研) by its employees, but this terminology is not familiar to most Japanese.

Patterns of contraction

In contracted kanji words, the most common pattern of contraction is to take the first kanji of each word and put them together as a portmanteau.

There are also instances in which alternative readings of a particular kanji are used in the contraction. For example, Nagoya's main subway station, Nagoya Station, is referred to by locals as "Mei-eki" (名駅）, a contraction of "Nagoya-Eki" (名古屋駅), in which the alternative reading of 'Na'(名), the first character in "Nagoya", is used.

In loanwords and names, the most common pattern is to take the first two morae (or kana) of each of the two words, and combine them forming a new, single word. For example "family restaurant" or "famirī resutoran" becomes "famiresu".

Yōon sounds, sounds represented using a kana ending in "i" and a small "ya", "yu" or "yo" kana, such as "kyo" count as one mora. Japanese long vowels count as two morae, and may disappear (the same can be said for the sokuon, or small "tsu"); Harry Potter, originally "Harī Pottā", is contracted to "Haripota", or otherwise be altered; actress Kyoko Fukada, "Fukada Kyōko", becomes "Fukakyon".

These abbreviated names are so common in Japan that many companies initiate abbreviations of the names of their own products. For example, the animated series Pretty Cure marketed itself under the four-character abbreviated name "purikyua".

Long kanji names

Created words

Many abbreviations, especially four-character words, have been created for particular products or TV shows.

Sometimes names of this type preserve older place names. For instance, the character _ja. 武 is taken from the word _ja. 武蔵 ("Musashi"), which was once the name of the Japanese province in which the city of Tokyo was located, can still be seen in the company names _ja. 東武 (Tobu or "East Musashi"), _ja. 西武 (Seibu or "West Musashi"), and in the _ja. 南武線 (Nanbu Line or "South Musashi Line").

Some other examples:

Single letters as abbreviations

Many single letters of the Latin alphabet have names that resemble the pronunciations of Japanese words or characters. Japanese people use them in contexts such as advertising to catch the reader's attention. Other uses of letters include abbreviations of spellings of words. Here are some examples:

*E: _ja. 良い ("Ii"; the word for "good" in Japanese). The letter appears in the name of the company "e-homes".
*J: The first letter of "Japan" as in "J-League, J-Phone.
*Q: The kanji _ja. 九 ("nine") have the reading "kyū". Japanese "Dial Q2" premium-rate telephone numbers start with 0990.
*S, M: used for sadism and masochism respectively, often referring to mild personality traits rather than sexual fetishes. "SM" is also used for sadomasochism, instead of "S&M" used in English, in a more sexual context.
*W: The English word "double." Japanese people sometimes pronounce the letter "double." For example, ”wデート” ("W deeto") means "double date(s)"; "WW Burger" from Freshness Burger has double beef and double cheese.

Longer Romaji abbreviations