Japanese man sues his country’s national broadcaster for "using too many foreign words," claims "Americanized" spiels caused

Agence France-Presse (via InterAksyon.com) reports that a 71-year old Japanese man is suing national broadcaster NHK for emotional distress because its overuse of foreign loanwords "has rendered many of its programmes unintelligible."

The report explained that Hoji Takahashi is "demanding 1.41 million yen ($14,000) in damages for the broadcaster’s reliance on words borrowed from English, instead of their traditional Japanese counterparts." His lawyer said in an interview that Takahashi is concerned that Japan is becoming "too Americanised."

According to the report, some of the foreign words that have made their way to Japanese mainstream media include the English "trouble," which is pronounced as "toraburu", and the French "concierge," which has been translated as "konsheruju".

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