Not long ago, the linguistic quirk of the Japanese language. It seems that Japanese is particularly well-suited for word-play, and in particular, puns created out of how Japanese words are pronounced. This, if we understand correctly, has everything to do with phonemes, the smallest unit of sound in a language that can change the meaning of a word.
English, for example, has about 44 phonemes. Japanese, however, has over one-hundred, and this results in a lot of homonyms – words that sound alike but have different meanings. All this fun word play has led to a flurry of unofficial food holidays which, we suspect, is loved by Japanese restaurants, food companies, and manufacturers because of the endless marketing opportunities it affords them. As we write, for instance, tomorrow, January 5, is “Strawberry Day.” Why? Because the Japanese word for the fruit is ichigo which corresponds to the number one (ichi) and five (go). Ichigo no hi, then, is celebrated on January 5. Hey, happy almost Strawberry Day!
Japan also has “Inu no Hi” (犬の日), which translates to “Dog Day” or “Day of the Dog,” an unofficial celebration of dogs that is marked on different dates depending on the region and local event in Japan. One common date is April 11th because when the numbers 4-1-1 are read in Japanese, they can be pronounced as “Inu no Hi.” We’re guessing it might be the whole phoneme thing at work.
We’ve unapologetically dragged you through the last three paragraphs to get to a breed developed in Japan in the 1920s and 1930s by breeding a number of other Spitz type dog breeds together, the Japanese Spitz. In some circles, there remains debate about the exact percentages of the breeds used to develop the JP, and even which breeds were used. The AKC states that the Japanese Spitz is believed to have descended from white German Spitz brought to Japan around 1920, but adds that because records were destroyed during WWII, its full history may never be known certainty. Some believe, however, that in addition to the German Spitz, the Samoyed, American Eskimo Dog and white Russian Spitz also went into the breed’s genetic make up.
After the war, Japanese Spitz breeders worked to retain the genetic and temperament characteristics of the breed without additional dilution, and in 1948, the Japanese Kennel Club recognised the breed. The breed was exported to Sweden in the early 1950s, and from there, the breed was imported to England. The UK’s Kennel Club, however, didn’t recognized the breed until 1977, and not until 2006 was the Japanese Spitz recognized by the United Kennel Club. The AKC didn’t add the Japanese Spitz breed to its “family” via the Foundation Stock Service until 2019.
Can you pick the Japanese Spitz out of a chart we shared back in 2021?
Image by Yuliya Strizhkina (Cartier) on Unsplash