Editing Engrish (section)

{{Short description|Slang term for broken English}}
{{Distinguish|English (disambiguation){{!}}English}}
{{About|mistakenly broken English|purposely broken English|Broken English}}
{{See also|English-language education in Japan}}
{{Multiple issues|
{{More citations needed|date=April 2010}}
{{Globalize|section|Japan|date=March 2023}}
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[[File:IMages Are Hopefully in Your head since 1982 shirt.jpg|thumb|Engrish text on a Japanese T-shirt as a form of decoration|alt=A t-shirt reading: iMages are Hopefully in your head since 1982 Lovey-Dovey Night Highfalutin|335x335px]]

'''''Engrish''''' is a slang term for the inaccurate, poorly translated, nonsensical or ungrammatical use of the [[English language]] by native speakers of other languages.<ref>{{cite news|last=Ziemba|first=Christine N.|title=Translate at your own risk|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-dec-05-ca-engrish5-story.html|access-date=13 June 2013|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|date=December 5, 2004}}</ref> The word itself relates to [[Japanese speakers learning r and l|Japanese speakers' tendency]] to struggle to pronounce the English {{IPAslink|l}} and {{IPA|/[[Pronunciation of English /r/|r]]/}} distinctly arising from the fact Japanese has only one [[liquid consonant|liquid]] [[phoneme]] (usually [[Romanization of Japanese|romanized]] ''r''), but its definition encompasses many more errors. Terms such as ''Japanglish'', ''Japlish'', ''Jinglish'', or ''Janglish'' are more specific to Japanese Engrish.<ref name="Lambert" /> The related Japanese term ''[[wasei-eigo]]'' ({{lang|ja|和製英語}}: 'Japanese-made English') refers to [[pseudo-anglicism]]s that have entered everyday Japanese.

The term ''Engrish'' first appears in the 1940s (suggestive of a mispronunciation of ''English'') but it was not until the 1980s that it began to be used as a byname for defective [[Asian English]].<ref name="Lambert">{{cite journal |last=Lambert |first=James |year=2018 |title=A multitude of 'lishes': The nomenclature of hybridity |journal=English World-Wide |volume=39 |issue=1 |pages=12 |doi=10.1075/eww.00001.lam }}</ref> While the term may refer to spoken English, it often describes written English. In Japan, it is common to add English text to items for decorative and fashion purposes (see [[Cool (aesthetic)|''cool'']]). Such text is often added to create a cosmopolitan feeling rather than to be read by native English speakers, and so may often be meaningless or grammatically incorrect. Engrish can be found in many places, including signs, menus, and advertisements. The words are frequently humorous to speakers of English.