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I have been wondering if Japanese language include letter P. I have actually seen words like Pan in Japanese which means bread, but then I found out it was borrowed from Spanish. Then is there any Japanese words (not borrowed from other languages) or verbs has letter P?

Sorry for my English, am still learning...

Achmad
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    日本 ＝「にっぽん」。。。 – chocolate Feb 15 '16 at 08:18
  • Nihon? well, I think it is also pronounced Nippon thanks for your try But is there words with one P not like: Nippon, Yappari.... – Achmad Feb 15 '16 at 08:25
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    Heh.. then how about 「乾杯」「返品」「たんぽぽ」「もんぺ」「ち○ぽ」・・・(ん？「ん」の後ばっかりだ！) – chocolate Feb 15 '16 at 08:42
  • @Achmad ぱくる, ぴかいち, ぺけ, ぽか, ぽいすて... – broccoli forest Feb 15 '16 at 08:46
  • @choco Is it OK to include Chino-Japanese words? – user4092 Feb 15 '16 at 09:32
  • ^ dunno! but たんぽぽ, もんぺ and ち○ぽ are not Sino-Japanese words, right? – chocolate Feb 15 '16 at 09:34
  • Depending on theories, it could be. – user4092 Feb 15 '16 at 09:41
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    You wrote "letter P", but it seems like you might actually be asking about the sound /p/. Japanese isn't typically written with letters, so it doesn't really have a "letter P", but we can still talk about where /p/ occurs in different strata of vocabulary (non-mimetic native Japanese words, mimetic words, Sino-Japanese words, and recent loanwords). Is that what you're really asking about? –  Feb 15 '16 at 12:39
  • It seems quite difficult to come up with words where the /p/ sound is not mimetic/onomatopoeic, not a loanword, and not caused by rendaku or sokuon. – Earthliŋ Feb 15 '16 at 12:59
  • @Earthliŋ It's not rendaku, which would give us /b/ instead, but yes, /p/ does occur after the moraic nasal under certain circumstances. Rather than mention rendaku, you can talk about the special segments /Q/ and /N/. –  Feb 15 '16 at 13:20
  • @snailboat Is there a name for /h/ → /p/ after /ɴ/? (Like せんぱい、しんぴん、おんぷ、はんぺん、さんぽ). – Earthliŋ Feb 15 '16 at 13:26
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    @Earthliŋ Well, you can call it the /h/ 〜 /p/ alternation, but I understand if that's not a satisfying name :-) It's a different process than rendaku, though. Historically /p/ and /b/ were the pair related by rendaku, but /p/ became /h/ in intervocalic contexts, so now /h/ becomes /b/ via rendaku – even though /b/ is of course not the voiced version of /h/! For example, /hitobito/ or /hibi/, not */hitopito/ or */hipi/. You can find a description of the alternation between /h/ and /p/ in Labrune's The Phonology of Japanese. –  Feb 15 '16 at 13:33

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How about せんぱい?

Noun 1. senior (at work or school); superior; elder; older graduate; progenitor; old-timer

GoBusto
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    「サッポロ」, along with so many place names in Hokkaido, comes from Ainu, not Japanese. We can't let the kanji fool us. –  Feb 15 '16 at 09:15
  • @l'électeur Thanks for letting me know - I've removed that part of my answer. – GoBusto Feb 15 '16 at 09:36
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  • へたっぴ、いいだしっぺ　← 屁
  • …っぽい　← 多し

These words seem to be originally Japanese, besides onomatopoeia.

user4092
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Along time ago, there were originally no "h" sounds and were "P" sounds so in outdated kanji, you'd find a lot of onyomi and kunyomi with "P" sounds.

mking
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