Itochu Corporation ( 伊藤忠商事株式会社 , previously known as C. Itoh & Co. until 1992) is a Japanese corporation based in Umeda , Kita-ku, Osaka and Aoyama , Minato, Tokyo .
118-454: Sumitomo Corporation ( Japanese : 住友商事株式会社 , Hepburn : Sumitomo Shōji kabushiki gaisha ) is one of the largest worldwide sōgō shōsha general trading companies, and is a diversified corporation . The company was incorporated in 1919 and is a member company of the Sumitomo Group . It is listed on three Japanese stock exchanges (Tokyo, Nagoya and Fukuoka) and is a constituent of
236-400: A keiretsu business group centered on itself and Sumitomo Bank . Sumitomo's strategy focused on natural resources through 2014, when the company booked hundreds of billions of yen in losses on tight oil (shale oil) and other energy-related investments. The company's president, Kuniharu Nakamura, attributed these losses to both adverse market factors and Sumitomo's relative inexperience in
354-747: A 34% stake in Isuzu was seen in 1972, when the Chevrolet LUV became the first Isuzu-built vehicle to be sold in the United States. While the company had a long relationship with GM going back to the 1920s, Isuzu introduced the Gemini in 1974 which was co-produced with General Motors as the T-body Chevrolet Chevette . A modified version was sold in the United States as Buick's Opel by Isuzu , and in Australia as
472-610: A Japanese company, and the largest investment by foreigners in a Chinese state-owned enterprise. In March 2016, Itochu recorded JPY 352.2 bil in PAT in the fiscal year which ranked itself as the most profitable sogo shosha for its first time. The natural resources commodity price was decreased during the fiscal year ended in March 2016, which made its competitors Mitsubishi Corporation and Mitsui & Co Ltd fell in profits. In July 2016, an American short seller Glaucus Research Group published
590-624: A benefit from the in-group to the out-group) means "[I/we] explained [it] to [him/her/them]". Such beneficiary auxiliary verbs thus serve a function comparable to that of pronouns and prepositions in Indo-European languages to indicate the actor and the recipient of an action. Japanese "pronouns" also function differently from most modern Indo-European pronouns (and more like nouns) in that they can take modifiers as any other noun may. For instance, one does not say in English: The amazed he ran down
708-560: A corporate restructuring plan centered on the separation of the manufacturing and trading divisions. It was decided to split into four new companies: ITOCHU Corporation, Marubeni Corporation , and Amagasaki Nail Works, Ltd. The constituent companies of Daiken were spun off from each other in December 1949 as part of GHQ efforts to dismantle the war-era zaibatsu . Itoh re-listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 1950. On December 1, 1949,
826-414: A distinct language of its own that has absorbed various aspects from neighboring languages. Japanese has five vowels, and vowel length is phonemic, with each having both a short and a long version. Elongated vowels are usually denoted with a line over the vowel (a macron ) in rōmaji , a repeated vowel character in hiragana , or a chōonpu succeeding the vowel in katakana . /u/ ( listen )
944-408: A general sales agency agreement with Roots, a British automobile manufacturer, and it established an aircraft section to respond to the resumption of civil aviation. and moved to acquire import agency rights for foreign aircraft manufacturers in 1952. As for oil, the company took dynamic measures one after another, such as becoming an agent for Standard Oil , a major US oil company, and participating in
1062-419: A glide /j/ and either the first part of a geminate consonant ( っ / ッ , represented as Q) or a moraic nasal in the coda ( ん / ン , represented as N). The nasal is sensitive to its phonetic environment and assimilates to the following phoneme, with pronunciations including [ɴ, m, n, ɲ, ŋ, ɰ̃] . Onset-glide clusters only occur at the start of syllables but clusters across syllables are allowed as long as
1180-503: A growth period in the 1970s. The company's long-held vision of “Enhancing non-textile businesses - Diversification” was finally realized, and it rapidly expanded operations as a general trading company. In 1972 Itoh became the first Japanese trading company allowed to do business in the People's Republic of China . It publicly announced that it would comply with the “Four Japan-China trading conditions” on December 14, 1971, and then established
1298-416: A high proportion of textiles, expanded significantly from this time on non-textiles, and the transaction volume accounted for 13% of total sales (fiscal year ended March 1951). Starting out as a textile trading company, it expanded its business in non-textile fields such as aircraft, automobiles, petroleum, and machinery, and accelerated its progress towards generalization. In March 1950, the company concluded
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#17328585022581416-526: A liberal economic system. Itoh resumed business in the wake of the war by bartering Japanese textiles for foreign grain, and resumed trading in petroleum, aircraft, automobiles and machinery to meet UN forces requirements during the Korean War . It was Uichiro Kosuge, president of the company, who led the post-war relaunch of Itochu. The new Itochu established its head office at 2-36 Honmachi, Higashi-ku, Osaka, and began domestic sales and import/export operations in
1534-479: A listener depending on the listener's relative social position and the degree of familiarity between the speaker and the listener. When used in different social relationships, the same word may have positive (intimate or respectful) or negative (distant or disrespectful) connotations. Japanese often use titles of the person referred to where pronouns would be used in English. For example, when speaking to one's teacher, it
1652-422: A normalization of diplomatic relations between Japan and China. In the 1970s, the company became part of the "Kawasaki Group" within the keiretsu of Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank (now Mizuho Corporate Bank ), eventually displacing Nissho Iwai as the keiretsu's dominant trading company. Itoh's affiliation with the keiretsu was significantly looser than other keiretsu-affiliated trading companies, and many firms within
1770-431: A powerful group of followers known as the "Sejima Machine." In 1970, Sejima and his younger protege Minoru Murofushi arranged a joint venture between General Motors and Isuzu , one of the first tie-ups between US and Japanese automakers. In 1971, the company successfully assisted in arranging a basic contract for cooperation between General Motors of the United States and Isuzu of Japan. The first investment of GM taking
1888-454: A report critical of Itochu's accounting practices, causing a stock price dip of around 10%. In May 2017, Itochu acquired 10.1% share of Yanase which is an importer distributor of automobiles such as Mercedes-Benz, through TOB , which made Itochu to be 50.1% shareholder. Itochu participated in its equity earlier in 2003, and acquired further share to be a 66% shareholder in 2018. In August 2018, Itochu acquired 8.6% share of FamilyMart which
2006-687: A sales staff of just 32 people. The firm listed its shares on the Osaka, Tokyo and Nagoya Stock Exchanges in 1949. As regulations on large companies were relaxed in the 1950s, Nippon Engineering resumed closer relations with other Sumitomo Group companies through the "White Water Club" ( Hakusui-kai ), a coordinating meeting of company presidents. The company began to grow overseas in the 1950s, starting business in Mumbai in 1950 and in New York City in 1952. It changed its name to Sumitomo Shoji Kaisha, Ltd. in 1952. By
2124-511: A section within the company dedicated to China and began initiatives to actively promote trade. When a mission led by then President Mr. Echigo visited China in March 1972, ITOCHU was officially recognized as a friendly trading company by the Chinese government, and continued to play significant roles in promoting friendship and trade between Japan and China. Soon after this appointment, on September 29, 1972, Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka achieved
2242-408: A sentence need not be stated and pronouns may be omitted if they can be inferred from context. In the example above, hana ga nagai would mean "[their] noses are long", while nagai by itself would mean "[they] are long." A single verb can be a complete sentence: Yatta! ( やった! ) "[I / we / they / etc] did [it]!". In addition, since adjectives can form the predicate in a Japanese sentence (below),
2360-428: A single adjective can be a complete sentence: Urayamashii! ( 羨ましい! ) "[I'm] jealous [about it]!". While the language has some words that are typically translated as pronouns, these are not used as frequently as pronouns in some Indo-European languages, and function differently. In some cases, Japanese relies on special verb forms and auxiliary verbs to indicate the direction of benefit of an action: "down" to indicate
2478-535: A strong information technology business in the 1980s through its subsidiary C. Itoh Techno-Science (CTC) , which acted as a Japan distributor for Sun Microsystems , Cisco , Oracle and others. After the economic miracle and consequent asset price bubble the country experienced a recession period the lost decade . Trying to deflate speculation and keep inflation in check, the Bank of Japan sharply raised inter-bank lending rates in late 1989. This sharp policy caused
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#17328585022582596-675: Is compressed rather than protruded , or simply unrounded. Some Japanese consonants have several allophones , which may give the impression of a larger inventory of sounds. However, some of these allophones have since become phonemic. For example, in the Japanese language up to and including the first half of the 20th century, the phonemic sequence /ti/ was palatalized and realized phonetically as [tɕi] , approximately chi ( listen ) ; however, now [ti] and [tɕi] are distinct, as evidenced by words like tī [tiː] "Western-style tea" and chii [tɕii] "social status". The "r" of
2714-421: Is topic–comment . Sentence-final particles are used to add emotional or emphatic impact, or form questions. Nouns have no grammatical number or gender , and there are no articles . Verbs are conjugated , primarily for tense and voice , but not person . Japanese adjectives are also conjugated. Japanese has a complex system of honorifics , with verb forms and vocabulary to indicate the relative status of
2832-429: Is Japan's second largest convenience store chain behind 7-Eleven , through TOB , which made Itochu the 50.1% shareholder. Itochu participated in its equity earlier in 1998, and, after merging other competitors including CircleK , acquired further share to be a 95% shareholder in 2021. In 2019 and 2020, Itochu was ranked the most popular employer for newly minted Japanese university graduates. Itochu has remained one of
2950-445: Is also seen in o-medetō "congratulations", from medetaku ). Late Middle Japanese has the first loanwords from European languages – now-common words borrowed into Japanese in this period include pan ("bread") and tabako ("tobacco", now "cigarette"), both from Portuguese . Modern Japanese is considered to begin with the Edo period (which spanned from 1603 to 1867). Since Old Japanese,
3068-519: Is also used in a limited fashion (such as for imported acronyms) in Japanese writing. The numeral system uses mostly Arabic numerals , but also traditional Chinese numerals . Proto-Japonic , the common ancestor of the Japanese and Ryukyuan languages , is thought to have been brought to Japan by settlers coming from the Korean peninsula sometime in the early- to mid-4th century BC (the Yayoi period ), replacing
3186-440: Is appropriate to use sensei ( 先生 , "teacher"), but inappropriate to use anata . This is because anata is used to refer to people of equal or lower status, and one's teacher has higher status. Japanese nouns have no grammatical number, gender or article aspect. The noun hon ( 本 ) may refer to a single book or several books; hito ( 人 ) can mean "person" or "people", and ki ( 木 ) can be "tree" or "trees". Where number
3304-684: Is associated with comedy (see Kansai dialect ). Dialects of Tōhoku and North Kantō are associated with typical farmers. The Ryūkyūan languages, spoken in Okinawa and the Amami Islands (administratively part of Kagoshima ), are distinct enough to be considered a separate branch of the Japonic family; not only is each language unintelligible to Japanese speakers, but most are unintelligible to those who speak other Ryūkyūan languages. However, in contrast to linguists, many ordinary Japanese people tend to consider
3422-462: Is better documentation of Late Middle Japanese phonology than for previous forms (for instance, the Arte da Lingoa de Iapam ). Among other sound changes, the sequence /au/ merges to /ɔː/ , in contrast with /oː/ ; /p/ is reintroduced from Chinese; and /we/ merges with /je/ . Some forms rather more familiar to Modern Japanese speakers begin to appear – the continuative ending - te begins to reduce onto
3540-509: Is correlated with the sex of the speaker and the social situation in which they are spoken: men and women alike in a formal situation generally refer to themselves as watashi ( 私 , literally "private") or watakushi (also 私 , hyper-polite form), while men in rougher or intimate conversation are much more likely to use the word ore ( 俺 "oneself", "myself") or boku . Similarly, different words such as anata , kimi , and omae ( お前 , more formally 御前 "the one before me") may refer to
3658-417: Is important, it can be indicated by providing a quantity (often with a counter word ) or (rarely) by adding a suffix, or sometimes by duplication (e.g. 人人 , hitobito , usually written with an iteration mark as 人々 ). Words for people are usually understood as singular. Thus Tanaka-san usually means Mx Tanaka . Words that refer to people and animals can be made to indicate a group of individuals through
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3776-712: Is in the Ambatovy nickel mining project in Madagascar , where it had invested approximately $ 2.4 billion as of 2015 in a joint venture with Korea Resources and others. Sumitomo is a 50% investor in SES Water , a UK water supply company, together with Osaka Gas. Sumitomo is a major investor in the Turo car-rental service, and plans to facilitate the service's debut in Japan around 2020. Sumitomo, along with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries , worked with
3894-722: Is less common. In terms of mutual intelligibility , a survey in 1967 found that the four most unintelligible dialects (excluding Ryūkyūan languages and Tōhoku dialects ) to students from Greater Tokyo were the Kiso dialect (in the deep mountains of Nagano Prefecture ), the Himi dialect (in Toyama Prefecture ), the Kagoshima dialect and the Maniwa dialect (in Okayama Prefecture ). The survey
4012-948: Is located at the North Gate Building , 1–3, Umeda 3-Chome, Kita-ku, Osaka , Japan. Its Tokyo headquarters is located at 5-1 Kita-Aoyama 2-Chome, Minato, Tokyo , Japan. ITOCHU also has seven branch offices in Japan, sixteen offices and local subsidiaries in China, 24 in Asia, eight in the CIS , four in Australia, fifteen in the Middle East, eight in Africa, twelve in Europe, ten in North America and nine in Latin America. Itochu started in 1858, shortly after
4130-614: Is merged with Daido Boeki Kaisha, Ltd. and Kureha Cotton Spinning Co., Ltd. to form Daiken Co., Ltd. In August 1945, Japan accepted the Potsdam Declaration , and the World War II ended with Japan's unconditional surrender and defeat. In the chaos after the war, the company's employees working overseas and their families returned to their home country of Japan for about two years from September 1945 to September 1947, whose number reached 1077. The Allied Forces , which occupied Japan at
4248-420: Is often called a topic-prominent language , which means it has a strong tendency to indicate the topic separately from the subject, and that the two do not always coincide. The sentence Zō wa hana ga nagai ( 象は鼻が長い ) literally means, "As for elephant(s), (the) nose(s) (is/are) long". The topic is zō "elephant", and the subject is hana "nose". Japanese grammar tends toward brevity; the subject or object of
4366-429: Is one of the largest Japanese sogo shosha (general trading and investment companies) distinguished by the strength of its textile business and its successful business operations in China. Itochu was ranked 72nd on the 2020 list of Fortune Global 500 companies, with an annual trading revenue of US$ 100 billion. Itochu's business has eight major operational divisions, "Division Company". ITOCHU's Osaka headquarters
4484-489: Is preserved in words such as matsuge ("eyelash", lit. "hair of the eye"); modern mieru ("to be visible") and kikoeru ("to be audible") retain a mediopassive suffix - yu(ru) ( kikoyu → kikoyuru (the attributive form, which slowly replaced the plain form starting in the late Heian period) → kikoeru (all verbs with the shimo-nidan conjugation pattern underwent this same shift in Early Modern Japanese )); and
4602-646: Is the principal language of the Japonic language family spoken by the Japanese people . It has around 123 million speakers, primarily in Japan , the only country where it is the national language , and within the Japanese diaspora worldwide. The Japonic family also includes the Ryukyuan languages and the variously classified Hachijō language . There have been many attempts to group the Japonic languages with other families such as
4720-402: Is the version of Japanese discussed in this article. Formerly, standard Japanese in writing ( 文語 , bungo , "literary language") was different from colloquial language ( 口語 , kōgo ) . The two systems have different rules of grammar and some variance in vocabulary. Bungo was the main method of writing Japanese until about 1900; since then kōgo gradually extended its influence and
4838-536: Is transformed into a public stock company "C. Itoh & Co., Ltd." The New York branch office is opened. Itoh's company grew considerably in the wake of World War I , with offices in the United States , India , the Philippines and China, and the firm began to handle machinery, automobiles and metals in addition to its core business of textiles. However, a recession in 1920 left the company deeply in debt, and unlike
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4956-471: Is used for the present and the future. For verbs that represent an ongoing process, the -te iru form indicates a continuous (or progressive) aspect , similar to the suffix ing in English. For others that represent a change of state, the -te iru form indicates a perfect aspect. For example, kite iru means "They have come (and are still here)", but tabete iru means "They are eating". Questions (both with an interrogative pronoun and yes/no questions) have
5074-405: Is why some linguists do not classify Japanese "pronouns" as pronouns, but rather as referential nouns, much like Spanish usted (contracted from vuestra merced , "your ( majestic plural ) grace") or Portuguese você (from vossa mercê ). Japanese personal pronouns are generally used only in situations requiring special emphasis as to who is doing what to whom. The choice of words used as pronouns
5192-555: The Ainu , Austronesian , Koreanic , and the now-discredited Altaic , but none of these proposals have gained any widespread acceptance. Little is known of the language's prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from the 3rd century AD recorded a few Japanese words, but substantial Old Japanese texts did not appear until the 8th century. From the Heian period (794–1185), extensive waves of Sino-Japanese vocabulary entered
5310-692: The Department of Transportation of the Philippines for the rehabilitation of the MRT Line 3 in Manila from 2019 to 2021. Sumitomo previously maintained the line from 2000 to 2012, until the line was seen to be deteriorated in the following years due to poor maintenance. Sumitomo is in a joint venture with the Japan Transport Engineering Company (J-TREC) for the production of a total of 51 commuter train sets (408 cars) in two separate contracts for
5428-527: The Holden Gemini . As a result of the collaboration, certain American GM products were sold to Japanese customers through Isuzu dealerships. The company assisted Isuzu to export also increased considerably as a result of being able to use GM networks, from 0.7% of production in 1973 to 35.2% by 1976; this while overall production increased more than fourfold in the same period. Itoh absorbed Ataka & Co. ,
5546-528: The Japanese asset price bubble , particularly domestic real estate investments, brought it down to third place by the middle of the decade. In the 1990s, Itochu made several investments in the media industry, including a minority stake in Time Warner and investments in cable and satellite delivery systems. In 1997, the company introduced "Division Company" system, which is to till today. With ITOCHU's operations in Japan and overseas becoming more diversified and
5664-455: The Japonic language family, which also includes the Ryukyuan languages spoken in the Ryukyu Islands . As these closely related languages are commonly treated as dialects of the same language, Japanese is sometimes called a language isolate . According to Martine Irma Robbeets , Japanese has been subject to more attempts to show its relation to other languages than any other language in
5782-721: The Philippine National Railways North–South Commuter Railway and the production of 30 8-car train sets (240 train cars) for the Metro Manila Subway . Sumitomo is an investor in LRT Line 1 operator Light Rail Manila Corporation , a railway consortium composed of Metro Pacific Investments Corporation , Ayala Corporation , and Macquarie Infrastructure Holdings ( Philippines ) PTE Ltd. since May 2020. Japanese language Japanese ( 日本語 , Nihongo , [ɲihoŋɡo] )
5900-451: The Philippines , and various Pacific islands, locals in those countries learned Japanese as the language of the empire. As a result, many elderly people in these countries can still speak Japanese. Japanese emigrant communities (the largest of which are to be found in Brazil , with 1.4 million to 1.5 million Japanese immigrants and descendants, according to Brazilian IBGE data, more than
6018-614: The TOPIX and Nikkei 225 stock indices . Today, the company is one of the top three sōgō shōsha companies in the world. The Sumitomo Group , of which Sumitomo Corporation is a key member, dates to the 17th century establishment of a book and medicine shop in Kyoto by Masatomo Sumitomo . Sumitomo's brother-in-law Riemon Soga developed a technology to extract silver from copper, and Soga's son (who married Sumitomo's daughter) Tomomochi Sumitomo expanded this smelting business to Osaka. From this start,
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#17328585022586136-661: The United States (notably in Hawaii , where 16.7% of the population has Japanese ancestry, and California ), and the Philippines (particularly in Davao Region and the Province of Laguna ). Japanese has no official status in Japan, but is the de facto national language of the country. There is a form of the language considered standard : hyōjungo ( 標準語 ) , meaning "standard Japanese", or kyōtsūgo ( 共通語 ) , "common language", or even "Tokyo dialect" at times. The meanings of
6254-794: The de facto standard Japanese had been the Kansai dialect , especially that of Kyoto . However, during the Edo period, Edo (now Tokyo) developed into the largest city in Japan, and the Edo-area dialect became standard Japanese. Since the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853, the flow of loanwords from European languages has increased significantly. The period since 1945 has seen many words borrowed from other languages—such as German, Portuguese and English. Many English loan words especially relate to technology—for example, pasokon (short for "personal computer"), intānetto ("internet"), and kamera ("camera"). Due to
6372-587: The opening of Japan to foreign trade, when Chubei Itoh ( 伊藤 忠兵衛 , Itō Chūbei ) began door-to-door wholesaling of linen in the regions between Osaka and Kyushu . Itoh founded the "Benichu" drapery store in the Honmachi district of Osaka in 1872. This site was renamed "Itoh Honten" in 1884 and became the Itoh Thread and Yarn Store in 1893 In the following year, he traveled as far as Nagasaki via Okayama, Hiroshima, and Shimonoseki. At this time, Japan concluded
6490-518: The 1.2 million of the United States ) sometimes employ Japanese as their primary language. Approximately 12% of Hawaii residents speak Japanese, with an estimated 12.6% of the population of Japanese ancestry in 2008. Japanese emigrants can also be found in Peru , Argentina , Australia (especially in the eastern states), Canada (especially in Vancouver , where 1.4% of the population has Japanese ancestry),
6608-552: The 1960s Sumitomo officially aimed to be one of the "Big Three" general trading companies, alongside Mitsubishi and Mitsui . In 1970, Sumitomo established a second head office in Tokyo and merged with Sogo Boeki Co., Ltd. Sumitomo adopted its current English name, Sumitomo Corporation, in 1978. The company's transactional volume increased by a factor of ten from 1955 to 1965, and again by a factor of ten from 1965 to 1975. Like its zaibatsu cohorts Mitsubishi and Mitsui, Sumitomo established
6726-627: The Besshi mine, which by that point was nearly unworkable. However, Sumitomo kept the mine and improved its output through adoption of new Western techniques. During the rapid westernization of Japan in ensuing decades, Sumitomo started various new trading, manufacturing and financing businesses, becoming one of the major zaibatsu of early 20th century Japan. Sumitomo Corporation was incorporated in December 1919 as The Osaka North Harbour Co., Ltd. to engage in real estate management, land reclamation, land grading, harbor repair construction and related work in
6844-533: The Bino and Kanto regions. At that time, the Fushimi-machi area was the center of drapery wholesalers, while Honmachi was attracting many used clothing merchants. Despite this, in selecting the base of his business in Osaka, Chubei Itoh I chose Honmachi, anticipating the future development of the Honmachi area. He is said to have chosen Honmachi because it was accessible by road from Kawaguchi-cho, where boats could dock, and
6962-453: The DKB group did not use Itoh's services at all. Former Imperial Japanese Army staff officer Ryuzo Sejima joined Itoh in 1958 after spending 11 years in a Siberian prison. Four years later, he was promoted to director and became Itoh's head of corporate planning, implementing a military-style internal reporting system. He went on to serve as president and chairman of the company, having developed
7080-482: The Japanese language is of particular interest, ranging between an apical central tap and a lateral approximant . The "g" is also notable; unless it starts a sentence, it may be pronounced [ ŋ ] , in the Kanto prestige dialect and in other eastern dialects. The phonotactics of Japanese are relatively simple. The syllable structure is (C)(G)V(C), that is, a core vowel surrounded by an optional onset consonant,
7198-724: The Old Japanese sections are written in Man'yōgana , which uses kanji for their phonetic as well as semantic values. Based on the Man'yōgana system, Old Japanese can be reconstructed as having 88 distinct morae . Texts written with Man'yōgana use two different sets of kanji for each of the morae now pronounced き (ki), ひ (hi), み (mi), け (ke), へ (he), め (me), こ (ko), そ (so), と (to), の (no), も (mo), よ (yo) and ろ (ro). (The Kojiki has 88, but all later texts have 87. The distinction between mo 1 and mo 2 apparently
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#17328585022587316-466: The Osaka Head Office in a dual head-office structure. After gaining support from the United States and achieving domestic economic reform, Japan's economy was able to soar from the 1950s to the 1970s. After the first oil-price shock struck Japan ( 1973 oil crisis ), the country's economy has entered a steady increasing stage till 1990'. (Refer to Japanese economic miracle ) The company also entered
7434-402: The Osaka northern harbor region. In 1944, the company merged with Sumitomo Building Co., Ltd. (established August 1923; capital stock 6.5 million yen) to form Sumitomo Building and Real Estate Co., Ltd. Sumitomo was integral to Imperial Japan's war machine during World War II , but the war destroyed most of Sumitomo's industrial infrastructure within Japan. The ensuing Allied occupation led to
7552-488: The Ryūkyūan languages as dialects of Japanese. The imperial court also seems to have spoken an unusual variant of the Japanese of the time, most likely the spoken form of Classical Japanese , a writing style that was prevalent during the Heian period , but began to decline during the late Meiji period . The Ryūkyūan languages are classified by UNESCO as 'endangered', as young people mostly use Japanese and cannot understand
7670-643: The Sumitomo family expanded its business into copper mining (the Besshi copper mine ), followed by textiles, sugar and medicine trading. The Sumitomo family was close to the Tokugawa shogunate throughout the Edo period . During the 1860s, this relationship became a liability for the firm as the Tokugawa clan warred with rivals in western Japan. Following the Tokugawas' defeat, Sumitomo was almost ruined and under pressure to sell
7788-643: The Treaty of Amity and Commerce with five countries, namely the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and the Netherlands, opening an era of free trade. The sight of foreigners, battleships, and foreign trading posts astonished Chubei and sparked his curiosity. He became convinced of the limitless potential of commerce. Chubei opened Benchu, a drapery store at Honmachi 2-chome, Higashi-ku, Osaka, east of Nakahashisuji. Benchu mainly handled linen and fabrics from
7906-543: The addition of a collective suffix (a noun suffix that indicates a group), such as -tachi , but this is not a true plural: the meaning is closer to the English phrase "and company". A group described as Tanaka-san-tachi may include people not named Tanaka. Some Japanese nouns are effectively plural, such as hitobito "people" and wareware "we/us", while the word tomodachi "friend" is considered singular, although plural in form. Verbs are conjugated to show tenses, of which there are two: past and present (or non-past) which
8024-422: The bursting of the bubble, and the Japanese stock market crashed . In the two decades starting from such period, the company experienced the challenges and restructured its portfolio. On October 1, 1992, C. Itoh & Co. Ltd. changed its English name to Itochu Corporation, a more direct transliteration of its Japanese name. By the early 1990s Itochu had become the largest trading company in Japan, but losses from
8142-483: The co-promotion of a world-scale Polypropylene Project with a capacity of 250,000 tonnes per annum at a total project cost of Rs. 525 Crores, at Hazira in the State of Gujarat . With a $ 50 million cost for a 15 percent stake, it was at that point, the largest investment in India by a Japanese firm. Itoh also marketed products—under their own label—as diverse as a line of bicycles (mostly manufactured by Bridgestone), and computer printers. Itochu began to develop
8260-508: The company in the Logistics Department, which was in charge of packing, shipping, and transporting products, he refined himself as a young manager and embarked on reforming the management of the Ito Head Office. In 1908, he integrated the scattered businesses of the Ito family, organized 'Ito Chubei Headquarters', and served as its representative. This was an epoch-making organizational reform since Chubei I founded Benichu in Osaka 36 years ago. The headquarters decided management policies for each of
8378-432: The company was incorporated . Daiken Co., Ltd., a company created from the merger of trading and manufacturing firms during World War II, separates into C. Itoh & Co., Ltd., Kureha Cotton Spinning Co., Ltd., Marubeni Co., Ltd., and Amagasaki Nail Works, Ltd. The inflation that had continued since the end of the war was brought under control by the Dodge Line , and from around 1949, Japan accelerated its progress toward
8496-419: The cost of land was less than a half that in Fushimi-machi. Once Benchu was open, Chubei drew up a charter. In it, he set out his workers' rights and duties, unique for the time, to ensure that all workers, including junior staff, could work to their utmost capabilities. Chubei opened Itoh Itomise, a cotton thread wholesale store, at Azuchi-cho 2-chome, Higashi-ku, Osaka. Under Chubei Itoh I, the general manager,
8614-564: The effect of changing Japanese into a mora-timed language. Late Middle Japanese covers the years from 1185 to 1600, and is normally divided into two sections, roughly equivalent to the Kamakura period and the Muromachi period , respectively. The later forms of Late Middle Japanese are the first to be described by non-native sources, in this case the Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries; and thus there
8732-575: The end of the war, followed the policy of destroying Japan's military power and establishing a democratic political and economic system. In 1946, Daiken Co., Ltd. was designated as a restricted company along with 46 subsidiaries, and was placed under the strict supervision of the Holding Company Liquidation Committee. In 1947, in accordance with the Law for Elimination of Excessive Concentration of Economic Power, Daiken Co., Ltd. decided on
8850-482: The era was changed to Taisho. In 1913, he established a cotton yarn department, but in July 1914, World War I began, and he experienced a sharp drop in the market prices of raw silk and cotton yarn. Uncertainty about the course of the war caused the Japanese economy to temporarily fall into turmoil, with the stock market, raw silk and cotton yarn trading prices crashing, and bank runs on bank runs. In 1918, "C. Itoh & Co."
8968-728: The export department of the Ito head office independent as the Ito export store, and opening branch offices one after another in Shanghai, South Korea, the Philippines, and Manila. Chubei II was infused with the business aspirations and enterprising spirit of Chubei I. He travelled to London in 1910 and began direct procurement and financing for the business in the London markets, which considerably improved its margins, as it had previously used more expensive intermediaries in Japan. In 1912, Emperor Meiji died and
9086-484: The fabric industry; with some copies sold to the public). Chubei Itoh II took over the company following his father's death in 1903. The Russo-Japanese War , which began that year, ended with Japan's victory. When Chubei II was in charge of Itochu's management, the business of the Ito head office was booming due to the victorious boom brought about by the Russo-Japanese War. When Chubei II took his first steps at
9204-524: The field. As a result of these setbacks, Sumitomo was overtaken by Itochu as Japan's third-largest general trading company. Sumitomo announced in 2015 that it would refocus its business on the automotive and infrastructure industries and other non-resource businesses. Berkshire Hathaway acquired over 5% of the stock in the company, along with four other Japanese trading houses, over the 12-month period ending in August 2020. One of Sumitomo's largest investments
9322-523: The first Japanese companies to move away from the traditional seniority-based pay scale, adopting a base pay scale based on responsibilities, impact and value of each position as well as a performance-linked bonus system. Itochu also spun off CTC in 1999, only to see CTC quickly achieve a market capitalization more than twice that of its former parent company. In 2001, ITOCHU Corporation and Marubeni Corporation spin off and merge their respective steel divisions, launching Marubeni-Itochu Steel Inc. (MISI). At
9440-455: The flow of loanwords from European languages increased significantly, and words from English roots have proliferated. Japanese is an agglutinative , mora -timed language with relatively simple phonotactics , a pure vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length, and a lexically significant pitch-accent . Word order is normally subject–object–verb with particles marking the grammatical function of words, and sentence structure
9558-425: The forced breakup of the largest Japanese companies, including Sumitomo, and transfer of Japanese industrial assets as part of reparations. Sumitomo Building transitioned to general trading, looking to handle products from Japan's major manufacturing firms in various industries, and changed its name to Nippon Engineering Co., Ltd. ( Nihon Kensetsu Sangyo Kaisha ), starting a new existence as a general trading firm with
9676-509: The four stores and one factory, and supervised personnel and fund management. In July 1908, he opened the first Tokyo branch of a Kansai yarn dealer in Ningyocho , Nihonbashi . The company opened an office in Shanghai in the 1890s and started business in Seoul in 1905, but had severe difficulties with these first overseas forays. He turned his attention to overseas markets from an early stage, making
9794-609: The genitive particle ga remains in intentionally archaic speech. Early Middle Japanese is the Japanese of the Heian period , from 794 to 1185. It formed the basis for the literary standard of Classical Japanese , which remained in common use until the early 20th century. During this time, Japanese underwent numerous phonological developments, in many cases instigated by an influx of Chinese loanwords . These included phonemic length distinction for both consonants and vowels , palatal consonants (e.g. kya ) and labial consonant clusters (e.g. kwa ), and closed syllables . This had
9912-430: The language, affecting the phonology of Early Middle Japanese . Late Middle Japanese (1185–1600) saw extensive grammatical changes and the first appearance of European loanwords . The basis of the standard dialect moved from the Kansai region to the Edo region (modern Tokyo ) in the Early Modern Japanese period (early 17th century–mid 19th century). Following the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853,
10030-453: The languages of the original Jōmon inhabitants, including the ancestor of the modern Ainu language . Because writing had yet to be introduced from China, there is no direct evidence, and anything that can be discerned about this period must be based on internal reconstruction from Old Japanese , or comparison with the Ryukyuan languages and Japanese dialects . The Chinese writing system
10148-449: The languages. Okinawan Japanese is a variant of Standard Japanese influenced by the Ryūkyūan languages, and is the primary dialect spoken among young people in the Ryukyu Islands . Modern Japanese has become prevalent nationwide (including the Ryūkyū islands) due to education , mass media , and an increase in mobility within Japan, as well as economic integration. Japanese is a member of
10266-427: The large quantity of English loanwords, modern Japanese has developed a distinction between [tɕi] and [ti] , and [dʑi] and [di] , with the latter in each pair only found in loanwords. Although Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, it has also been spoken outside of the country. Before and during World War II , through Japanese annexation of Taiwan and Korea , as well as partial occupation of China ,
10384-508: The major zaibatsu firms of the time, it had no captive bank to finance its business. In 1921, the company split in half, with one half forming what is now known as Marubeni . The company's performance improved in the 1930s, but as World War II began in the latter half of the 1930s, all trading companies' business became increasingly war-oriented. In 1941, Sanko Kabushiki Kaisha, Ltd. is established by merging of C. Itoh & Co., Marubeni Shoten Ltd., and Kishimoto Shoten Ltd. In 1944, Sanko
10502-504: The management environment changing very quickly, the Company recognized that it needed to adopt a more autonomous management approach, enabling greater agility by delegating authority and responsibility to its divisions. The concept of developing a “Division Company” system was created. Consequently, an examination committee was set up in 1995 and the system was adopted in FY1997. The main purposes of
10620-485: The management of Nichibei Oil . There was also a quick response to internationalization. In 1951, the New York office was established, and a local subsidiary, Itochu America Inc. was established in 1952to prepare for the expansion of trade with the United States. Subsequently, the company name was raised high in various parts of the world, such as London, Mexico in 1953, Hamburg in 1954, Hong Kong, and Bangkok in 1955. After
10738-483: The minimum control required in line with the decentralization of authority. By adopting this new approach, ITOCHU sought to strengthen its performance and operations, while bolstering its earnings. ITOCHU becomes the first sogo shosha to receive environmental certificate ISO14001. Uichirō Niwa became president of Itochu in 1998, implementing cuts to unprofitable businesses and cutting back executive perks enjoyed by his predecessor Murofushi. In 1999, Itochu became one of
10856-477: The most popular employers for graduates of top Japanese universities since the 1990s due to their high compensation levels, employment stability and the diversity of opportunities available to prospective employees. In September 2020, Warren Buffett 's Berkshire Hathaway announced that it had acquired over 5% of the stock in the company, along with four other Japanese trading houses, over the 12-month period ending in August 2020. By April 2023, Berkshire increased
10974-487: The most profitable sogo shosha . He remained as the president till he was appointed as Chairman-CEO in 2018. In 2011, Itochu moved its Osaka headquarters to the North Gate Building adjacent to Osaka Station . In 2013, Itochu implemented a general ban on work after 8 PM with an across-the-board "lights out" policy at 10 PM while encouraging that any necessary overtime be taken in the early morning hours, reducing
11092-442: The ninth largest general trading company in Japan, in 1977. Ataka had recently suffered major losses from an oil development project in the United States and had undergone restructuring at the direction of its main lender, Sumitomo Bank . From the early 1970s Itoh was a major supplier of synthetic yarn ( polyester ) to India's Reliance Industries Limited . Over the years, the close collaboration between both companies culminated in
11210-425: The only strict rule of word order is that the verb must be placed at the end of a sentence (possibly followed by sentence-end particles). This is because Japanese sentence elements are marked with particles that identify their grammatical functions. The basic sentence structure is topic–comment . For example, Kochira wa Tanaka-san desu ( こちらは田中さんです ). kochira ("this") is the topic of the sentence, indicated by
11328-470: The out-group gives a benefit to the in-group, and "up" to indicate the in-group gives a benefit to the out-group. Here, the in-group includes the speaker and the out-group does not, and their boundary depends on context. For example, oshiete moratta ( 教えてもらった ) (literally, "explaining got" with a benefit from the out-group to the in-group) means "[he/she/they] explained [it] to [me/us]". Similarly, oshiete ageta ( 教えてあげた ) (literally, "explaining gave" with
11446-415: The particle wa . The verb desu is a copula , commonly translated as "to be" or "it is" (though there are other verbs that can be translated as "to be"), though technically it holds no meaning and is used to give a sentence 'politeness'. As a phrase, Tanaka-san desu is the comment. This sentence literally translates to "As for this person, (it) is Mx Tanaka." Thus Japanese, like many other Asian languages,
11564-526: The period, both ITOCHU and Marubeni have been experiencing excessive competition in the domestic market of steel and metal products and the two entities who share the same history routes filed the dialogues towards merging the similar operations into MISI. Masahiro Okafuji became president of Itochu in 2010 and announced a strategy to make Itochu the first-ranked sogo shosha in areas other than raw resources, particularly in food products and machinery. Under Okafuji's leadership, Itochu has led its way to be one of
11682-477: The proposed larger Altaic family, or to various Southeast Asian languages , especially Austronesian . None of these proposals have gained wide acceptance (and the Altaic family itself is now considered controversial). As it stands, only the link to Ryukyuan has wide support. Other theories view the Japanese language as an early creole language formed through inputs from at least two distinct language groups, or as
11800-459: The same structure as affirmative sentences, but with intonation rising at the end. In the formal register, the question particle -ka is added. For example, ii desu ( いいです ) "It is OK" becomes ii desu-ka ( いいですか。 ) "Is it OK?". In a more informal tone sometimes the particle -no ( の ) is added instead to show a personal interest of the speaker: Dōshite konai-no? "Why aren't (you) coming?". Some simple queries are formed simply by mentioning
11918-439: The speaker, the listener, and persons mentioned. The Japanese writing system combines Chinese characters , known as kanji ( 漢字 , ' Han characters') , with two unique syllabaries (or moraic scripts) derived by the Japanese from the more complex Chinese characters: hiragana ( ひらがな or 平仮名 , 'simple characters') and katakana ( カタカナ or 片仮名 , 'partial characters'). Latin script ( rōmaji ローマ字 )
12036-510: The stake to 7.4%. In March 2021, Itochu ended its fiscal year by becoming the most profitable (recording JPY 401.4 bil in PAT) and the most valued (recording JPY 5,685 bil in market capitalization) sogo shosha in Japan. On 5 February 2024, Itochu Chief Financial Officer Tsuyoshi Hachimura, announced that the company was to end its partnership with the Israeli military technology company Elbit after
12154-797: The state as at the time the constitution was written, many of the elders participating in the process had been educated in Japanese during the South Seas Mandate over the island shown by the 1958 census of the Trust Territory of the Pacific that found that 89% of Palauans born between 1914 and 1933 could speak and read Japanese, but as of the 2005 Palau census there were no residents of Angaur that spoke Japanese at home. Japanese dialects typically differ in terms of pitch accent , inflectional morphology , vocabulary , and particle usage. Some even differ in vowel and consonant inventories, although this
12272-413: The store started with ten workers, including an assistant general manager, manager, and assistant manager. Itoh Itomise adopted a series of management systems that were revolutionary for the times, including the codifying of the sharing of profits by three stakeholders, the introduction of Western-style bookkeeping, and the issuance of Jitsugyo, a monthly business magazine (which became a leading magazine for
12390-476: The street. (grammatically incorrect insertion of a pronoun) But one can grammatically say essentially the same thing in Japanese: 驚いた彼は道を走っていった。 Transliteration: Odoroita kare wa michi o hashitte itta. (grammatically correct) This is partly because these words evolved from regular nouns, such as kimi "you" ( 君 "lord"), anata "you" ( あなた "that side, yonder"), and boku "I" ( 僕 "servant"). This
12508-555: The system were, first, to create an optimal management system with independent management by the Division Companies (to create a system geared to the characteristics of the Companies, enable prompt decision making through a bold decentralization of authority, and build a more sophisticated management system based on consolidated performance and balance sheets); second, to establish a small and efficient head office; and third, to achieve
12626-456: The three fields of textiles, machinery, and general goods. Since 1950, The Korean War gave further impetus to the Japanese economy, and ITOCHU greatly improved its performance in import and export transactions. In the mid-1950s, ITOCHU's transformation into a general trading company progressed rapidly, and against the background of exchange trade and the liberalization of exchange rates of Japanese Yen . The company's sales composition, which had
12744-532: The topic with an interrogative intonation to call for the hearer's attention: Kore wa? "(What about) this?"; O-namae wa? ( お名前は？ ) "(What's your) name?". Negatives are formed by inflecting the verb. For example, Pan o taberu ( パンを食べる。 ) "I will eat bread" or "I eat bread" becomes Pan o tabenai ( パンを食べない。 ) "I will not eat bread" or "I do not eat bread". Plain negative forms are i -adjectives (see below) and inflect as such, e.g. Pan o tabenakatta ( パンを食べなかった。 ) "I did not eat bread". Itochu It
12862-470: The total amount of overtime across the company. In 2014, Itochu entered into a cross-shareholding partnership with the Thai conglomerate Charoen Pokphand (CP), and together with CP, agreed to invest over $ 8 billion in the Chinese state-owned conglomerate CITIC Limited during 2015, the largest investment ever made by a Japanese general trading company. The transaction was also the largest acquisition in China by
12980-419: The two consonants are the moraic nasal followed by a homorganic consonant. Japanese also includes a pitch accent , which is not represented in moraic writing; for example [haꜜ.ɕi] ("chopsticks") and [ha.ɕiꜜ] ("bridge") are both spelled はし ( hashi ) , and are only differentiated by the tone contour. Japanese word order is classified as subject–object–verb . Unlike many Indo-European languages ,
13098-577: The two methods were both used in writing until the 1940s. Bungo still has some relevance for historians, literary scholars, and lawyers (many Japanese laws that survived World War II are still written in bungo , although there are ongoing efforts to modernize their language). Kōgo is the dominant method of both speaking and writing Japanese today, although bungo grammar and vocabulary are occasionally used in modern Japanese for effect. The 1982 state constitution of Angaur , Palau , names Japanese along with Palauan and English as an official language of
13216-472: The two terms (''hyōjungo'' and ''kyōtsūgo'') are almost the same. Hyōjungo or kyōtsūgo is a conception that forms the counterpart of dialect. This normative language was born after the Meiji Restoration ( 明治維新 , meiji ishin , 1868) from the language spoken in the higher-class areas of Tokyo (see Yamanote ). Hyōjungo is taught in schools and used on television and in official communications. It
13334-407: The verb (e.g. yonde for earlier yomite ), the -k- in the final mora of adjectives drops out ( shiroi for earlier shiroki ); and some forms exist where modern standard Japanese has retained the earlier form (e.g. hayaku > hayau > hayɔɔ , where modern Japanese just has hayaku , though the alternative form is preserved in the standard greeting o-hayō gozaimasu "good morning"; this ending
13452-550: The war, Itoh absorbed many smaller trading operations that could no longer stand on their own. Itoh expanded its overseas mining and petroleum exploration activity in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1957, The Company completes construction of a new Tokyo Branch Office building (at 2-chome, Nihonbashi Honcho, Chuo-ku, Tokyo), and, later in 1967, The Company renames the Tokyo Branch Office the Tokyo Head Office, to join
13570-548: The world. Since Japanese first gained the consideration of linguists in the late 19th century, attempts have been made to show its genealogical relation to languages or language families such as Ainu , Korean , Chinese , Tibeto-Burman , Uralic , Altaic (or Ural-Altaic ), Austroasiatic , Austronesian and Dravidian . At the fringe, some linguists have even suggested a link to Indo-European languages , including Greek , or to Sumerian . Main modern theories try to link Japanese either to northern Asian languages, like Korean or
13688-535: Was based on 12- to 20-second-long recordings of 135 to 244 phonemes , which 42 students listened to and translated word-for-word. The listeners were all Keio University students who grew up in the Kanto region . There are some language islands in mountain villages or isolated islands such as Hachijō-jima island , whose dialects are descended from Eastern Old Japanese . Dialects of the Kansai region are spoken or known by many Japanese, and Osaka dialect in particular
13806-668: Was imported to Japan from Baekje around the start of the fifth century, alongside Buddhism. The earliest texts were written in Classical Chinese , although some of these were likely intended to be read as Japanese using the kanbun method, and show influences of Japanese grammar such as Japanese word order. The earliest text, the Kojiki , dates to the early eighth century, and was written entirely in Chinese characters, which are used to represent, at different times, Chinese, kanbun , and Old Japanese. As in other texts from this period,
13924-465: Was lost immediately following its composition.) This set of morae shrank to 67 in Early Middle Japanese , though some were added through Chinese influence. Man'yōgana also has a symbol for /je/ , which merges with /e/ before the end of the period. Several fossilizations of Old Japanese grammatical elements remain in the modern language – the genitive particle tsu (superseded by modern no )
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