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How would you express the concept of "sphere" or "world" in Japanese? For
example, "Anglosphere" or "Indian speaking world". Is there a repeating
pattern or suffix for this purpose, or are there just specific words for these
terms?
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2016-01-29T16:06:26.683
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word-choice suffixes
How would you express "sphere" or "world" in the Japanese language?
The most common word and character associated for this kind of usage is
[圏]{けん}.

Anglosphere would be [英語圏]{えいごけん}, and a common term to refer to the East
Asian cultural sphere is [漢字文化圏]{かんじぶんかけん} which encompasses China, Japan,
Korea and Vietnam.
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2016-01-29T16:15:30.233
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There's 圏 as in e.g.
[漢字文化圏（かんじぶんかけん）](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%BC%A2%E5%AD%97%E6%96%87%E5%8C%96%E5%9C%8F)
and [英語圏（えいごけん）](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%8B%B1%E8%AA%9E%E5%9C%8F).
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2016-01-29T16:20:33.187
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There is also the word [分野]{ぶん・や} that means field/realm/sphere.

Some examples

>   * 研究分野 → field of research
>   * 彼は物理学の分野でよく知られている → He is well-known in the field of physics
>   * 彼は彫刻の分野では第一人者だ → He is second to none in the world of sculpture.
>

Also the suffix 〜[界]{かい}.

>   * 政界 → the political world
>   * 芸能界 → the entertainment world; show businesses
>   * 業界 → the business world
>

* * *

_Examples taken from プログレッシブ英和・和英中辞典 and ウィズダム英和辞典._
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