The paper examines the language contact between Japanese and English. The first section of the paper defines language contact and the most common contact-induced language phenomena with an emphasis on linguistic borrowing as the dominant contact-induced phenomenon. The classification of linguistic borrowing thereby follows Haugen's distinction between morphemic importation and substitution. The second section of the paper presents the features of the Japanese language in terms of origin, phonology, syntax, morphology, and writing. The third section looks at the history of language contact of the Japanese with the Europeans, starting with the Portuguese and Spaniards, followed by the Dutch, and finally the English. The same section examines three different borrowing routes from English, and contact-induced language phenomena other than linguistic borrowing bilingualism , code alternation, code-switching, negotiation, and language shift present in Japanese-English language contact to varying degrees. This section also includes a survey of the motivation and reasons for borrowing from English, as well as the attitudes of native Japanese speakers to these borrowings. The fourth and the central section of the paper looks at the phenomenon of linguistic borrowing, its scope and the various adaptations that occur upon morphemic importation on the phonological, morphological, orthographic, semantic and syntactic levels. The final section of the paper analyzes these data, and reaches the conclusion with regard to the hypothesis of the paper.