On May 2, 2:00 pm, Jim Breen <
jimbr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thursday, 2 May 2013 08:53:55 UTC+10, Ben Bullock wrote:
> > In the local university library, the word "Japan" seems to be frowned
> > upon. For example, the Japanese history books are labelled as "History of
> > Nippon". Books on Japanese language are books on "Nipponese".
>
> > Is this more common than I had thought, or is it just a peculiarity of
> > this particular place?
>
> Never heard of it. Bizarre. "Nippon" is not an English word,
> so "History of Nippon" is a mixed-language sentence.
Everything in that library is "Nippon": "Nipponese art", "Nipponese
mathematics" etc. I think the first one I noticed was "Nipponese
mathematics". These are on the labels which are on the ends of each
bookshelf. I don't know whether it extends to anything else.
> Is the
> librarian some sort of nationalistic zealot, or just plain
> ignorant?
There are very many librarians in that institution. I have absolutely
no idea about why they chose Nippon rather than Japan, but next time I
visit I will take a camera along and post some photos.