No, nothing like the L'Académie Française to protect the purity of
Japanese. Though during WWII, borrowed words were banned outright.
This has led to some fascinating discussions with older Japanese trying
to uncover how exactly they were forced to refer to purely foreign
things like bananas or kangaroos.

--crymad


Space Cowboy wrote:
>
> So there is no official Japanese policy too keep the language pure
> similar to the French ie for every foreign word there would be a
> national representation.
>
> Jim
>
> crymad > wrote in message >...
> > Space Cowboy wrote:
> >
> > > Is katakana
> > > the Japanese attempt to keep the language pure similar to the French
> > > standard of eliminating foreign words and phrases?
>
> > The number of foreign words in Japanese is enormous and continues to
> > grow every year. Katakana is by no means a way to stem this tide.
> >
> > --crymad